Let's start today by reading part of last week's passage. I'll read from my translation, but feel free to follow along however you'd like. Let's turn to Ephesians 1:7, and we'll read through verse 10:
(7) In him (=Jesus) we have the freedom/release through his blood-- the forgiveness of trespasses/sins--
in accordance with the riches of his grace,
(8) which He made abound to us with all wisdom and the ability to understand,
(9) making known to us the mystery of his will,
in accordance with his good will/desire which He planned in him,
(10) for the stewardship of the fullness of the times, to bring together all things in Christ--
the things in the heavens,
and the things in the earth-- in him.
What we see in these verses, is that God has this huge, sweeping, cosmic plan that He's bringing to fruition through Jesus.
And this plan, in essence, is about bringing all things together in heaven and earth. There will no more divisions, because of what God has done, and is doing, and will do, through Jesus.
Jesus brings together God and people, overcoming our own sin and rebellion.
Jesus brings together all people, removing all the ways we divide each other by race, or gender, or wealth, or power, or ethnicity.
And Jesus brings together heaven and earth, as well. We tend to think of heaven and earth as being two disconnected, divided things. And what we'll see in Ephesians, is that this really isn't the case.
I grew up in a church tradition where we talked a lot about how sin separates people from God, and how Jesus bridges that gap. Jesus died in our place, so that our sins could be forgiven, and so that we could be freed from the power of Sin. But at least in my Christian circles, the focus usually started and ended there. That's what we think Jesus did. Period. And what Paul is saying, is that what God did for people through Jesus is far bigger than that. Jesus tears down the barrier that separates us from God, that separates Jew from Gentile, in particular, and that separates heaven from earth. Jesus brings everything together.
So God is making this one single, holy family, and He invites all people to join this family through Jesus. And if you've said "yes" to God's invitation, and understand what you've been invited to, you can't help but respond by praising God. God has been incredibly good to us. God loved us when we did nothing to deserve it. And for God to forgive our sins, and make us part of his family---? It's great. It's truly good news.
This brings us to today's passage. Paul understands what God is doing in the world. God has this vision, this goal, to make one single family for himself. Paul sees God's plan, and he sees it starting to come to fruition. God's family is growing across the world, and Paul praises God for this.
In today's passage, in verse 15, Paul turns from this cosmic, bird's eye perspective, to praising God specifically for what God is doing in the Ephesian church. Each little church is a part of this great cosmic plan, and Paul is thankful for this little Ephesian church, and he's thankful to God, for what God is doing for them.
Verse 15:
For this reason I also, hearing about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the holy ones, do not stop giving thanks for you,
remembrance making in my prayers,
Every church develops a reputation over time. It becomes known for something. I'm not sure how it is in [ ], but in [ ], you could ask random Christians on the street about the different churches, and you'd get pretty detailed descriptions from people about those churches, even if they've never set foot in that building. That reputation might be good, or it might be bad. Usually, it ends up being a little bit of both. People always say, "That church has a great... something, but..." It's like we think we always need to careful to say something negative about every church, and every pastor.
Once in a while, a church's local reputation becomes known more regionally. We hear stories about some church in Fargo, or the Twin Cities. Some church stands out, for one reason or another.
This church in Ephesus has become one that stands out. It has a reputation for two things. First, they have faith in the Lord Jesus. Second, they love all the holy ones. Traditionally, English Bibles will translate this, "for all the saints." I don't want to rabbit trail too hard on this, but the word "holy" means something like consecrated, or committed, or dedicated. Some of you probably have fine china, that's dedicated for specific holidays. You have Christmas and Easter dishes. And you also have ordinary everyday dishes. The idea of being holy, is that are you like fine china to God. It's a way of saying that you are dedicated, committed, consecrated, to God.
So Paul has heard good things about the church. They have two really good qualities-- faith in Jesus, and love for God's holy ones.
Now, what does it mean to have "faith in Jesus"? Or, we could say, what does it mean to "believe in Jesus"?
This is one of those areas where we all tend to feel comfortable that we understand it, but we'd just as soon not have to try to explain it. Right?
I think broadly speaking, "faith in Jesus" has three main parts.
First, having faith in Jesus means believing certain things about Jesus. To have faith in Jesus means to believe that he is sent from God to save us. That Jesus came to bring God's kingdom to earth. That Jesus died, was buried, rose again, and ascended to God's right hand. There is a content to believing in Jesus, and that content matters.
The second part of having faith in Jesus, is trusting in Jesus. Part of what it means to "believe," or have "faith," is to trust. We trust in Jesus, and not in some other god, or in money, or power. We trust in Jesus, and not in Joseph Smith, or Mohammed. Jesus is the one we lean on, as we go through life.
So faith is (1) belief. Faith is (2) trust.
The third part of believing in Jesus, is to have loyalty, or allegiance, or faithfulness, to Jesus. This is the part that I've found is often lost, or missed, in Christian circles, so I'd like to unpack it a little.
In the Greek, there is this cluster of words for faith that all have the same root word. You don't need to know Greek to understand this, or hear it. The verb usually translated "I believe," is pisteuo. The noun usually translated as faith, is "pistis." And the adjective, usually translated as "faithful," is "pistos."
When we talk about "believing in Jesus," we use this word "believe" because there's no English verb for "faith." You wouldn't say, "I faith in Jesus." English forces you to say, "I believe in Jesus."
And so what the English language does, is separates out "faith" from "belief." We don't hear "faith" and "belief" as
being the same thing. We get a little messed up.
What is faith?
Let's turn Romans 3:1-3.
3 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. 3 What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?
In verse 3, Paul talks about God's "faithfulness." Paul asks the question, does the Jews' faithlessness, nullify God's faithfulness? And that word there, "faithfulness," is the word "faith." It's the same exact word.
So we see in Romans 3:3 that God has faith.
What does it mean, that God has faith? Does God believe Jesus died on the cross for his sins? Does God believe Jesus is Messiah? That can't be right, can it?
The idea here is that God has made promises to Israel, and God has kept those promises. God is faithful. Our English Bibles all translate "faith" here correctly as "faithfulness." "Faith" includes the idea of loyalty, commitment, and faithfulness.
In Romans 3:3, Paul at the same time says-- and Paul says this as a Jew-- that many Jews have been unfaithful. This is the same Greek word, with a little prefix to make it the opposite. The problem with the Jews wasn't just that they believed the wrong things, that they had "unbelief." Their problem was that they were unfaithful to God.
So what is faith? Faith includes believing certain things about Jesus. Faith includes trusting in Jesus. And faith is also about ongoing faithfulness and loyalty to Jesus. Faith is a commitment you make every day, that you'll bend your knee before King Jesus, and serve Jesus as your Lord.
At this point, let's reread Ephesians 1:15:
For this reason I also, hearing about your faithfulness/allegiance to the Lord Jesus and your love for all the holy ones, do not stop giving thanks for you,
remembrance making in my prayers,
Paul has heard two things about the Ephesian church, that make him give thanks to God. The first was their faith in the Lord Jesus. The second was their love for all the holy ones.
There is a trend among Christians to think the church isn't important. We think our allegiance to Jesus is a
private, individual matter. We come together each week, sure. We worship together; we pray together; we listen to sermons together. But are we living as a family? Do we genuinely love each other, help each other? Do we look out for one another? The Ephesians do all of this. They love each other. And so Paul thanks God for this.
Now, all of this isn't to say that the Ephesians are a perfect, or nearly perfect church. There are things the Ephesians lack. And it's at this point that Paul transitions to how he prays for them. He thanks God for them, but he also has some specific prayer requests for them. There are things he wants God to do for them, and here Paul tells them what those are. This is a deep, complicated prayer, and there's parts of this I'm going to just gloss over. But let's read v. 15-19:
(15) For this reason I also, hearing about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the holy ones, do not stop giving thanks for you,
remembrance making in my prayers,
(17) [asking] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ--the Father of glory --may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation that consists of knowledge of Him,
(18) the eyes of your heart having been enlightened, so that you will know
what is the hope of his calling,
what [are] the riches of the glory of his inheritance to the holy ones,
(19) and what [is] the surpassing greatness of his power for us--the ones "faithing"
-- in accordance with the working of the might of his strength,
which he has worked/accomplished in the Christ,
raising him from among the dead ones,
and seating [him] at his right hand in the heavenlies,
Paul's prayer for the church, essentially, is that God would give them an understanding of what God's up to with his big cosmic plan. Paul wants God to give the church knowledge. And this should strike us as a bit weird.
Normally, if you want someone to understand something, you'd simply teach them. If I want to teach my kids how to fix something, I'll have them watch the same youtube video I watched, and then we'll follow the video step by step. I'll explain it. I'll help them do it. What I won't do, is ask God to give my kids knowledge about something.
If there's a teacher in the public school here, I would imagine it works the same way. When teachers want their students to gain new knowledge, they teach it. They don't normally open class by praying, "Dear God, please teach my students how fractions work." Although with fractions, they might.
But with spiritual truths, Paul understands that things work differently. Even for the Christians Paul is praying for, the only way they can come to understand who God is, and what God is doing, is if God does something to them, on the inside. What we need, verse 18, is for the Holy Spirit to enlighten our hearts. We need the Spirit to flip a light switch on inside of us, so that we are able to see God, and spiritual realities, as they actually are.
And so Paul asks that God would give the church the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that this becomes possible.
Now, this might also strike us as weird.
I grew up thinking about the Holy Spirit, as being a bit like old fashioned roller skating rink or amusement park. It used to be, when you paid for your ticket to enter places like that, that you'd get a stamp on your hand to show you belonged there. You hadn't slipped a rope. You hadn't snuck in through a fire door. You had the right to be there. The Holy Spirit is the seal of your inheritance.
So basically, you either have the stamp, or you don't. You have the Holy Spirit inside of you, or you don't.
But what we see in Ephesians, is something more complicated. The Holy Spirit can be more or less active in the life of an individual Christian, or in the life of the church. With the Holy Spirit, it's not all or nothing. The Ephesian church has received the Holy Spirit. But they need more from the Holy Spirit. They need more of the Holy Spirit. They need a fresh outpouring, so they can understand God's vision for the world. Maybe that sounds super Pentecostal, or charismatic. But it's just biblical language. It's just how Paul prayed. And the Holy Spirit isn't just for Pentecostals. God will give the Holy Spirit in an increasing way to his church, to enlighten our hearts.
So for those of us who are Bible nerds, Paul's prayer humbles us. Understanding God's cosmic plan isn't just a matter of reading Ephesians carefully, and chewing on what Paul wrote. God's plan won't grab us, and we won't really understand it, unless the Holy Spirit enlightens our hearts.
Now, in verses 18-19, Paul talks about three specific things that he wants the church to end up knowing, and they all revolve around an inheritance that God is giving his holy people. Some of that inheritance is for the future, and knowledge of this becomes part of our hope. We look forward to the day when there will be a new heaven, and a new earth, and when God gives us the new earth. But other parts of our inheritance are something we've already received. God has given us the Holy Spirit as a down payment, as proof that more is coming. And in verse 19, we read that God has made available something else for us, right now.
Let's reread just the first two lines of verse 19:
(19) and what [is] the surpassing greatness of His power for us--the ones "faithing"
-- in accordance with the working of the might of his strength,
Paul wants the Ephesians to understand that God has already made his power available for his church. Our God is a powerful God, and He is happy to share that power with his church.
Christianity, historically, has been a religion of power. It's not that we don't ever suffer for our faith, or that there aren't hardships. But suffering is mixed with power, because God has made his power available to the church. The power that raised Jesus from among the dead, is the power that's available to the church.
To what end, does God give his church power? Paul will build on this later in his letter. He's not quite ready to unpack all of this, yet. And as we keep reading, what we see Paul do is help you think about power God has, and what God has done, through Jesus. But if we think about what we know about the Ephesian church from Acts 19-20, and if we cheat ahead and include the rest of the letter, I think we would say that God makes his power available for his church in four main areas.
The first, is maybe the most obvious. God empowers his church for miracles, healings, signs and wonders. God did extraordinary things through Paul in Ephesus, and everyone there knows that God's power was displayed through Paul.
The second way that God empowers his church, is for faithfulness. God empowers his church through the Holy Spirit, so that we become strong, and able to walk rightly with God. That doesn't mean we never sin, but Spirit-empowerment means we sin far less, and we live as slaves to no sin.
The third way that God empowers his church, is by giving us spiritual protection from demonic forces. There is an armor that God gives his church, so that we can stand strong against the spirits who oppose God, and oppose us.
The fourth way that God empowers his church, is to give us weapons to go on offense. We are empowered through the Spirit, to advance God's kingdom through evangelism.
Now, Paul isn't quite ready to talk about any of that. I cheated. Instead, Paul's focus in verses 19-23 is simply on God's power.
So let's read these verses, starting with verse 19, and just listen in particular for that:
(19) and what [is] the surpassing greatness of his power for us--the ones "faithing"
-- in accordance with the working of the might of his strength,
(20) which He has worked/accomplished in the Christ,
raising him from the dead,
and seating [him] at his right hand in the heavenlies,
(21) above every ruler and authority and power and dominion and every name being named,
not only in this age,
but also in the coming one,
(22) And all things/beings He subjected under his feet,
and him he gave as head over all things to/for the church,
(23) which is his body--the fullness of the One filling/fulfilling all things in all ways.
The power God has made available for us, is the same power that has radically shifted the way the entire universe is ordered.
When Satan tested Jesus in the wilderness, Satan offered Jesus all of the kingdoms of the earth, if Jesus would just bow down and worship him. This offer, was a legitimate offer. Satan had control of every human kingdom on earth. He became the rightful owner of it all, because of human sin and rebellion.
And Jesus reversed all of that. God took back control of the earth, through Jesus. How? Let's turn to Colossians 2:13-15:
Colossians 2:13-15
13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities[b] and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.[c]
The thing that gives Satan power over people is sin. Satan's weapon against us is sin. You can think about sin, as being Satan's sword. And Jesus, by dying for our sins, disarmed all of the spiritual forces opposing God. Jesus took their sword.
When Jesus died for our sins, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and spiritual authorities, and he triumphed over them. Satan, with all of his followers, no longer have any claim over us, because our sins were nailed to the cross with Jesus.
So when you look at the heavenlies, or at earth, you'll see many different types of powers and authorities. In the heavenlies, in the unseen realm, you can think about different types and level of spiritual beings, and spiritual realities. On earth, you can think about superpowers like the U.S., or China, or Russia. You can think about the great world leaders, and their thrones. Anything you can think of, anything that can be named-- Jesus is above them all.
God seated Jesus in the heavenlies at his own right hand, in the position of power and honor. Everything got put under Jesus' feet, in a position of humiliation and service.
And the surprising thing we see in verse 23, is that we are right there with Jesus. Jesus is the head; we are Jesus' body. So even though we are on earth, there is some sense in which we are at the same with Jesus in the heavenlies, at God's right hand. In Jesus, as the body of Christ, we sit at God's right hand in the heavenlies.
So as we go through life, we know that Jesus is in charge. We don't fear Satan and his kingdom-- let alone any earthly kingdom. We know that Jesus triumphed over them at the cross. We know that Jesus has been given authority over them all. This doesn't mean we don't need to be careful to live rightly. Satan is looking for weak spots, for vulnerabilities, in us as individuals, and us as a church. But we don't fear him. We don't fear anyone or anything.
And we know that when King Jesus returns, he will make everything right. All authorities that challenge Jesus will meet their final defeat. And we will be part of God's kingdom, in the new earth, forever. This is our hope. All these powers have already been placed at Jesus' feet. They are already subject to Jesus. And the day is coming when they will be completely crushed (Rom. 16:20--super cool verse, but I won't unpack it).
Paul's prayer for the Ephesians is that God will show them all of this. Paul wants God to send his Holy Spirit on the church, in a greater, increased way, so that the Spirit can enlighten their hearts, and help them understand of this.
I'd like to close today by simply echoing Paul's prayer for you.
Father, I thank you for this church. I thank you for what I've seen of their faith, and their love for each other. I ask this morning that you would the Spirit of wisdom on this church in a new and bigger way, turning the light switch on to their hearts, so that they would understand the hope of their calling, the riches of the glory of your inheritance, and the surpassing power that you've made available for all of your holy people, who trust in Jesus, and live faithfully to Him.
Help this church understand how you've exalted Jesus to your right hand, over all your enemies. Help this church understand what it means, that we are right there with Jesus. We praise you for being a good God, who shares your power with your people.
Translation (Ephesians 1:15-23)
(15) For this reason, I also, hearing about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the holy ones, don't stop giving thanks for you,
remembrance making in my prayers,
(17) (asking) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ--the Father of glory-- may give to you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation that consists of knowledge of Him,
(18) the eyes of your heart having been enlightened so that you will know
what is the hope of his calling,
what [are] the riches of the glory of his inheritance for the holy ones,
(19) and what [is] the surpassing greatness of his power for us--the ones "faithing"
-- in accordance with the working of the might of his strength,
(20) which He has worked/accomplished in the Christ,
raising him from the dead,
and seating [him] at his right hand in the heavenlies,
(21) above every ruler and authority and power and dominion and every name being named,
not only in this age,
but also in the coming one,
(22) And all things/beings He subjected under his feet,
and him He gave as head over all things to/for the church,
(23) which is his body--the fullness of the One filling/fulfilling all things in all ways.
