Would you open your Bible with me please to the book of Ephesians and we'll begin looking
tonight in verse 15.
I want to talk tonight about how to pray for your church family.
It seems to me that evangelical churches like ours face a danger.
And that danger is becoming hangouts for Bible teaching addicts.
You see, Bible teaching is like spiritual medicine.
It can be used to heal and strengthen, resulting in spiritual vitality and health.
But on the other hand, it also can be abused to obtain a certain kind of high feeling that
prevents one actually from facing reality in his life and fulfilling responsibility
in his world.
I think that we observe such addicts running from one Bible conference to another following
their favorite Bible teacher celebrity.
Or if they have no means to do that, they buy stacks and storehouses of cassette tapes
by which to follow the favorite Bible teachers.
It seems paradoxical, but it's true that those who are Bible teaching addicts are often the
loudest complainers and the most vocal critics who heap disdain upon other believers who
don't have as much quote knowledge of the word, close quote, as they themselves think
they have.
In actuality, while they may fill a seat in a church, they are as bad as good to the society
of the church as ruggies are to the society of the world.
What I'm talking about is not only a concern to me, but is a concern to hundreds of pastors
and Bible teachers for that matter across this country.
I want to repeat, churches like ours face a danger and that danger is becoming hangouts
for Bible teaching druggies.
You can never satisfy such people who always want more, but strangely the more you pump
into their spiritual veins, the more spaced out and useless they become.
Frankly the devil doesn't mind a bit if a Christian studies his Bible or listens to
somebody's cassette tapes for 24 hours a day, as long as he does nothing with what he hears.
And I believe that's exactly why the Apostle Paul pauses for prayer after his first sentence
in the book of Ephesians.
Verses 3 through 14 contain some of the heaviest, deepest truths to be found anywhere in the
revelation of the word of God.
We learn here what the work of God is.
What he has done for us, that he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in verse
3.
He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
He has predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself.
In verse 7, he has redeemed us through the blood of Christ.
Verse 9, he has made known to us the mystery of his own will.
In verse 13, he has sealed us with the Holy Spirit of promise given to us as a pledge
of our inheritance.
And so we have a fabulous statement of what God has done on our behalf.
And as clear as he interweaves the truths, that all of this is done by his grace and
for his glory alone.
And how such concentrated, powerful truth as this needs to be absorbed.
And Paul knew that.
It was not enough for them simply to know these things intellectually.
They had to get a hand on them.
They had to be able to apply these things to their lives.
And so he prayed.
Listen to how he prays.
For this reason, I too having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among
you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention
of you in my prayers.
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit
of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.
The eyes of your heart having been enlightened.
There's a better rendering of that.
So that you may know what is the hope of his calling.
What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints?
And what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe?
These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might which he brought
about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the
heavenly places.
Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.
And every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things
to the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
As we look at these verses we learn something in how to pray for our church family.
Paul opens his heart here to God and to the Ephesians.
After expressing his thanks to God for them and his confidence in them, he prays on their
behalf.
Notice of his assurance that they are genuine believers because of the faith in the Lord
Jesus and the love toward the saints.
Both a vertical and horizontal test.
How do we know that these people have genuinely trusted Christ because of the faith that they
still exhibit toward Christ and the love that flows out of that toward other believers?
Faith and love go together.
Paul says, I do not cease giving thanks to God, I make mention of you in my prayers.
The sum of Paul's inspired prayer I think can be found there in verse 17, the first
part of verse 18.
And I think basically it's this, he prays that they might know God better.
He prays that they might know him more intimately.
Paul does not pray that they might have more theological facts at their fingertips.
He has given them those things in verses 3 through 14.
But what he really wants is for them to go beyond the theological facts and outlines
to a personal intimate acquaintance with the living God.
Now they're saved people remember.
They have faith in Christ, they love their brothers.
And Paul prays that they might have a greater understanding of God.
That they might have a full, complete, well-rounded knowledge of him.
He did not want them to stop with the theological truths as important as they are and as foundational
as they are.
And he wanted them to go beyond that to knowing God better.
Warren Mersby said to know God personally is salvation.
To know God increasingly is sanctification.
To know God perfectly is glorification.
It is to the second point that Paul now focuses his praying.
To know God increasingly.
As he says to the Philippians about himself, that I may know him in the power of his resurrection.
The fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death.
Paul knew the Lord as his savior, but he longed that he might know him in the same sense that
he prays the Ephesians may know the Lord.
Do you want to know how to pray for this church?
Pray that we might know the Lord better.
How do we do this?
How is it possible for us to know him?
Well, he tells us that he may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the
knowledge of him.
The full knowledge of him.
There are some who understand the word spirit there to refer to the Holy Spirit, that he
may give you the spirit, Holy Spirit of wisdom and revelation.
It is true that the Holy Spirit is the fullness of wisdom.
It is true that he is the agent of revelation.
But I don't believe he's talking here with a capital S on spirit.
Nor do I think he's talking about a human spirit.
By the way, they already have the Holy Spirit as he said in verse 13.
So he wouldn't pray that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in verse
17.
Nor does he need to pray that they might receive a human spirit.
They've already got a human spirit.
The word spirit can also mean a disposition or an attitude.
I believe that he's saying here, I pray that God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father to whom all glory be, the Father who possesses all glory, I pray that he may give
to you a disposition, an attitude of wisdom and revelation.
What he's really saying here is that I pray that God will give you an attitude of insight,
a disposition of perception that penetrates who God really is.
The eyes of your heart, he says, having been enlightened.
The Holy Spirit certainly is involved in that because the Holy Spirit is the one who teaches
and illuminates us.
He is the one who enlightens us in verse 18.
He prays that the eyes of the heart may be enlightened.
What is the heart?
We use that term today usually in speaking of our emotions.
Our hearts are stirred, we're moved with emotion.
But that is not what the Greek New Testament means when it uses this term.
When the apostle Paul spoke about the heart, he was thinking of more than just the emotions.
He was thinking of the mind, the understanding, the will.
What is the real person, the personality of the individual?
He says, I pray that your eyes, the eyes of the real you, the deepest part of you, your
inner man, may perceive the greatness of God.
I pray that you may know him better and have insight into his dealings, into his person.
When God answers that prayer, it seems to me that Paul points out that there will be
three results.
He says in verse 18, the eyes of your heart having been enlightened so that you may know.
And here's what he prays that we might know.
Here are the results of our knowing God better.
We might know in the first place, what is the hope of his calling?
Secondly, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints?
And third, what is the surpassing greatness of his power?
That you may know what, what, what.
Do you notice the outline there?
When we pray that our church may know God more intimately, when we pray that we might
have true eye spies, not just during a 50-day adventure, but every day that we live, when
we pray that way, we are praying that there may also be three results that will take place.
First of all, that we as a church may know the hope of our calling.
That's a phrase that he uses again in chapter four in verse four where he says, there is
one body, one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling.
The calling refers to the past calling of God to us, resulting in our salvation.
Turn back into the book of Romans, for example, and look in chapter one and verse six.
Here it's in the noun form.
Now let's back up to verse five.
He says, through whom, that is through Christ, we have received grace and apostleship to
bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for his namesake, among whom,
that is among the Gentiles, you also are the called of Jesus Christ.
So there is a name for we Christians.
We are not only children of God and saints and believers and all of those, but we are
the called of Jesus Christ.
This same thought is found again in chapter eight and verse 30.
But here it's in the verb form.
And again for the context purpose, start in verse 29 with me where it says, for whom he
foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son.
That he, the son, might be the firstborn among many brethren, by whom he predestined and
whom he predestined, these he also called, and whom he called, these he also justified,
and whom he justified, these he also glorified.
Now there are many other verses that we can look at in the New Testament.
But the point is, the Paul is talking about that time when you and I were called into
the fellowship of Jesus Christ.
He describes this calling act of God as a holy calling, a high calling, a heavenly calling.
It is a calling that is totally by the grace of God, apart from any human merit.
It is a sovereign calling of God to be a part of the body of Jesus Christ, the church.
That's our calling.
The point that he comes to in Ephesians, going back there, is the hope of our calling.
That we might know what the hope of our calling is.
Hope is a word that looks forward.
Calling tends to look backward into the past action of God.
But he links here a word that looks to the future.
He speaks about the hope of your calling.
Hope refers to something that we anticipate, that we expect.
It is our destiny as those who are called of Jesus Christ.
Our hope is the fullness of our salvation, which we will one day experience.
It is the victory that we will have with the Lord Jesus Christ over sin and death.
That hope is grounded in the promises of God, of which we sang earlier.
Standing on the promises of Christ, my King.
The hope of our calling does not rest upon us, but it rests upon the promises of him
who has called us.
Foot back a few pages to the book of Ephesians and look in the sixth chapter.
You know it's interesting when most people look at chapter six of Hebrews, they stop
with the first few verses and scratch their heads and close their Bibles.
So what does all that mean?
How much better if they would simply go down to the end of the chapter and read some more?
Look in verse 17 for example.
Hebrews 6, 17, in the same way God, desiring even more to show to the errors of the promise
the unchangeableness of his purpose, interposed with an oath in order that by two unchangeable
things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement.
We who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us.
Goes on to say this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast
and one which enters within the veil where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us.
The Lord Jesus is here called our forerunner.
What does that mean?
Well, the word obviously means one who has gone before, we can see that.
It is a term that was used in that day of a herald who announced the coming of someone.
Now what the writer of Hebrews is saying is this, that we have one who has gone to the
very presence of God as our forerunner.
And what he has done is announced our coming to the Father.
Isn't that a great hope?
The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has already gone into the presence of the Father and is
there announced you by name and said Father this one is coming and there is anticipation
for your arrival in heaven.
The hope of your calling.
It is a heavenly calling.
You say what kind of an assurance do we have about that?
Is Jesus going to get to heaven and announce you and then someone else say oh Father just
a minute, he's going to forget that one, let's go down to the next one on the list.
Is that what he's going to do?
No.
In fact he says here this hope we have as an anchor of the soul.
I like the picture of an anchor.
The idea that he seems to picture for us is this, that you and I are at one end of this
long rope.
Maybe we're standing on board the ship of salvation so to speak.
The rope of the anchor goes down and out and eventually up.
The anchor does not rest on the bottom of the sea but it rests up there at the very
throne of God.
You and I are secured by the promise and the oath of God.
The hope of our calling is so certain it's as though we were already in heaven but we
aren't yet in our experience.
But nonetheless there is tied about us a rope and there is an anchor that goes out into
the heavenlies and which is anchored to the very throne of God.
You see that anchor is sure and steadfast, the hope is sure and steadfast and one which
enters within the veil of the holy of holies.
That is where the anchor is placed that keeps us secure in Jesus Christ.
The hope that we have is grounded in unchangeable promises given by God to us.
Before we were saved we were a people without hope.
Ephesians 2, 12 says that, we'll study that eventually.
But now in Jesus Christ because we have been called into him we have a living hope.
We have the hope of glory.
We are a part of the church which is said to be a glorious church without spot or wrinkle.
That is our hope.
And one day we will be in the very immediate presence of Christ even as now we are in his
spiritual presence.
Paul prays all that you might know God and that knowing him you might understand that
you might be able to lay hold of the hope of your calling.
Now there are some practical ramifications to that.
In the first place it produces a purity in our lives.
When we understand the hope of our calling what we have been called to, what our destiny
is then we will purify ourselves even as he is pure.
First John 3, 3.
It produces purity in our lives.
We do not want to be tainted by sin.
We do not want to stumble and fall into the mud puddle of disobedience because we have
that destiny before us.
That hope, that calling in Jesus Christ.
It also produces perseverance.
Perseverance in our service.
Perseverance in our suffering.
When you and I understand the hope of our calling.
Do you want to pray for our church?
Then don't use the cliches that are so often used.
Pray Bible thoughts and pray that we might be given a disposition of insight and understanding
that we might have the full knowledge of God.
Our eyes being opened to perceive the hope of our calling.
But not only that, also that we might understand and know the riches of his glorious inheritance
in the saints.
Now there are two ways to read this.
Reading it one way it says that we have a glorious inheritance that is laid up for us
in heaven.
And oh that we might know that and realize it and live in the light of it.
And that's certainly true.
And there are other places in the Bible to speak about the inheritance that we receive
from God.
But it seems to me the language here suggests something else.
The idea is not the inheritance that we have.
But the idea seems to be the inheritance that God has in us.
He says that you might know the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.
It's not our inheritance, it's his inheritance.
The wealth of a great man brings honor and fame to him.
So we, by the grace of God, are the objects which God has chosen to manifest his wealth,
the wonders of his person.
We are his glorious inheritance.
He has called us to share his glory.
We usually think what we're going to receive.
As Ruth Paxson said, how seldom we think of what we are to God.
Do you understand what you are to him?
You are the love gift that God is bringing to his son to present to him.
We are his glorious inheritance.
And we grasp what God's design is in our eternal election and choice in Christ.
It must, it must cause us to humble ourselves and then to serve him with everything that
we have been given.
Someone has said God was not satisfied in possessing sons and stars.
He wanted sons and saints.
And that's what he has called to himself.
You want to pray for our church?
Pray that we might understand and get a hold of what we are to God.
Not that that should give us any cause for boasting, it does not.
But it gives us great cause for wonder and praise and humility.
As we understand that God has designed that we are his inheritance, that he has chosen
to call us to himself that throughout eternity to come, he might show the wonders and the
glories of his person in us.
He's going to talk more about that a little bit later in Ephesians.
A third result as we pray the way the Bible tells us to pray for our church is that we
will know what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe.
There are four words that Paul pulls out of his vocabulary here to describe the truth
that he wants to get across to us.
Notice that he talks in verse 19 about power, about working, about strength, and about might.
Power is the word dynamis.
We get our word dynamite or dynamo from this word.
It refers to a living dynamic force.
Working is our word energy, the Greek word energeia.
It is the operation of God's power on our behalf.
Strength is kratos.
It is a word that is related to the idea of rule or dominion.
We see it in our word democratic, kratos, democratic, the rule of the people.
The idea in this kind of a context is the abundance of power that is God's to achieve
the end that he has in mind, his strength to rule, to have dominion.
And then might refers to the latent ability that is his or the idea of the reserves of
power that are God's.
The idea really isn't that we should distinguish between these I think, but the point is this.
Paul is accumulating words.
He is just throwing out every word he can think of to make us understand the surpassing
greatness of the power of God.
This word surpassing is one of Paul's coined words.
The surpassing greatness literally means to throw beyond.
The idea is a home run.
In a home run in baseball what happens?
The ball goes over the boundary, goes over the wall.
Paul used the word here to talk about something that is beyond measurement.
It's thrown beyond what can be described.
He says the surpassing greatness of his power.
And notice that that power is toward us who believe.
It is a power that is measured by Jesus Christ's resurrection and ascension.
You know in the Old Testament the power of God is described or measured by the creation
of the world.
It is measured by what he did for Israel in delivering the nation from Egypt at the Red
Sea, parting the waters and so on.
How he caused the Jordan to dry up before the people.
How he caused the walls of Jericho to fall down and how he gave them the conquest of
the land.
All of those are descriptions or measurements of the power of God to the Old Testament people.
Now those are certainly measurements still for us today as God's people in this age.
But there is a new more wonderful measurement and that measurement is found in the resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
He says that this surpassing greatness of power are in accordance with what he did when
he brought about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.
Many say there are people who were raised from the dead in the Old Testament and yes
that is true.
But those people who were raised from the dead in the Old Testament and before Christ's
resurrection died again.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the first of his kind in resurrection.
He is the first fruits, 1 Corinthians 15.
There was not one before him who was raised from the dead as he was, new and glorious.
The same person, the same body but different, glorified, never again to be subject to death.
That glorious resurrection of Jesus Christ is our measurement of the power of God.
Coupled with his exaltation to the very right hand of God, his enthronement there to the
place of full acceptance, the right hand of God, the place of ultimate favor and supreme
power.
He describes his enthronement as being in the heavenly places and remember that that
is a key phrase in Ephesians.
It refers to the realm of spiritual things, a realm which is superior to the realm in
which we live, a realm which controls the earthly realm in which we live.
The Lord Jesus Christ is enthroned in the heavenlies.
Far above, it says, are rule, authority, power, dominion and every name that's named.
Interesting.
The apostle Paul here uses words that seem to refer primarily to the spirit world.
Not that they don't refer to the human realm as well, but he talks here about rule, he
talks about authority, he talks about power and dominion.
These seem to be levels of spiritual beings that are in the heavenlies.
The most powerful ones being those that are called the rulers, then those who are in authority,
those who are in power, those who are in dominion.
There seems to be a descending scale of power in his mind.
He says far above, not just above, but far above them all is the Lord Jesus Christ seated
at the right hand of God.
Far above any potential rivals, far above any potential enemies, our Lord is already
seated in the place of victory.
But then he brings in the most wonderful truth of all and that is that he says that we, you
and I, are in union with Christ.
That we, as he will say later in chapter two, are seated with him in that place of authority
and victory.
We share in his saving work, his death, burial and resurrection.
We share likewise in his enthronement in heaven, ascended with him and seated with him at the
right hand of God.
He says that God has put all things in subjection under his feet, an oriental expression, meaning
that everything is below him.
He is the authority over it all, the victor.
And he gave him, an interesting expression, he gave him as head over all things to the
church.
Notice that before when he talks about our being his inheritance, the idea is what he
is going to receive in us.
But now he says that he has given to us something.
He has given to us Christ, the exalted glorified God man who is head over all things.
Not just head over the church here, notice, but head cosmically over everything that is.
He is the one who is supreme in all of the universe of God.
There is not one who is above him.
And he has given him to us, whom he describes as his body, the fullness of him who fills
all in all.
Further depth in those words, he says that we who are in Christ's body, we believers,
are the fullness of him.
The amazing thought here is this, that there is some sense in which he, Christ, is not
complete without us.
For we are the fullness of him.
We are his body.
On the other hand, he is the one who fills us.
For he is the fullness of all things, including we who are his body.
He fills all in all.
Now because we are in union with this one who is incomplete without us, and certainly
without whom we are incomplete, because we are in union with him, there is surpassing
power that is ours.
We may draw upon that power.
We have access to the spiritual resources and wealth that is in Jesus Christ.
It is not available to some select group of believers, but it says here it's available
to all of us who believe.
All of us who believe, but notice it does say those who believe.
Believing is the response on our part in receiving the power that God has made available in the
Lord Jesus Christ.
As Warren Rimsby said, it is grace that supplies the wealth.
It is faith that lays hold of it.
There are some of us, and I suppose all of us from time to time, who pray that we might
have more power.
Have you ever prayed that?
Oh God, give me power to witness to my neighbor.
Oh God, give me power over this temptation.
Oh beloved, that is not precisely the way to pray.
God cannot give us more power than we already have in Jesus Christ.
What he prays is that we might know him, and as we know him, then that power will be released
in our lives.
So don't pray that you might have more power.
Pray that you might know him, for when you know him, the power will be released.
There are some people who see the Christian life as sort of battery operated.
You kind of turn it on and you go out and do your thing, but as you go through it, you
get drained.
If you're not careful, the battery runs out, so you turn off at a certain time and you
go back for a recharge.
You plug in again to that power pack so the batteries can be recharged, then you can go
back out again.
That isn't the way the Bible describes the surpassing greatness of the power.
For we're not battery powered, we are dynamo powered.
There is a dynamo within us in the person of the Holy Spirit.
The very energy of God that caused the body of the Lord Jesus to be quickened and changed
in that tomb in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, that very same energy is in you and in me.
It's dynamic.
It's always there.
It does not need to be increased.
It can't be increased because it's already exceeding, exceedingly great, surpassingly
great.
All it needs is to be plugged into.
Number of years ago when I was on a, I think a tour with a singing group from one of the
schools where I attended, we were invited by one of the hosts to go to his place of
employment.
He was an engineer who worked in an electrical, hydroelectric dam.
I don't even recall now where it was.
But I remember going there and seeing this huge lake backed up by a dam.
And we walked out onto the dam and through a door and down inside that thing.
The thing that overwhelmed me was the amount of water that was right out there just a few
feet away.
But as I went through this plant, this power plant, I was impressed with these huge, monstrous
dynamos, these generators.
What happens is the water is brought in through certain channels through that dam and through
these generators.
The result of that is that power is produced as the water flows through.
I think that that's a much better picture of the surpassing greatness of the power that
is in us than a battery.
For you see, the Holy Spirit is there, constantly producing this power in our lives.
But what we need to do is to have that power released, to be turned on, to be plugged into
that power.
You say, well, what do I need for that?
Do I need the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
What experience do I seek?
Don't need any of that.
What you need is to know Him.
And as you know Him, the byproduct is the power is released.
We don't want a church of Bible teaching druggies.
Rather, I see our church as an army, a living organism for Jesus Christ.
How do we pray for one another?
Very simply, we pray that we might know God better.
And as we know Him better, then we will know the hope of His calling.
Our lives will be purified.
We will persevere in our suffering.
We will persevere in our service because of what we've been called to be.
We will know the riches of the glory of His inheritance in us.
And knowing what He's called us to be in Christ, and that we're being given to Christ as a
love gift from the Father to the Son.
It will produce in us humility and faithfulness.
As we know Him, we will know the surpassing greatness of His power.
Not just intellectually, not just theologically, not just in some theoretical realm, but as
we know Him, that power will be produced.
The more that we as individuals know Him, the more powerful we will be as a church collectively.
The power of this church, dear people, is not in the pulpit.
Please hear that.
The power is in you.
And as we know Him, by His grace, we will experience the fullness of His power and will
be a fruitful church.
Lord, open our eyes.
Give us understanding that we might know You.
Deliver us, each one of us, I pray, from the danger of having theoretical Bible knowledge.
Deliver us from being able to quote intricate, detailed facts from the Bible and not knowing
the fullness of Jesus Christ, whom the Bible reveals.
Make us more than a Bible school where we come and learn about the Word.
And give our hearts understanding that we might know You, the Living God.