There are some things that we, as parents, love to hear. "Mom, could you show me how to clean my room better?" Or, "Dad, could you teach me the very best way to wash the car?" Or, "Mom and Dad, what makes you love each other and us so much? How can I make sure that my marriage is like yours?" These little requests that would be so wonderful to hear and cause us to drop dead, would be children praying to the will of their parents, asking according to their will. "Dad, could you come and help me with my homework. I’m struggling with this and I just wondered if you could help me here?" "Mom, is this a good dress to wear out in public?" "No!" "Okay, I’ll go change." Asking according to the parents’ will.
We’ve seen, as we’ve looked as some issues of prayer, that we need to get past some ideas that we may have about God that He is disinterested or that He is cruel or that He is too busy or that the smaller things of life just aren’t that interesting to Him or that we have to be just so absolutely perfect in our behavior otherwise He won’t listen to us. But, His revelation of Himself is that of a loving Father, one who desires to hear from His children, to meet our needs according to His infinite wisdom and His infinite love and grace. Now, it could be easy to take that kind of teaching and say, "Oh, good. Then God’s kind of like a genie in a bottle I rub the bottle and He comes out and gives me three wishes and whatever I want, I get. And so I should ask for is a lot of money and then I can buy all kinds of stuff with that money. We could recognize or believe that God is like that or we could recognize that what a Heavenly Father really wants to give us is gifts of tremendous eternal value and ask for those for ourselves and for other people.
Now the first century Christians to whom Paul was writing here in Ephesians, they had plenty of physical needs. Certainly in a church like that, in the middle of a pagan society, one of the cities that rioted when Paul brought the Gospel (rioted for several hours), they would have had a lot of physical things to pray for: health, wealth, for God’s intervention on their behalf and they should have prayed for those. As we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, those are the kinds of things that God wants us to bring to Him, our needs, to be able to cast every care upon God and lay every burden down at His feet. But, in addition to those, there are other issues that really go beyond those. And while we pray for those issues of physical reality, Paul gives us here in the passage in chapter 1 of Ephesians, a great model and example of what this first century church-planter prayed for the people of the church that he planted. There’s some great prayer requests in this passage that we want to look at this morning.
The first one is this: Paul says, "I prayed for you Ephesians that you would pray to God, ’teach me who You are.’" You know what? One of those things that we’ve discovered as human beings is there is a great gap that exists between who God is in reality and who we think He is in our minds and hearts. There’s a huge gap that exists there. Now, this gap is just a natural consequence, a natural result, of sin. Our ability to understand God, which Adam and Eve had in the Garden, was terribly damaged and destroyed by the fall. There was this gap of fellowship that existed between God and between Man at that point when Adam and Eve chose to go their own way that included a gap of knowledge, a gap of understanding, a gap of wisdom. 1 Corinthians 2:14 tells us, "The man without the Spirit [the man who has broken fellowship with God] does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned." When we lost our ability to understand spiritual things, we lost our ability to understand God. That is why the smartest people in the world today who do not have the Spirit of God living in them can be very intelligent about all kinds of things except anything to do with God. At that point, the curtain falls.
Now, that may be the natural state, but something has happened to these Ephesians. Look at verses 13 and 14 of Ephesians 1, "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possessions, to the praise of his glory." In other words, something has happened to you. Through your faith in Jesus Christ, you have received the same Spirit who Paul talked about in this verse. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that comes from the Spirit. But, what does that mean? It means the man with the Spirit has now the ability to believe God.
Suppose you received in the mail a map from someone you trusted showing you the exact location of a buried treasure? What would you do? Wouldn’t you go to Home Depot or Lowes and buy yourself a shovel and get on the web and get on Mapquest and find out how to get to this spot and then go and dig it up? Wouldn’t you? If you suddenly now had the ability to find something that you did not have the ability to find before and it was something of great value, wouldn’t you go look? Here’s what’s going on, God has given us the key to understanding Him, the key to the greatest knowledge that there is, the most hidden knowledge that there is in all the universe, hidden because of this wall of sin, this spiritual darkness. Well, that wall in our lives has been removed. And now we have the amazing opportunity to know, to understand the living God, to be freed from all our wrong and ultimately fatal misconceptions about God and instead to as Paul writes here in Ephesians 1:17, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation [and listen to this] so that [for the purpose]"… that you can get a Ph.D.? No. So you can win Bible trivia? No. So you can impress all your friends? No. "So you can know him better." So you can know Him better, so you can grasp what is the height and depth and width of this creator God who by the word of His power created all that we see, who didn’t have to build in a lab, just called it into being, this God without beginning of days or end of life, who always has been, who always will be, who created time – so we can know Him better.
The word here ’know’ is not just know with our minds. It is the word that means to have a relationship with. That’s the most amazing thing, we don’t only get to know about God in a distant sense, but we get to know Him by taking the revelation that He has given us and applying it to our lives. "God, this is what You’ve said about Yourself. You have said that You are love. You have said that You are gracious. You have said that You are merciful and while I may be able to count and recount those characteristics intellectually, the really great things is I get to experience those characteristics in my life every day. I can look around and I can see Your gracious hand at work. I can understand the relationship of love that we share. And I can manifest love to You and You can manifest love to me." It’s as different as reading about someone in a magazine or being married to that person. You may read a biography of Winston Churchill, but only Mrs. Churchill knew Winston Churchill. So, Paul prays for these believers and it’s a prayer that we can pray for ourselves, "Lord, teach me who You are."
Now, as we saw in our Sunday School class this morning, prayer can be a dangerous thing because sometimes we will say, "Lord, show me who You are. Teach me who You are. Teach me Your characteristics." And He will send things into our lives that will clarify certain misconceptions that we have about Him. There is no better example of that than Job. Hey, Job had God figured out. Job had God in a nice, neat little box. "This is how God works: You behave yourself, good things happen. You misbehave, bad things happen." And so, when bad things happened to Job, he did a quick systems check and said, "I haven’t done anything wrong," which God agreed with. "So why is this happening to me? Why did all my children die? Why have all my wealth of livestock been taken? Why have my servants been taken into slavery? Why am I covered in these boils and living not in my home in town but out on the dung heap scraping myself with pieces of potter?" By the end of the book, Job has learned something about God and his relationship with God has been deepened in a way that it never was before.
Paul prays that we would receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, which is the actual polar opposite of our natural state: foolishness and ignorance. We’ve got a ways to go. Just because we get saved doesn’t mean that we now automatically know everything about God. When we get saved, when we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, then all the gates are opened, the shades have been lifted, the sun begins to pour through the window and we can begin to absorb the truth. But, of course, there’s a lot of lies about God to overcome and so God begins to work through His Holy Spirit.
This is the way to come to the Word of God when you read it. When we read the Word of God, don’t come and just say, "Well, okay, that was interesting information." Come to the Word of God in a prayerful way and say, "Lord, what can You tell me about Yourself? What can You tell me about myself? What can You tell me about what You value? What can you tell me about what I wouldn’t naturally value? How can You point out to me the superiority of the values of what You value to what the world values? Teach me, Lord, who You are." As I said, prayer can be a dangerous thing because God teaches us often times, if we are willing and listening, willing to be taught through the events and many times the difficult events of life (amen?). God teaches us through showing us many times the temporary nature of some of our values.
And that’s another thing that Paul prays, a second thing that Paul prays here. He prays that we would pray to God, "Lord, teach me who You are." We are also encouraged to pray, "Teach me what really matters." Teach me what really matters. Really, what Paul is praying about here is for us to have a change of values. WE all have values, certain things that are the driving engine of our life. Our values may be raising and educating children. That drives our life. Our values may be being a good husband, father, wife. Those values drive our lives. Or our values could be things that are very natural. Paul says here in verse 18, "I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened." Isn’t that an interesting phrase? He says that the heart of your heart may be enlightened. That must say something to me, that there are values in this world that appeal to these eyes. They look good. Isn’t it interesting that when Eve looked at the fruit in the tree of the Garden of Eden, it was pleasing to what? Her eyes. She saw that it was pleasing. Paul is praying here, "Lord, open up their eyes. Open up the eyes of their heart for them to be able to see what’s real, what really matters." It’s clearly an internal vision, an ability to see past the physical realities to current and future spiritual treasure.
"I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know [and this is a different word for ’know’ here, a different Greek word, not the relationship word of verse 17, but the complete and full knowledge, perfect knowledge] know the hope to which he has called you."
There’s three things we need to understand here in this phrase. One of them is that the word ’know’ is talks about perfect knowledge, perfect understanding. That would be a knowledge that is so sure that it changes what we do and the way we live. "I know this to be a fact and I know it so completely and so fully that I’m going to change my life. I’m going to change what I do because of this."
Years ago, there was a movie out. It was a silly comedy called "Back to the Future" Anybody remember that movie? In the first movie, this guy (I think his name is Marty, Michael J. Fox) goes back into the fifties. And something happens in the first movie that isn’t really revealed until the second movie, which is Back to the Future 2 I think, where it turns out that while he was back there in the fifties he left behind a sports almanac with all kinds of scores of games. And the bully in the first movie, whose name I can’t remember – but you remember the guy, he got a hold of that almanac and he started betting on those games. And he won millions and millions of dollars because he knew the answer and he knew it so much that he would put down tons of money because he knew who was going to win before it …. He had a sure knowledge. He had a complete knowledge, a perfect understanding.
Now, how about us? We have a complete knowledge, don’t we? At least that’s what we need to pray for – "that I would have such a complete knowledge of Your will and of Your values, that I will change my life to conform to those values, knowing that it’s going to pay off." Now, we like to get the payoff today in physical ways, but of course if that’s our approach then of course we’re back to square one. If we have a complete and utter knowledge, a perfect knowledge that the values of God espouses and calls us to embrace are, in fact, the right ones, then we will embrace those and we will wait for the pay off in eternity. The neat thing is that God also gives us present reality to help us understand that we are on the correct value path, but most of it, we realize, is kept for us in heaven. We want to know the hope. And hope, as you know in the Word of God, doesn’t mean wishful thinking. It means a future certainty. That I will know without a doubt and have complete understanding that these values will ultimately be rewarded in heaven. That while the rest of the world is pursuing values that will give them short term satisfaction, ultimately the only values that are worth pursuing are the ones of eternal nature that will not disappoint us when we’re 65 or 75. God wants us to absolutely sure, so absolutely sure of what is guaranteed for us in our future that it will change the way we live. That we will be so heavenly minded that we will really be a lot of earthly good, that we will change our values, and stop pursuing these short term, physical values that this world offers. If my core values are here and now – physical, financial, temporal – then I will hoard my money or be so completely focused with my time, or do whatever it takes to get that promotion. But the prayer here is that my priorities would be heavenly. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth." Isn’t that interesting? We skip right over that ’do not’, don’t we? We like to include ’in addition to storing up for ourselves.’ But then when it says, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Where your treasure is will be reflected in the values you live by. If your treasure is in Bank One, your life is going to reflect that. If your treasure is in a job, your life will reflect that. Financially, temporally, emotionally. If your treasure, your gold, is in heaven, then your heart will reflect that.
Now, how is that hope defined? What are we hoping for? "…the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints." God has poured out His infinite grace. He has exemplified it, manifested the nature of His grace by giving us His Son. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." That’s the nature of the Gift Giver. When it comes to Christmastime, there are certain people you’re eager to get the gift from because, man, they give good presents. "Oh, I wonder what they’re giving me this year?" The nature of our gift-giving God is infinite, so when Paul (and I’m sure he strains at the leash of language here), he says, "… the glorious inheritance in the saints," what could it be? If giving His own Son was the first gift, then what are the rest of them going to be like? "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, will also graciously give us all things."
For those of us living in relative comfort, the future hope may not seem that much better. We think of the future hope in terms of, "Well, maybe it will be a bigger boat. Maybe it’ll be a really cool big house where things don’t break." We think, because we’re physical people, in physical terms. But for our Christian brothers and sisters who are living in poverty in so many parts of the world, and ill health and fear for their very lives, such a hope must give them such an incredible anticipation for what heaven is going to be like. But in the process, we find that people who are living in that poverty have learned, because of that poverty, what real value is, what eternal things are and already have so much joy in the midst of so much depravation because they’ve already been freed from the shackles of temporary physical values.
You know this is a dangerous prayer to pray, too, because God will answer that prayer by manifesting before their time, the true nature of the values that we embrace. We may have a value of financial prosperity and then God takes that away from us so that we can learn that it was going to disappoint us anyway. Or, the value of perfect health. Take that away. "You’re were going to lose it anyway. I’m just going to do it earlier, so that you can be freed of that value." As if a person who has their health has it all – I don’t know who made up that little line, "If you’ve got your health, you’ve got it all." But, I’ll tell you right now, he was wrong. There are plenty of people who have terrible health and yet who have everything because they have the Lord Jesus Christ and vice versa.
We can cooperate with God. We can pray a prayer that He will certainly answer by praying, "Lord, show me what really matters. Let me build my life on things that really matter. Let me embrace eternal, spiritual values and live in the pursuit of them rather than the pursuit of what’s going to disappoint me. Teach me who You are, Lord. Teach me what really matters." And when God has done that, it’s not too big of a step to number three.
"Make me part of the powerline. Make me part of the powerline." Verse 19, it really follows up with verse 18 so I’ll read that again, "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 [in addition] his incomparably great power for us who believe." It’s tempting to view this awesome power as a personal possession to be exercised for our own benefit and on our own behalf. And certainly, that’s a part of it – that this power that we may know the power would include things like knowing the power over sin, to know the power of understanding who we are in Christ. But, it goes beyond that.
Look at the purpose of God’s power. It was expressed in the resurrection and the exaltation of Christ, which is what these next several verses are about. But, look down at verse 22. After all of this power that was manifested in Christ and specifically through the resurrection, verse 22 says, "And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything…" What? "… for the church." It never ceases to amaze me how other-oriented God is. Everything He does, and He brings glory to Himself, but everything He does is for us. Everything He does is for us. He made the world for us. He created the universe for us. He gave us life. He gave us family. He gave us His Son. He raised His Son from the dead. Why? So that we could also be raised to newness of life. It’s all for us to His ultimate glory. The elevation of Jesus to Supreme Ruler of the entire universe by virtue of His victory over sin and death is for the benefit of His chosen people. That’s who it’s for. And the power that was manifested in the overwhelming defeat of sin, both at the cross and through the empty tomb, that power continues to roll out in the same way. The resurrection of millions and millions of people who were once helplessly held in the grip of sin but who, by the resurrection of Christ, the finished work of Christ, have been given new life, powerful life, victorious life and who will someday, as the crowning achievement to that life, receive a new body that will never be sick, or deaf or blind or lame or experiencing decay. The whole package. We are part of a powerline.
We are people of tremendous power because Paul prays here, "that we may know his incomparably great power for us who believe." And that is again that same word - to know completely, to know so powerfully that we are changed by it. I don’t how a person can understand power without experiencing power. If we have this power available to us, then it would be nice to use it, wouldn’t it?
Many of you who have known me for a long time, know that in the past several years I have had two cars. Well, I’ve had more than two cars, but I’ve had two cars that I really liked. And they were an ’83 Mustang 5-litre convertible and an ’89 Mustang 5-litre convertible. You know, you can sit that car in the driveway and think, "Wow, that must really be powerful." But, speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that it was a lot more fun to put your foot to the floor and kind of be tossed back in your seat and watch the other cars disappear in your rearview mirror. Now, of course, I never broke the speed limit … in Montana. But the experience of power was a lot more fun than reading about it. It was a lot more fun to go out and drive that car and see the little teenage boys pull up next to you at a stop light in their little pocket rockets and give you the look and …. "Again?" To experience it is a little bit addictive. That’s what Paul is praying for us here in this passage. "I want them to know the power that raised Jesus from the dead. Not just for themselves, to say, ’Wow, my sins are forgiven! That’s wonderful.’" And it is wonderful. "But to grab hold on that powerline and become an outlet of the power of God." The power of God was not meant just to change your life, just you singularly. It was meant to change your life so powerfully that it came out.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this guy who used to work for Moody Bible Institute. I can’t remember what his name was. I saw him do this. He would stand on a big 50,000 volt electrode, take out all his keys and everything metal in his hands. And he would stand there, and I think he had some kind of a metal thing on the end of his fingers, and he would throw that power on and the sparks would just fly out of his fingertips. You’ve ever seen that or maybe seen a movie of it? The power that God has put in our lives is not meant to just stay here. It’s meant to do its work in here so powerfully that it comes out and goes into the lives of other people; that people would be able to see the power of God in our lives, the power to deal with illness, the power to deal with the loss of a child, the power to deal with disappointment, the power to handle the problems of life and remain faithful to God. Powerlines don’t produce power. Powerlines transmit power to places where it’s needed. And you don’t have to wonder if it’s needed. Look around your neighborhood. Look around your city. Look around our world. The power of God is desperately needed everywhere we look. That’s the only reason for a church to exist.
The only reason for a church to exist, to be a part of God’s powerful, life-changing purpose. And so Paul prays, "Oh, you Ephesians, and anybody else who gets this letter, that you would take your place. That you would ask God if I may take my place. ’Make me part of this powerline, that the power that changed me can surge through me as I proclaim your powerful word both by my words and my actions so that other people will get zapped just like I’ve been zapped.’" And so we seek the Lord in line with His plan for us that we would learn who He is, that we would love Him for it, that our temporary and physical values would be replaced by those that will never disappoint us, and that we would take our place in God’s powerline. And you know, our faith is so much more than going to church for 70 years and then going to heaven, so much more than that. Change our lives so dramatically. And that’s what Paul is praying for here. He’s praying for deep, abiding, life-change. This is what we should be praying for our children, in addition to their safety and their success, that they would follow God and that they would embrace His values. This is what we should be praying for each other. It’s time to begin asking God for what’s best, His best. Pray for the needs, absolutely. Absolutely, that’s exactly what God calls us to do. And He also calls us, "Ask me for the really good stuff, the best that I have to give."
