Date: May 9th, 1999
Title: Our Resources in Christ
Text: Eph. 1:15-23
Subject:
Complement:
Main Idea:
Intro: Six-year-old Thomas McAlley recently visited Calgary’s fire department headquarters. While there he was given a chance to dress up in a fireman’s uniform and ride on a fire truck. A photographer snapped him as he sat on his perch on a boot rack at the fire station.
That is a thrilling experience, we are sure, for a boy, but if there was a fire, none of us would wish someone who was merely playing games to be in charge of putting the flames out. We would want the experienced, adult firemen.
Many Christian workers are merely playing at putting the fires of sin and lawlessness out. They have the uniform, but they do not have the ability to help bring a burning world under control.
In verses 3-14 Paul has set forth the amazing and unlimited blessings of being in Christ. In the verses that follow, Paul prays that the believers he writes to will come to fully understand and appreciate those blessings.
In this prayer he focuses on believers comprehension of their resources in their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In verses 15-16 he praises them, and in verses 17-23 he makes petitions to God for them to know and experience Christ’s power in their lives.
I. Christians Bring Praise To God As They Live In Faith and Love. (vss. 15&16)
A. Paul heard about the Christians in Ephesus.
1. From letters, as well as through personal reports from friends who visited him in prison.
2. He heard two things that indicated the genuineness of their salvation. The proof to Paul that they were truly followers of Christ.
a) A true Christian-faith in Christ.
b) A love for other Christians.
c) What Paul said was that the reality in the believer’s life in verses 1-14 was confirmed as these folks acted in accordance with that truth!
3. Those two dimensions of spiritual life are inseparable.
B. Paul praises them for their faith.
1. Not just any faith but rather a faith in the Lord Jesus.
a) The lordship of Jesus is the object of that belief.
b) Some Christians seem like to underplay Christ’s lordship almost to the point of denying it.
c) Others would like to accept the term Lord only as a reference to deity, not sovereignty.
2. The truth is that the New Testament does not separate Jesus as Savior from Jesus as Lord.
a) He is both, or He is neither.
b) Paul says, "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved" (Rom. 10:9;).
c) Jesus becomes Savior when He is accepted as Lord.
3. Paul is giving praise here because he has heard of their new life in Christ.
a) This causes him to pray prayers of thanksgiving.
Trans: But even if Paul had some sneaking doubt about whether these folks were truly allowing Jesus to be Lord of their lives. He says in the next part of this verse the second key to knowing if someone is truly a Christian. First is faith and second is love.
C. Paul praises them for their love.
1. A second mark of genuine salvation is love for all the saints.
2. Christian love is indiscriminate; it does not pick and choose which believers it will love.
a) Christ loves all believers, and they are precious to Him.
b) By definition, therefore, Christian love extends to all Christians.
3. Jesus goes so far as to tell us that we show a watching world just how much Jesus is Lord of our Lives as we love one another!
John 13:34-35 (NIV)
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
4. Always in the New Testament true spiritual love is defined as an attitude of selfless sacrifice that results in generous acts of kindness done to others.
a) It is far more than a feeling, an attraction or emotion.
b) When the Lord had washed the feet of the proud and self-seeking disciples, He told them that what He had done for them was the example of how they were to love each other (John 13:34).
c) John emphasizes the same truth: "We know love by this that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. (1John 3:16).
5. It is unfortunate that some Christians have a loveless kind of faith.
a) Because it is loveless there is reason to doubt that such faith is even genuine.
b) True faith cannot exist apart from true love.
D. We must never stop giving thanks to God for those whom we see real spiritual fruit!
1. I don’t know how Paul unceasingly prayed and gave thanks for these saints in Ephesus.
2. I do believe there is a Word here for us though.
a) I believe we fall far short in praying for one another and praising God for the great things we see Him doing in others lives.
b) This is a great reminder for you and me to remember to pray for those that we see God doing a work in their lives!
c) We need to celebrate, honor and worship God as our hearts our encouraged by other saints!
Trans: The Christians to whom Paul wrote his Ephesians letter had the right balance, and it was for their great faith and their great love that the apostle assured them, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Let’s look at those prayers.
II. Christians Are Worthy Of Praise When They Continually Work To Know God Better! (vs. 17)
A. Paul prayed that the Ephesians would be spared from frantically searching for what was already theirs.
1. He prayed that they would see that the great God who is their God is the source of all they need and has it ready for them if they are open to receive it.
2. Certain people talk of getting more of Jesus Christ, more of the Holy Spirit, more power, more blessings, a higher life, a deeper life-as if the resources of God were divinely doled out one at a time like so many pharmaceutical prescriptions or were unlocked by some spiritual combination that only an initiated few can know.
a) To say, "I want to get all of Jesus there is," implies that when we were saved Christ did not give us all of Himself, that He held some blessings in reserve to be parceled out to those who meet certain extra requirements.
b) Peter explicitly says, "His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence" (2 Pet, 1:3).
c) The New Testament teaching of salvation is that the new birth grants every believer everything in Christ.
3. Yet today many Christians spend a great deal of time and effort vainly looking for something more.
4. Our text tells us that Paul desires a spirit of wisdom for the believers.
a) The spirit of wisdom is given through the Holy Spirit, but this spirit does not refer to the Holy Spirit Himself, as some interpreters suggest.
b) The basic meaning of pneuma (from which we get such English words as pneumatic and pneumonia) is breath or air, and from that meaning is derived the connotation of spirit.
c) But like our English spirit, pneuma sometimes was used of a disposition, influence, or attitude-as in "He is in high spirits today." Jesus used the word in that sense in the first beatitude: "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matt. 5:3).
d) He was not referring to the Holy Spirit or to the human spirit but to the spirit, or attitude, of wisdom.
5. Paul prayed for God to give the Ephesians a special disposition of wisdom, to know God better!
B. What we need to be looking for and praying for is to know God better!
ILL. We might very well ask Paul at this point, “What do you mean Paul, when you pray that the Ephesians might come to know God better? You have taught them all these things already. Do you mean that they don’t know them? Or that there is some hidden, esoteric information still to come? “No,” Paul would answer. “ You have misunderstood me. I am not praying that the Ephesians would come to know more about God, though they probably do have a lot more to learn, but rather that they might know Him! Knowing him and knowing about Him are two different things!
1. That is the secret. It is not intelligence, outstanding instruction, or academic degrees.
a) It is time spent with God.
b) It is to people who sit at Jesus’ feet that God opens his heart.
2. Paul prays that these new Christians would have wisdom to see how valuable spending time and knowing God better really is!
III. Christians Bring Praise To God As His Power Is Unleashed In Our Lives Through Knowing His Purpose For Us. (vs. 18&19a)
A. In the New Testament the heart was considered to be the seat of the mind and will, and it could be taught what the brain could never know.
1. Emotions and feelings were associated with the intestines, or bowels in Greek times.
a) Instead of a person having their heart broken because of some lost love.
b) They would in Biblical days say, “My bowels will burst with anguish.
2. Paul was petitioning God in prayer to open the eyes of the believers in Ephesus to comprehend.
a) Paul didn’t want them to go about their Christian walk blindly.
b) Paul wants you and me to know the power of God in our lives!
B. Paul therefore prays for the minds of the Ephesians to be enlightened.
1. Emotions have a significant place in the Christian life.
a) But they are reliable only as they are guided and controlled by God’s truth.
b) A Truth which we come to know and understand through our minds.
2. That is why we are to "let the word of Christ richly dwell within [us]" (Col. 3:16).
3. When the Holy Spirit works in the believer’s mind.
a) He enriches it to understand divine truth that is deep and profound.
b) Then relates that truth to life-including those aspects of life that involve our emotions.
C. The first thing for which Paul prays is that believers be enlightened about the greatness of God’s plan.
1. The HOPE of which He called us – To live for Him!
a) The word “hope” in the Bible is almost always connected with how things will end up in the future.
b) Sometimes it can mean the completion of things already set in motion.
2. The Riches He has given us as our inheritance – All we need, to live for Him!
3. His Power is available to us!
4. He prays for God to enlighten them about the magnificent truths of election, predestination, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, wisdom and insight, inheritance, and sealing and pledge of the Holy Spirit about which he has just been instructing them (vv. 3-14).
5. Those truths summarize God’s master plan for the redemption of mankind.
6. Until we comprehend who we truly are in Jesus Christ, it is impossible to live an obedient and fulfilling life.
Trans: So we see that there is a plan for each of our lives. But Paul also wants us to know that it is not a plan of spiritual poverty, but of power!
IV. God’s Power Is Supernatural! (19b-20)
A. Paul uses four different Greek synonyms to emphasize the greatness of that power.
1. First is dunamis (power), from which we get dynamite and dynamo.
a) This power is only for Christians, for those who believe.
b) Not only that, but it is all the power we are ever offered or could ever have.
c) There could be no more, and it is foolish and presumptuous to ask for more.
d) When we are saved we receive all of God’s grace and all of His power, and that assures us of the realization of our eternal hope.
2. Second is energeia (working), the energizing force of the Spirit that empowers believers to live for the Lord.
3. Third is kratos (strength), which may also be translated "dominion" (1 Tim. 6:16) or "power" (Heb. 2:14).
4. Fourth is ischus (might), which carries the idea of endowed power or ability.
5. In all those ways the Holy Spirit empowers God’s children.
B. Paul did not pray for power to be given to believers.
1. How could they have more than what they had?
2. He prayed first of all that they be given a divine awareness of the power they possessed in Christ.
a) Later in the letter (chaps. 4-6) he admonished them to employ that power in faithful living for their Lord.
b) We don’t need to pray for power to evangelize, to witness the gospel to others.
c) Believers already have that power. The gospel itself "is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16).
d) Writing to the Thessalonians, Paul reminded them, "Our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction" (I Thess. 1:5).
3. We don’t need to pray for power to endure suffering.
4. Nor do we need to pray for power to do God’s will.
a) Paul accomplished his work for the Lord through the strength the Lord supplied, "striving according to His power, which mightily works within me" (Col. 1:29).
b) Just before His ascension Jesus assured the disciples, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8),
c) An empowering every believer receives at the time he is saved.
d) “Now to Him who (God) is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us" (Eph. 3:20).
5. To ask God for more power is an affront to His gracious love which already has provided us everything.
Trans: Later in the letter Paul deals with the matter of using God’s power in His service (3:20).
C. Paul’s prayer here is that we understand the power of His keeping, His securing us and His fulfilling the marvelous hope which is ours in Christ.
1. The resurrection and ascension power the divine energy that lifted Christ from the grave to the earth, and from the earth to heaven-is the power that will lift us to glory.
2. At times all of us are tempted to doubt, to wonder if God can do a certain thing for us or through us or ultimately bring us into His presence.
a) But when we look at what He brought about in Christ.
b) When we consider what He faithfully accomplished on behalf of His Son-and at His assurance that He will just as faithfully accomplish His work on our behalf.
c) What ground do we have for doubting?
3. In light of such assurance, how can a Christian feel insecure, forsaken, or powerless?
a) The same unlimited divine power that raised Him from the dead will raise us from the dead.
b) The same resurrection power is there for us when we go to be with the Lord.
c) In the meanwhile, that resurrection power is at our disposal for living to His glory (Eph. 1:19-20; 3:20).
4. It is such a fact of truth that this power will bring us to glory that Paul spoke as if it has already occurred, because it has already occurred in God’s eternal plan (2:6).
Trans: Lastly, we not only have Paul telling us of God’s plan and His Power, but also His Person!
V. We Bring Praise to God As We Understand And Submit To The Lordship Of Jesus Christ. (21-23)
A. We have power because Jesus has all power and authority.
1. Paul moves from Christ’s might to His majesty as He makes this point about Jesus being high and lifted up!
a) Far above all rule and authority…
b) Far greater than any title anyone can even imagine or think of to communicate someone’s authority.
ILL. We give titles today. Sometimes you will hear the comment, “We can’t afford to give you a raise so we decided to give you a new title!” We hear of changing the title of a garbage collector to a Sanitation engineer. I looked up some titles on google: Mother Hero was an honorary title in the Soviet Union awarded from 8 July 1944 to all mothers bearing and raising 10 or more children.
2. Jesus has so much majesty and power that titles and names cannot be found that even come close to His power and might!
a) Every Christian should continually have that focus where when we look at Him, our physical problems, psychological problems, and even spiritual problems will not loom so all-important before us.
3. It is sad that we read and hear so much about the peripheral things of the Christian life and so little about the Person who is the source of Christian life.
a) How much happier and more productive we are when our primary attention is on His purity, greatness, holiness, power, and majesty.
4. What great blessing we can have when we take time to set our own concerns and needs aside and simply focus on the Lord of glory, allowing the Holy Spirit to do in us what Paul asked Him to do in the Ephesians.
a) That is -give us deep understanding of the truth that our Lord is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
b) The terms rule (arche, meaning leader or first one), authority (exousia), power (dunamis), and dominion (kuriotes, lordship) were traditional Jewish terms to designate angelic beings of great rank and might.
c) The point here is that the power of Christ applied in the believer’s behalf cannot be overthrown or negated or defeated, because it far surpasses that of the hosts of Satan who design to defeat it.
B. We have power because everything is placed under Jesus’ authority.
1. Most importantly, as far as believers are concerned, God gave Jesus authority as head of the church.
a) Christ not only is the head of the church but its fullness.
b) Since He has such a unique and intimate relationship with the redeemed whom He loves, all His power will be used in their behalf to fulfill His loving purpose for them.
c) He is completely over us and completely in us, our supreme Lord and supreme power.
2. The church is the fullness or complement (pleroma) of Christ.
a) As a head must have a body to manifest the glory of that head, so the Lord must have the church to manifest His glory (3:10).
b) Jesus Christ is the only One for whom the word incomparable truly applies; yet in a thrilling and securing wonder, He has chosen us to display His incomparable majesty.
c) We are guaranteed to come to glory in order that we might forever manifest His praise.
Conclusion: The point of this great petition is that we might comprehend how secure we are in Christ and how unwavering and unchanging is our hope of eternal inheritance. The power of glorification is invincible and is presently operative to bring us to glory.
