As we continue through the book of Ephesians, we’re getting ready to transition from the introductory blessings into the meat of this book. I want to reiterate the dominating theme of Ephesians. That should be evident by the title of our series, Jesus Only.
The Christian faith will always, always lose its influence when it tries to accommodate the world. You get the opposite results. These days, many churches have fallen into this trap. I have attended conferences and read books that have said that if I want to grow a church, all I need to do is find out what the world wants and then reach the world with that want. Additionally, they tell church leaders that the worst thing a church can do is act like a church.
Here is a very simple truth: for us to reach the world we must uncompromisingly be church the church that Christ called the Church to be. If we want the world to come to know the amazing love and salvation of Jesus, we must first hold fast to all the teaching of Jesus and do what the Lord of the Church commands. That means that we aren’t focused on how to entertain the saints or wow the world. We’re not focused on social issues, but solely on the will of Jesus to fulfill the Great Commission.
If you want to know more about how we are going to do that, then stay with me in this study in Ephesians. This is God’s instruction book on what we are to do as the church. There’s not a word in it about what the world wants. Nothing about how to engage politically, socially, culturally. It’s all about how to follow the Lord who is the head of the church, how to be consumed with Christ. That’s why the epistle begins essentially in verse 3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.”
If you can fog a mirror, then you can tell things are not well in the world. They haven’t been right for a while and they’re not getting better; they’re getting worse and they’re going to continue to get worse. The Bible tells us that it is foolishness to believe that answers to these man-made problems are man-made solutions. The church is in the midst of what is going on in our world today. We’re in the midst of this because we point the world to the answer. And our responsibility is not somehow to figure out how to fix the world, but how to proclaim the gospel that can deliver people from the world.
Everything is in Christ. It’s all about our relationship to Christ. It’s all about knowing Him, loving Him, adoring Him, proclaiming Him, and helping one another in the journey to become more like Him. That’s what the church needs to be. That’s what we’re going to be and as the world accelerates more rapidly toward the end, we’re going to be here to welcome those who are seeking answers home.
Over the last few weeks in our introduction to Ephesians we’ve looked at some amazing truths Paul shared in the beginning of Ephesians. We saw the blessings that exist only in Jesus. We say our redemption only in Jesus. We saw our adoption in Jesus. We saw our predestination in Jesus and we saw our inheritance in Jesus. Today, before we move on toward how we are to live in these awesome blessings, we’re going to look at our salvation given to us in Jesus Only.
15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked 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 one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:15-23)
I. We Need an Increasing Faith in Christ and Love for Each Other (vv.15-16)
This last section in Chapter 1 is a prayer of Paul for the Ephesian Church and churches everywhere. It is filled with truth that is Christ-centered. Paul’s prayer is that the church would focus on fully understanding what has been given to us through Jesus and that is found in Jesus alone. So let’s look at that prayer. Verse 15, “For this reason.” What reason? What prompts this intercession? The incomparable blessings of Christ are listed from verses 3 through 14 that we’ve spent the last several weeks studying.
Paul goes on. 15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers… I know you are a believer because two things: First you have a living and active faith in Jesus. Second, that faith is manifesting itself in the love of God that should be evidenced in all churches. What is Paul’s desire for a church? That they would know Christ deeply and profoundly. That’s why Paul in Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the mark of a true believer and a church alive in Christ: their fain is in Christ and that faith in manifested in their love for each other. This is the prayer for the church in Ephesus. Incidentally, this will be the concern of Jesus to Ephesians, that the lost their first love (Revelation 2:4). Their love for Christ and their love for each other.
And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5)
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. (1 John 5:3)
For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ. (Philippians 3:8).
Do you know Christ in that kind of capacity? This is how the church should live. We should live with this consuming preoccupation with the person of Jesus Christ. Despite the growing secularism and materialism of our culture, there is a deepening hunger for spiritual fulfillment that cannot happen without Christ. However, the result of true faith is life-giving living water for you that will also give life to others.
There was a man who got lost in the desert. After wandering around for a long time, he became dangerously dehydrated to the point of death. About that time he saw a little shack in the distance. He made his way over to the shack and found a water pump with a small jug of water and a note: "Pour all the water from this jug into the top of the pump to prime it. If you do this you will have all the water you need.”
Now the man had a choice to make, if he had faith in the instructions found on the note and poured the water in and it worked, he would have all the water he needed. If it didn’t work, he would still be thirsty, and he might die. On the other hand, he could just simply drink the water in the jug and get immediate satisfaction.
After thinking about it the man decided to trust the instructions. He poured the entire jug into the pump and began to work the handle. At first, nothing happened, and he wondered if he had made a mistake. But he continued to pump with what little strength he had left until some water began to flow from the spout. Suddenly he had so much water that he drank all he wanted, took a shower, and filled all his containers.
Now the note also said: after you have finished, please refill the jug for the next traveler.” The man refilled the jug and added to the note: “Prime the pump, believe me it works”!
That’s faith and love. Do we hold onto our own understanding and what we have or do we give it all up and trust in the words of Christ to live by them and we make sure we share it with others so they too will not perish? I think the choice is obvious. We need to pour in all the water to receive the living water in our lives and to share it with others. The well will never go dry!
Then once we have experienced what God has to offer, the living water, we need to tell other people, “Go ahead prime the pump, believe me it works”! (Randy Lekliter, Sermon Central)
II. We Need a Deeper Spiritual Insight
that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
Someone once asked me how we could best strengthen the church today. In addition to biblical literacy, I told them by building families. A study by Barna research found that if both Mom and Dad attend church regularly, 72% of their children remain faithful beyond high school. If only Dad attended church, 55% remain faithful. If only Mom remained faithful, 15%. If neither parent attended church regularly, only 6% remain faithful.
Our upcoming generations have lost the skills of character and critical thinking. Your convictions are the immovable pillars of your character that are ingrained the strongest from your parents. The second thing you have to have is critical thinking. We have become a culture that believes things we see on media blindly. One of the greatest catalysts to think more critically is to view things with the wisdom of God through the Holy Spirit. This was the continued prayer of Paul for the Ephesians.
Abraham Lincoln said, "I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the day."
Universities these days are concerned about ideologies. Here’s how an ideology works: “What’s wrong in America? White privilege. What’s wrong in America? Systemic racism. What’s wrong in America? Abuse of women.” They want you to buy into the fact that everything that’s wrong in America can be explained by an ideology. They don’t want you to think critically about it. Instead, they want you to be sucked up into a “one-size-fits-all” ideology. That way you don’t have to think about the problem, you can just assign blame.
At the heart of this is mass deception and deception today is a greater epidemic than COVID. The problem is the church is as caught up in the deceptions as the rest of the world.
A lady went to the butcher to buy a chicken for her family’s dinner. The butcher had but one chicken left. She asked him to weigh it and it was clear that it was on the small side. When she asked if he hands another chicken he said sure and took the chicken with him into the back room. A few minutes later he returned with the same chicken and laid it on the scale along with a little extra pressure from his thumb. The lady was not overly impressed with this bird either so she said, I’ll take both chickens…
Paul continually warns us about getting caught up in the deceptions of this world and that is what is connected to his prayer here in Ephesians. Part of the wisdom of God is having a supernatural understanding and discernment of what is going on around you.
do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8)
all nations were deceived by your sorcery. (Revelation 18:23)
Paul tells the Ephesians they are enlightened to these things so that they may know “the hope of His calling” (v. 19). What is the hope of His calling? The church has one calling in the midst of these days and it is not to fix the world. Instead, it is to be the church. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians and my prayer for us today is that we realize that for the church to reach the world we cannot keep trying to be like the world. We have a very clear calling and that is to teach preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and the full counsel of Scripture. In doing that we allow the Word of God to transform us through the power of the Spirit of God.
III. The World Needs a Church Alive in the Gospel
20 that he worked 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 one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1:20–23).
How do you make spiritual power apparent to God’s people who are preoccupied and oppressed by this material world? I am told that one therapy used to treat autistic children is to cloud the lower half of their eyeglasses. Certain kinds of autism apparently manifest themselves as a child becomes completely focused on some dimension of his experience. Such a child can become so focused on an activity to the point that a single aspect becomes the child’s entire world. Thus, glasses clouded on the bottom but clear in the upper lenses force the child to look up. Similarly, the Apostle Paul wants us to lift our eyes from this world to focus on above. Our hope resides in understanding the power of the Gospel. (Bryan Chapell).
I want you to see here today the amazing hope we have in Christ because of his authority over all things. Paul tells us that the Father seated Christ at His right hand in Heaven to have the authority of every authority, power, and dominion. Because of Jesus’ victory over death and the grave, He is given power over every authority in Heaven and earth. The battles you are facing and this world are enduring will ultimately fall under the feet of Christ.
We know that the Lord is above all and even more, he is the Head of the church. If he is the head, then we are body and therefore we are under his authority too. The question is, who do you choose as Lord today?
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death (Philippians 3:10)
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. (Romans 1:16)
Augustine said, Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence." When you trust in Christ as Savior, the Bible says you have all these precious gifts and many, many more from the very first day of your salvation. And yet…we still don’t fully grasp all we are and have in Christ.
He wants you to know Him in salvation. If you haven’t come to know Jesus or discovered life, or joy in its fullness, or peace that passes all understanding, or freedom from the guilt of sins. The Bible says that when you trust Him, He will be your Savior today! If you’re already a believer, He is calling his church to live revelation of his power as the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you come to him today?
