In 1989, Robert Fulghum wrote his best-selling book, All I Really need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. In that book, he made some astute observations about many of the timeless bits of knowledge we picked up in the early years of our lives. Among the things we learned:
• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
As we continue our basic training through the Book of Ephesians this morning, we come to what is, in a sense, our spiritual kindergarten. And Paul is going to share with us some of those basic truths that are timeless, principles that are quite simple and yet at the same time quite profound.
So far in our journey we’ve discovered that Paul, after a brief introduction, writes one long sentence to describe the spiritual blessings that we have in Jesus. Beginning in verse 3, he wrote about God the Father chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless and to adopt us into His family. We also saw that it was the Father who lavished us with His grace. And then Paul goes on to describe how God the Son has redeemed us from a life of bondage and slavery to sin through His death on the cross and His resurrection. And finally, we read about how God the Holy Spirit comes into our lives at the very moment that we become Christians as a guarantee that we will receive everything that God has promised us.
And then last week, we began to look at Paul’s response to all these blessings, beginning in verse 15. Let’s go ahead and read that passage together again this morning.
Read Ephesians 1:15-23
Last week, we began to look at this second long sentence here in chapter 1. And you’ll remember that we found that Paul wrote about four ways that I need to respond to God in light of the spiritual blessings that He has given to me.
I need to persist in prayer. That’s what Paul is doing in these verses and we’re going to look at another portion of that prayer this morning.
I need to focus my faith on Jesus Christ alone
I need to lavish my love on other believers
I need to relish my relationship with God
That last point was the one we spent most of our time on last week, because that is really the heart of what Paul is praying here for his readers. He asks God to give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they can have an intimate, personal knowledge of God – so that they can know Him better. In the next part of Paul’s prayer, the part that we’ll look at this morning, Paul is going to go into more detail on some specific things that we need to know.
So as, we’ve done every week, let’s see how we’re doing with our Scripture memory before Dave puts the passage up on the screen:
I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.
Ephesians 1:18-19a (NIV)
The words “I pray also” are actually not in the original manuscripts. But as you’ll remember, verses 15-23 comprise one long sentence in the Greek. So the translators have broken that sentence down into several shorter sentences in English in order to make it easier for us to read and understand. And when they did that, they felt it was necessary to add in the phrase “I pray also” in order to make it clear that this is a continuation of Paul’s prayer that began all the way back in verse 15.
Although Paul prays many things for his readers, the primary theme of his prayer is certainly knowledge. You’ll remember that in verse 17 Paul prayed that God would give his readers the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they could know Him better. When Paul wrote about knowing God in that prayer, he was referring to the kind of knowledge that comes from an intimate personal relationship. It is a process that is never-ending since there is always something new that we can learn about God.
But in this next part of his prayer, Paul is going to focus on a little different kind of knowledge. Although this knowledge certainly stems from knowing God better, it is a different type of knowledge. It is more concrete and it is the kind of knowledge that is very practical in helping us live out our lives on a day-to-day basis. So this morning, we’re going to look at three aspects of what Paul prays for us to know:
The character of our knowledge. We’ll see how this knowledge differs from, but also complements, the kind of experiential, personal knowledge of God that we discussed last week.
The content of our knowledge. What exactly is it that God wants us to understand? What are the kindergarten basics that take us through life?
The consequences of our knowledge. How will I live my live differently as a result of this knowledge?
So let’s begin with…
The character of our knowledge
Paul uses a really unusual phrase as he begins this portion of his prayer. He prays that the eyes of the heart might be enlightened. In fact, we sang that very prayer this morning when we sang “Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord”. Do you have any idea what you were singing when you sang that song? Paul is obviously using figurative language here. After all, we all know that our hearts don’t literally have eyes. So, In order to understand what Paul means, we need to first understand the Biblical idea of the heart.
When the Bible speaks of the heart, it very rarely refers to the muscle inside our chest that pumps blood throughout our body. In fact, when the term “heart” is used in the Bible, it probably is more closely associated with our brains that our physical hearts.
Unger’s Bible Dictionary defines the heart as the “…innermost center of the natural condition of man.” In other words, our heart is who we are in our inner beings. And there are four aspects of our hearts that define who we are:
“Heart”:
• Intellect
When used in this sense, the heart is associated with our brain and our thinking.
Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things?
Mark 2:8 (NIV)
The heart in this passage is the place of thinking and intellect.
• Emotions
One day, Jesus was in Capernaum and He saw the body of a widow’s son being carried from the city and we read these words:
When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don’t cry."
Luke 7:13 (NIV)
In this case, Jesus’ heart is very clearly the center of His emotions.
• Will
This passage from 2 Corinthians clearly demonstrates this aspect of our hearts:
Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
2 Corinthians 9:7 (NIV)
Our hearts are the place where we make decisions.
• Conscience
Later in Ephesians, Paul will make reference to this aspect of our hearts.
They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.
Ephesians 4:18 (NIV)
As used here, the heart very clearly refers to our conscience, the place where we make moral judgments.
When Paul prays for the eyes of our heart to be enlightened, it seems to me that he is asking that God would impact all four aspects of our heart. The kind of knowledge that Paul wants his readers to possess will impact their thinking, their feelings, their decisions and their moral judgments. In effect, he’s praying that his readers will have the kind of spiritual sight that will allow them to discern these spiritual matters that he is about to discuss, because these are issues that we cannot understand with our own human mind apart from God. They are the kinds of things Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians:
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
1 Corinthians 2:14 (NIV)
So Paul’s previous prayer that God would give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation certainly still applies to this portion of Paul’s prayer.
Paul also uses a different word for “know” in this verse than he did in verse 17 when he wrote about knowing God. The word here refers to something that we can know through learning. It could also be translated “to understand”. Although that is different than knowing God personally and intimately through our relationship with Him, it is certainly part of that process. The more we learn and understand about the purposes and plans of God, the better we get to know Him.
In his prayer, Paul focuses on three aspects of God’s purposes and plans for our lives. And that leads us to…
The content of our knowledge
In this passage, Paul describes for us three things that we need to know about the way that God has worked and continues to work in our lives. And as usual, Paul is very thorough here. He covers our past, our present and our future:
• In the past, God called us so we would have hope
Unfortunately, the word “hope” has lost a lot of its meaning in our culture today. The word has generally come to mean “wishful thinking”:
o I hope I win the lottery (The odds of winning the Powerball Jackpot are 1 in over 146 million and the odds of winning any prize at all are about 1 in 37, so that is the very definition of wishful thinking)
o I hope I pass my test (The odds of doing that are greatly enhanced if I study more and hope less.)
o I’m convinced that one of the reasons that so many marriages fail today is that people go into marriage ”hoping” that they can change the other person once they get married.
That kind of reminds me of a story someone shared with me this week. There were two guys out fishing one day, sitting quietly in a boat and drinking beer. After a while, one of the guys, trying to be quiet so as not to scare the fish, whispered to the other, “I think I’m going to divorce my wife. She hasn’t spoken to me in over two months.” The other guy took another sip of his beer and then thoughtfully replied, “You better think it over – women like that are hard to find.”
But when Paul writes about hope here, he is speaking of something that is much more sure. He’s speaking of the kind of hope that’s in very short supply in our world today. When we look around at the world we live in, that’s pretty understandable. All we have to do is watch the television show “24” and we realize that not even Jack Bauer can keep a group of terrorists from setting off a small nuclear bomb in LA. And if we’re going to base our hope on the circumstances around us, frankly, there is never going to be much hope. In fact, that’s exactly how Paul described what his readers were like before they entered into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ:
…without hope and without God in the world.
Ephesians 2:12 (NIV)
But our hope is not based on circumstances; it is based on God’s plan for us – the plan that He put in place before the creation of the world. I don’t think there can be any doubt here that when Paul writes about the “hope to which he has called you”, he is thinking back to verses 4-6 where Paul described God’s plan to choose us before the creation of the world for the purpose of adopting us into his family. Aren’t you glad that our hope is not based on our circumstances; it is based on the unfailing plans and purposes of God? We ought to be greatly encouraged by the words of the Psalmist:
But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.
Psalm 33:11 (NIV)
We have hope for the future, because we know that in the past God called us to be part of his family. And we can be assured that as our Father, God will ensure that our future is secure in His hands. His plans stand firm forever. That’s why we can have real hope and not just some wishful thinking in our lives. God carried out his plan in the past, so that we can have hope right now and in the future. And that fact leads us right into the second thing Paul wants us to know:
• In the future, God promises the riches of His inheritance
When we looked at verses 13 and 14, we emphasized that while the spiritual blessings that we have are great right here and now, the best is yet to come. And Paul wants to make sure that we understand that, so he makes the point again.
The phrase “his glorious inheritance in the saints” is a little ambiguous in the original language. Some commentators believe that it refers to the fact that, as his children, we are God’s heirs and that the inheritance Paul writes of here is the future realization in full of what we already have in part as a result of our salvation. In that case, our inheritance would include our bodily resurrection and spending eternity in the presence of God. If that is the case, then the “hope to which he has called us” is the assurance of future blessings and the “riches of his glorious inheritance” describe the scope of those blessings.
On the other hand, others believe this phrase means that we are God’s inheritance rather than referring to the inheritance God bestows. In that case, Paul is referring here to the fact that we are God’s possession and that He has redeemed to be His own. That redemption has already occurred in part, but Paul is writing here of our complete and final redemption in the future.
Throughout Scripture, both concepts are set forth quite commonly. For instance, in this passage from Deuteronomy, both are evident:
But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are. The LORD was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance.
Deuteronomy 4:20, 21 (NIV)
On one hand the people of Israel are God’s inheritance. They are His treasured possession. On the other hand, God also bestows upon them the Promised Land which they are to receive in the future.
So it seems to me that in our passage here in Ephesians that Paul may have left this ambiguous because both meanings are in view. On one hand, we live in hope because of the future blessings God has in store for us. On the other hand, we live a God-pleasing life now because we recognize just how valuable we are to God. I really like how F.F. Bruce comments on that aspect of our inheritance:
Paul prays here that his readers may appreciate the value which God places on them, his plan to accomplish his eternal purpose through them as the first fruits of the reconciled universe of the future, in order that their lives may be in keeping with this high calling and that they may accept in grateful humility the grace and glory thus lavished on them.
Whatever Paul has in mind here, the promise of our future inheritance is great evidence of just how much we mean to God and how much he loves us.
So God wants us to know that he has called us in the past so that we can have hope. He wants us to know that he has promised the riches of His inheritance to us in the future. But he also wants us to know that…
• In the present, God provides us with His power
The third thing that Paul wants us to know is God’s “incomparably great power for us who believe.” The verb ‘believe” is in the present tense, so Paul seems to be implying here that God’s power is available to us right here and now. It is his power at work in us that enables us to live out our lives here on earth on a daily basis. In another of his letters, Paul described God’s power at work in his life like this:
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:13 (NIV)
When we return to our study of Ephesians in three weeks, we’ll see that Paul is going to go into much more detail about God’s power that is at work in us. But even in what we see in the first phrase of verse 19, we can see that this is some special power. There is almost no way to really translate into English how Paul describes God’s power. He uses the emphatic forms of two different adjectives that both indicate something that is far above anything else. It’s interesting how the various translations try to get a hold on Paul’s language here when they describe this power.
…surpassing greatness… (NASB)
…exceeding greatness… (KJV)
…incredible greatness… (NLT)
…immeasurable greatness… (ESV/RSV)
…utter extravagance… (Message)
I think the Message comes closest to translating Paul’s ideas, but even it doesn’t really do justice to his description of God’s power. But God wants us to know that’s the kind of power at work in our lives right now!
So far we’ve looked at the character and the content of the knowledge that God desires for us to have. But the really important question for us is this: How does that knowledge impact the way we live our lives? So let’s look briefly at…
The consequences of our knowledge
Once I know that God’s calling gives me hope, that I can look forward to the riches of his inheritance and that I can count on his incomparably great power to help me live my day to day life, how should that impact the way I live? As I though about that this week, I came up with all sorts of ideas, but let me leave you with just three:
• It encourages us to give thanks always
I don’t know about you, but I’m just blown away by all that we’ve learned so far in Ephesians. I’ve read and studied this Book many time in the past. But it seems that God has been using it in my life this time around just to make me more in awe of Him than I’ve ever been. When I think of the fact that God chose me, as unworthy as I am, when I meditate on just how much I mean to God, when I ponder what He’s already done for me and how that pales in comparison to what He still has in store for me, how can I help but just give him thanks.
Chris Tomlin expresses that thought much more eloquently in his song, “How Can I Keep from Singing”;
How can I keep from singing Your praise
How can I ever say enough
How amazing is Your love
How can I keep from shouting Your name
I know I am loved by the King
And it makes my heart want to sing
The Psalmist also expressed that same thought:
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.
Psalm 136:1 (NIV)
When we know the things that Paul has described in his prayer, it ought to drive us to our knees so we can give thanks to God.
• It enable us to take risks
If there is one institution on the face of the earth today that is afraid to take risks, it has to be the church. Far too often we’re stuck in a rut of doing things the same old way we’ve always done them. We’re like the guy in the parable who took his talents and buried them in the ground rather than risk doing something to lose them. But frankly, the combination of the hope we have in God, the promise of our future inheritance and His power at work in us ought to actually encourage us to take risks.
I’m certainly not suggesting that we make changes just for the sake of change. But I am saying that we ought to be willing to step out in faith and do what God has called us to do, even if we “fail” in the eyes of the world. I’m really grateful that our church has been willing to do that. I can think of a couple of real life examples of that in just the last few months:
o At our last Elders’ meeting, our elders voted to increase our missionary support by $450 per month in order to get us back in line with our adopted church policy of giving 15-20% of our total budget to missions. Even though all of you have been really faithful to give and our budget is in good shape, it’s a risk to commit that much more money each month.
o Last year our evangelism team held a computer clinic as a means of serving the needs of our community. By most measures that first clinic would be considered a real failure – only 1 or 2 people showed up. But after making a few changes, another clinic was held in January and we had people here the entire time. Even though we may not see people accepting Christ as a direct result of those efforts, we need to continue to take risks and try new things in order to reach people.
• It energizes us to persevere
I’ll be real honest with you. Sometimes I just get burned out. Don’t get me wrong. I love what I’m doing. I can’t see myself doing anything else. But sometimes I look out there and I wonder if what I’m doing is really making any difference. Are lives really being changed?
But this study in Ephesians has really re-energized me. When I think about all that God has done for me, how can I not give my all to Him? And I don’t think my experience is anything out of the ordinary. When we know that we have hope because God has called us, when we ponder the riches of His glorious inheritance, when we consider God’s power at work in our lives it helps us to persevere even when times get tough.
Maybe I can’t learn everything I need to know from this passage, but it’s certainly a good place to start.
