In Christ, I am…Confident—Ephesians 1:15-23
(Series on Ephesians: In Christ, I Am…)
We have all known people who struggle with lack of confidence. It is not that they lack opportunity or ability; they just lack the confidence to believe they can succeed.
***I grew up across the street from ten tennis courts. From a young age, I could look out of our picture window, and see boys my age taking lessons. By age 8, some of them were playing matches against boys from other cities.
Every summer, the city offered free tennis lessons. I could have walked across the street, and learned to play. I had a racket, a place to play, time to practice, and the support of my parents. I lacked one thing: confidence. Only when I was 12 years old did I get up the nerve to sign up for tennis lessons.**
Living as a Christian in the world takes confidence. It takes confidence to stand for Christ, to speak the truth, or to reach out to people who need love. It takes confidence to lead, to confront what is wrong, and to attempt great things for God. Where does that confidence come from?
The Apostle Paul is writing to people who have been “chosen by God for his glory.” (Hold up last week’s card.) We are chosen by God to display his glory, by how we live! That gives meaning and purpose to everything we do, whether big or small. But it is also rather intimidating. As Paul said to the Corinthian church, “Who is equal to such a task?” Can we really display God’s glory in the way we live?
Paul wants to encourage Christians to step up and attempt great things for God, so he begins by praying that God will give them the confidence they need.
Read Ephesians 1:17. We all want to know God better! Paul says we can know God by “wisdom and revelation.” “Revelation” would be the Bible, and “wisdom” would be our minds; it is good to study the Bible, and use the minds God’s gave us, to know God better. But knowing God with our minds is not enough; we need spiritual understanding. Paul prays that God will give believers “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” (or “a spirit of wisdom and revelation”). Whether Paul is referring directly to the Holy Spirit is uncertain, but he is certainly implying that God must help us understand what is in the Bible, and what we can know with our minds.
Paul goes on to say, “I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened…” We all know that there is a difference between knowing that something is safe, and feeling it in our gut. Paul prays that they may understand, at a deep personal level, things that will give them the confidence they need.
So Paul prays that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know” three things.
1. “…the hope to which God has called you”
Hope is more than wishing for something. A child might say, “I hope I get a pony for my birthday,” when there is no chance at all that her apartment-dwelling parents will give her a pony. It would be different if her farm parents invited her, even directed her, to hope for a pony.
God has called us, even directed us, to hope for the fullness of his kingdom. Our final hope is a perfect life forever with God in heaven. In heaven, there will be no more sorrow or pain, no frustration or injustice, but righteousness, peace and joy. In heaven, we will be transformed into the perfect people that God created us to be. In heaven, everyone and everything will be made right. That is our hope, because God has promised us all of that.
Hope is not just for the future, however. Hope helps us rise above the challenges and disappointments of life in this world.
***President Ronald Reagan loved to tell a story about twin boys, about five years old. One of the boys always looked on the bright side, while the other boy was hopelessly pessimistic. The parents worried that their sons were unbalanced, so they took them to see a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist treated the pessimist first. Trying to brighten his outlook, he took him into a room piled high with toys. But instead of yelping with delight, the boy burst into tears. “What’s the matter?” the psychiatrist asked. “Don’t you want to play with the toys?” Through his tears, the boy mumbled, “Yes, but if I did, I would only break them.”
Then the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, he took him into a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. Instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the boy gave a yelp of delight. He climbed onto the pile, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. “What do you think you are doing?” the psychiatrists asked. “With all this manure,” the boy replied, “there must be a pony in here somewhere!”**
Sometimes optimism is unrealistic, but finding some good in adverse situations is a good thing. Paul was an optimist, because he knew by experience how hope could rise from suffering.
In Romans 5:2-5, he says, “We boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
We can have hope, not only because we know how our lives end, but because God is already bringing our hope into the present, in our trials and triumphs. That gives us confidence.
Paul first prays that God’s people will know the hope of being called by God. Then he prays that they will know…
2. “…the riches of God’s glorious inheritance in (or among) the saints”
Of course, our inheritance in heaven is glorious. Will there be streets of gold? Will we have everything we want? Will we rule with Christ? Peter writes about “an inheritance than can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you.”
Paul is not thinking only of our inheritance in heaven, however. He speaks of our inheritance “in the saints,” or “among the saints”—among God’s chosen people on earth.
One of the greatest things about heaven will be the full and complete redemption of all God’s people. We will all be set free from sin and personality flaws, from pettiness and fear, from envy and competition for attention. We will inherit the character of Christ! Imagine the love, joy, peace and goodness of being among the saints in heaven!
Yet Ephesians tells us that there are saints in this room, right now. We are not the perfect people we will be in heaven, but we are already being transformed by the Holy Spirit of God. As Paul says in Romans 8, we have “the firstfruits of the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit of God begins to transform us, and as we listen and obey, we become more like Christ, and we display the glory of God.
Paul prays that we will understand “the riches of God’s inheritance in the saints.” Many of us have been blessed by saints who have gone before, who have demonstrated how God redeems people from sin and transforms them for his glory: parents, grandparents, and even generations before, who passed on a legacy of goodness and grace. Many of us can identify Christian friends, teachers, or mentors, who have enriched our lives because of their relationship with Christ. As Christians, we can enjoy the fellowship of Christian people in the church, who create an atmosphere of blessing and joy. Beyond that, we can look at the world, and see Christians in many different places, blessing everyone, as they fulfill their God-given calling in the world.
Paul prays for believers, that we may know the richness of our inheritance. We truly are children of the King, and we go out into the world as people with so much to give to the world. That gives us confidence.
Paul has prayed that we might know hope, and understand the richness of God’s gifts to us, and then he prays for us to know…
3. “…God’s incomparably great power for us who believe”
The Greek word Paul uses for power is dunamis, from which we get words like dynamite and dynamic. Paul uses two adjectives to describe God’s power for us: one has the root for mega-, and the other means overwhelming. We have available to us dynamic, overwhelming mega-power!
Yet sometimes we feel quite powerless. The problems of the world are overwhelming, and there are powerful political and economic forces in play. Influential people control our culture, and some people in our social circles might intimidate us. If we are honest, we sometimes feel powerless to control our own emotions, thought and actions.
We might feel powerless, but there is no power shortage for God! How can we be sure of that? Jesus!
Read Ephesians 1:19-23.
“God raised Jesus from the dead.” If we would make a list of things that seem impossible, rising from the dead would have to be at the top of our list. So imagine lowering a corpse into a grave, and then later, seeing that same person with a new, resurrected body. If that is possible, what others things are possible with God?
Then, “God seated Jesus…far above all rule and authority, power and dominion…and placed all things under his feet.” There are powerful evil forces in this world. Sometimes we see the news, and it is mostly bad news. We wonder what drives people to do such evil things, and we recognize that there are spiritual forces at work. We see groups like ISIS (preacher: update this) that are built upon cruelty and fear, and we imagine what it must be like to be helpless in the face of such powers.
Even in our own part of the world, which seems so much better, we see evil forces at work. Families are torn apart, churches deal with sinful actions, workplaces are hotbeds of envy, deceit, self-serving manipulation, and destructive cultures. We even see the impact of evil forces in ourselves: pride or self-doubt, a negative or depressive spirit, stupid choices, or false beliefs.
In the face of all that, the eyes of our heart see Jesus, “seated at the right hand of the Father (the place of authority), far above” every power—spiritual, physical, emotional, political, economic, or social. We are not afraid of anyone or anything. We do not give in to them, or give up because of them. Jesus has overcome, and Jesus is on the throne.
When Jesus rose and ascended to heaven, “God appointed him as head over everything for the church…his body…the fullness [of Christ].” In verse 10, Paul told us that God’s glorious plan is that Christ will be the head of all things in heaven and earth. He will be above the angels, the seraphim and teraphim, and all sorts of other beings. His authority will be above all other authorities, physical and spiritual. That is God’s glorious future, which is already in place.
Yet on the earth, we do not always see it that way. There is one place we can see Jesus in control, however: the church of Jesus Christ. The church is the body of Christ, and as the body does what the head intends, the church follows the direction of its head, Jesus.
***One day I was walking through the church, and I met a teenage boy from the neighborhood, who had come in to escape the summer heat. I knew he didn’t have much of a home life, and although he lived across the street, he knew very little about the church. Quite innocently, he asked me, “Who owns this church?” I suppose he thought it belonged to me. Of course I said, “God owns this church; we just take care of it.” At least, that is how I remember it.**
Christ is the head of the church—not the pastor, not the biggest givers, not the most vocal members, and certainly not the expectation of the culture or community. Because Christ is the head of the church, church is not about who gets the most attention, or who usually gets their way. Church is about coming together, working together as one body, to bring glory to Christ, who is the head over all things.
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“I pray that…you may know…the hope of being called by God, the riches God gives you in the saints, and the power revealed in Jesus Christ.”
***Newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst was an avid art collector. One time, he heard about a renowned painting, and he decided he just had to have it. He called in a trusted associate, and gave him the task of finding the painting, and buying it at almost any price.
His associate did some research, and he located the painting. He couldn’t buy, it however, because it belonged to a man named William Randolph Hearst! Mr. Hearst had no idea that he already owned the painting, and that it was hidden away in one of his warehouses.**
Sometimes we are like that: We look for hope, we look for the resources we need, we look for strength, when we already have all that we need, hidden away and forgotten. Paul says, “I keep asking God to show you what you already have, as a gift from God.”
God wants us to know—in our heart, in our gut—the resources he has made available to us. Then of course, he wants us to live with confidence, as we draw up his resources.
***In the early days of the iconic Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, one of the floats ran out of gas. The entire parade came to a halt, because the vehicle conveying the float was out of gas. That was ironic, because the company sponsoring the float was the Standard Oil Company. We can assume they had plenty of gasoline available, but no one had tapped into it to fill the gas tank.**
Do you ever feel like you are running on empty? When I was young, we would drive into a gas station, and say, “Fill ‘er up.” (Until recently, there were still two states where it was still against the law to pump your own gas.) When we lack confidence, it is not that we don’t have resources available to us; it is because we neglect to fill up our tank. With Christ, we have access to hope, to power, and to the riches of his resources. That gives us confidence in any circumstances.
Read Ephesians 1:17-21.
