That You May Know Christ Series

Eph 1: 15-23a

Meeting Creek Oct. 22/00

Objective: To inspire desire for relationship with God and burden to pray to this end for others.

Tie in; last week we ended buy challenging you to live in the reality of the blessings.

- but how do you do it? - how do you experience them in your life as reality

- If you receive the governments blessing of $6/acre that is easy to make use of

- how do you learn to make use of these blessings?

Paul knows this can be a problem so he prays for you

- "you" by association

- his prayer for the Ephesians tells us what is necessary for us too

Read the prayer Eph 1: 15 - 23

outline the prayer:

Thanksgiving

Spirit (of wisdom and revelation)

know Him better

inner eyes to see

- hope of His calling

- riches of His inheritance

- power (known in Christ’s raised, seated, authority, all things under him)

Story of the son and the hired hand and the attempted short cut to power

- The son ties to take over the company but has no knowledge of how to run it

- the hired hand, however, knows how to run the company because knows the fathers business practices inside and out from working with him so long

- the son has the legal right to the company as we have the spiritual blessings of ephesians one but we can not use them well unless we know the one who gives them to us.

We do the same thing

- we read about hope, inheritance, and power and we think we should have it

- we seek out formulas, prayers, enlightened leaders, special interpretations ETC

all in an attempt to make these things real

- we live in a fast paced society (loans, lottery, food, banks, cars, internet, computers...)

- we want the same in our spiritual life (no temptation, holiness, miricales, joy, ...)

- we give up when we don’t get it or we feel bad

- but we have skipped over the most important thing

Paul’s prayer is that we may know Jesus better

- Holy Spirit’s wisdom and revelation and enlightened heart so we can know him

- leads to understanding of what he has called us to do (hope to live right)

- leads to understanding of our inheritance in Christ

- leads to understanding of God’s power as demonstrated in Christ

But this is all for one purpose; that we may know him better

- it is all about a relationship from beginning to end

we want a short cut to the goods but they only come through relationship

- in fact they are meant to help the relationship with God which is the goal, not the other way around

- what will be the effect of knowing the hope of his calling?

- what will be the effect of knowing our inheritance?

- what will be the effect of knowing his power past and present?

(we will be drawn into closer relationship with God)

example:

Joh 12:37 ¶ Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.

Lu 16:31 "He said to him, ’If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’"

- the demonstration of power has a purpose that people believe and come into relationship with Him

How to build a relationship (this is not rocket science)

- not know about but know personally

- talk to

- involve in all of your activities

- never enough time because it is a slow process

there are no short cuts to a good relationship

- the old standards, read bible, pray, meditate, fasting, church body life

This is for you and this is for others when you prayfor them pray this prayer of Paul’s