Ephesians 1:1-23 | The Knowledge that Must Grow | Nathan Walter

What to pray for the person who already has everything

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Uh Clarissa, thanks so much for reading for us. And good morning, everyone. It's really lovely to be with you again. Two quick things to let you know before we really get going. The first is just to express my thanks for the way that you've welcomed me in among you these couple of weeks. So this is my last of three weeks. As part of this four-week series in Ephesians 1 and 2. I spoke uh yesterday to Sean, and he's looking forward to being here next week and going through Ephesians 2 with us. But today is my last day, and um but I'm so thankful for the fellowship that we've shared together over these three weeks and the way that you've uh you've welcomed me in among you. Um I will be at the door greeting uh at the end of the service, but I apologise after that I will probably need to shoot off. Um thanks so much, Silas. I can I can make do with that. Oh, thank you. Uh I'm helping one of our sons today, he needs to get to the airport uh for a for a trip that he's doing, and so I'll uh need to shoot off, um, but I'll be at the door to greet you. But thank you so much for having me these three weeks. Uh the second, as you've probably twigged already, I apologise my voice is a little bit deeper and a little bit dustier than normal. Uh before I met any of you three weeks ago, I had a cold, and uh, my usual custom is for that to settle into my chest. That means I've been coughing a lot to um try and clear all that, and just means my voice is uh a bit dying because of all the coughing. So I apologize for that, but I have some water coming because silence is thoughtful and kind. What do you buy for the person who has everything? Uh I expect that many of us are a little bit familiar with that conundrum. Uh we are fortunate to live in a time and place and circumstance where most of our needs are already very well met, and that can sometimes make birthdays and Christmases a little bit challenging. And uh if you do a Google search, what do you buy for the person who has everything? There are entire websites now devoted to helping you find an answer to that question. But let me change one word in the question and turn it into something which I think is uh immensely more important. What do you pray for the person who has everything? Because I think that's really the question we face today. Uh over the last two weeks, we have heard the Apostle Paul praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. That richly woven tapestry of an almost impossibly long sentence, uh intricately full of one idea after another, as Paul uh helps us to see all that God from eternity to eternity has so generously done to lavish on us the glorious riches that are in Christ. And so I'm so uh glad that we had our reading. Uh Clarissa did exactly the right thing starting back at verse 1. I hope you didn't go, well, this isn't right. We've heard that the last two weeks. No, we wanted to start, we wouldn't do this all the time. You wouldn't do it if you were in Isaiah 62 and you go, look, we're starting in Isaiah 1 and we're going to read through. But I wanted us to do that here for Ephesians 1, so that we we could see that build-up of ideas. Because if everything has been given and nothing withheld, what is left to pray for such people? What more from God could we possibly ask? Our passage today gives us Paul's answer to that question, and I'm confident that this is going to help us all because from time to time the reality is we all need some refreshment to help us pray. And I think there's really two basic parts to it. First of all, Paul gives God thanks, and second, he asks God's help. So, first of all, he gives God thanks. You see it in verse 15. For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your love for all God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Now, even just this much is instructive, isn't it? I'm certain in my own prayer life, and I suspect it's true for many of us, that we are insufficiently thankful to God for all that he has done. And although Paul's prayers hardly ever finish here, in almost every example I can think of, he goes on to pray and to ask for God's help for other things. Yet they hardly ever start anywhere but here. Thank you so much. He begins with giving God thanks for what he has done. Now, in this case, what prompts his thanksgiving is hearing of the Ephesians' faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for all God's people. And of course, these are the classic signs of a person's true conversion, aren't they? Whenever we see a person in whose life pagan idolatry has given away to faith in the Lord Jesus and hostility has given way to love for God's people, well, there is a situation where we should be confident about the genuineness of someone's Christian profession. Because that transformation is so remarkable, it's so complete. Wherever the gospel is truly believed and the lordship of Christ is truly accepted, lives are transformed like this. People's trust, their confidence, their boast before God and before people is now no longer in themselves or in anything they have done, but in the Lord Jesus Christ who died and rose again. And in remarkable ways, they now have a deep and practical affection for the people of God. But since such a transformation is only brought about by the gracious work of God, in all of the ways described in verses 3 to 14 that we've been looking at these last two weeks, then of course Paul gives thanks to God for these things that he has heard about the Ephesians. Now, likewise, in our praying for one another here at St. Albans, or actually in our praying for Christians in any place, and most especially in our praying as we hear about new Christians in any place, we should give God thanks for his work in people's lives. It has been deeply encouraging to me uh over just these last two weeks, and again, even this morning, with a conversation from someone at our earlier service, uh, to meet and to hear of members of St. Albans who have come to faith in Christ and a love for God's people through the Alpha Course, for example, that is run right here at St. Albans. I hope that warms your heart. We should never take it for granted. Just what a great work of God something like this is. It is such a miracle that God has performed, that someone has experienced this transformation. And so, just like Paul, our prayers for God's people should always begin with giving thanks to God for them. But still, uh, what do we pray for them? Well, here in chapter one, because there's another prayer over in chapter three that you know we'll get to if we kept reading the letter far enough, but here in chapter one, I think there's really just one thing that Paul prays for, and it's in verse 17. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. There's no one right way for us to address God in prayer. There are certainly wrong ways, but there's no one right way. Paul speaks here of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father. He's the Father in the sense that he is both the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through him our Father in heaven as well. He's the glorious Father because his splendor is unmatched and he will not give it to another. And as we've heard over the last two weeks, especially last week, everything he's done in his work of salvation is to the praise of his glorious grace. And he is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ in the sense that everything he has for us, both the blessings he's already given, as well as his hearing and answering our prayers in the present, everything he has for us is only ours in and through Christ. There's no other access to the throne of grace. There's no other path to God. But what Paul asks is that God would give to the Ephesians the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they may know him better. I think it's almost certain that Paul is thinking of the Holy Spirit, and I think that's why it's a capital S in our English translations, because the work of God's Spirit is always to take what belongs to God and to make it known to us, so that we may know him more deeply and more truly than we have before. Notice then that what Paul is asking for is not simply knowing about God. We can sometimes have that approach to things, and you know, we think if I've been in church for long enough, I've heard enough sermon series and I've been in a Bible study group for long enough, and I've done enough studies of just racking up my frequent flyer miles in the Bible, and I'm learning more and more about God. But no, no, not knowledge about God. That's not what Paul's praying for, but but knowing God. One is merely an intellectual pursuit, the other is deeply personal. It's the language of genuine relationships. Indeed, there are points in the New Testament where to know God is virtually synonymous with being saved. And that's why this knowing God is the work of God's Spirit, who is indeed the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. He is the Spirit who illumines our hearts, kind of shines light into our hearts so that more and more we understand and embrace the ways and the word and the character and the very many excellencies of God. Do you begin to see and be reminded how not just our salvation at the first, but also our ongoing road to maturity in Christ? Both of these things are so fully dependent upon the gracious work of God in our hearts. But here's a question. Didn't Paul make a big thing last week, uh especially in verse 13, for example, about how the Ephesians have already been marked in Christ with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing the things to come. Well, if God has already given them his spirit, how is now Paul praying that God would give them his spirit? Isn't that a little bit contradictory? But actually, I think it tips us off to one of the most important aspects of Paul's prayer. Um, one person, uh, we'll get this up on the screen. Thank you so much, uh, Ferdi. Uh one person has made this kind of explanation of things, and I found this helpful. I wanted to share it with you. Unlike so many contemporary Christians, the apostle does not pray for fresh spiritual blessings, as though he's unaware of the fact that God has graciously given them every spiritual privilege in Christ, but he does not assume that because everything is theirs in Christ, they do not need to grow in their understanding or experience of these Christian blessings. In other words, what do you pray for the person who has everything? Not new things per se, but certainly a deeper knowledge and experience of the things already given. And so Paul prays that God would give his spirit even to those who already have his spirit, that they might indeed continue to know God better. Well, uh, what else does Paul pray for? Uh verse 18. I pray 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 his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. In our NIV translations here, it sounds like we've kind of got a whole new thing that Paul's saying, Look, I pray for this as well. Um I think it's a little bit like verses 3 to 14, though. Remember, that was in in original Greek, there was all one sentence, very hard to kind of translate that way in English, and so they put lots of sentences in. And same thing here, uh, I think that this fact that this is a new sentence just reflects the complexity of what Paul wrote originally in Greek. In reality, it's just an elaboration of the prayer in verse 17, it's not something new. Because you see, the gift of God's Spirit does not only help believers to know God better, he helps them to know all of God's spiritual blessings better. Um, but again, it's not mere head knowledge that Paul is talking about here. And uh, you know, I'm a Sydney Anglican ordained minister, and at times, um, you know, uh, Sydney Anglicans, we can be accused of uh being a little bit overly concerned with with knowledge about, but that's not what Paul's talking about. It's just uh it's not uh knowledge about, mere head knowledge, the eyes of our heart being enlightened is what Paul's speaking about here. The deep truths of our salvation laying down deep tracks on our soul. But there are three things in particular that Paul wants believers to know. First of all, the hope to which he's called them, that is, the goal of their salvation. Eternal life in the age to come, in the presence of God, as citizens of the eternal kingdom of Christ. It's been said by some people that generally today people think too little of the future and almost never of eternity. I don't know whether you think that's right or not, but in as much as it's true, those who know Christ are meant to buck that trend. Um I do want to say this very gently, because I've only been with you two weeks, and so there's every chance I may have this wrong, and if I have it wrong, by all means, please come and talk with me about it. Someone did after the early service. I may have this wrong. But I'm conscious that many of us are in a stage of life where we're concentrating perhaps on things like career or mortgage, or perhaps children at school and how they're going to be growing up and what their future holds. It seems to me that uh all of these things, none of them in and of themselves wrong, um, but in all of those areas, the world will train us and teach us and at times tempt us to put ourselves first and to live for our comforts and pleasures in the here and now. But as Christians, we've been called to far greater things than these. And so we need God's help to realign all of our values, and we need God's help to realign all of our commitments and all of our loves. So that we fix our eyes on the hope of our calling, and don't live for what is passing away, but live for what is eternal. Second, uh, Paul wants believers to know the riches of God's glorious inheritance in the saints. Uh, there's a subtle uh development here from the ideas we heard about last week, if you were here. Um there it was the idea that uh God has uh we we've come into an inheritance that God has prepared for us. The Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance and guaranteeing what is to come. Um but I think here it's not so much that Paul's thinking about the inheritance that God gives his people, he's thinking about the fact that God's people are God's inheritance. Uh he wants the Ephesians to understand how precious they are in the sight of God. Uh simply because by his mercy and grace he so closely identified them with Christ that he has lavished on them the riches of Christ. That is now how he sees them. He cannot help but see his people in relation to Christ. Do you remember what God said to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19? They gathered there, come out of Egypt, out of slavery, gathered at Mount Sinai. Out of all nations, you will be my treasured possession. Tucked away in the book of Zechariah, he describes his people as the apple of his eye. These are just the most tender descriptions, aren't they? That speak to us of how God regards his people. And here it is that we would understand what a precious inheritance God regards us, his people. That has got to transform the way we we view one another, doesn't it? As brothers and sisters in Christ. It's got to transform the way we view our gathering together like this, week by week. It's got to transform how we would persevere through hardship. As we remember, actually, God has not forgotten us. He's not unaware of our situation. We are precious to him, and he is always guiding us. Finally, Paul wants the Ephesians to know God's incomparably great power for us who believe. And clearly, this is something that Paul is really concerned about because he spends the next three and a half verses unpacking for the Ephesians what God's incomparably great power is like. Have a look with me halfway through verse 19. He says, That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but also the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. See, it takes a lot of power for God to overturn the effects of sin. It takes a lot of power for God to respond to a world that is in rebellion against him and to reorganize it so that it's all in the right order. It's not just the power to raise Christ from the dead, but also the power to then lift him up and seat him at his right hand in heaven, far above every rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that you could give, whether now or in the future. But it's not just the power to raise him up into heaven and seat him at his right hand in glory, it's also the power to place everything under his feet. In subjection to his rule. But it's not just the power to place everything under his feet in subjection to his rule. It's also the power to establish him as the head over everything. For the sake of the church, which is his body. It's no wonder that Paul describes God's power as incomparably great. You could find the second, next most powerful thing in the universe, and you put it next to God's power, there's no comparison. That's what God's power is like. But the real shock of Paul's prayer is that the incomparably great power of God that did all this is the incomparably great power of God that is available for believers. And Paul wants the Ephesians to know this power of God that is available to them. He wants them to experience this power of God that is available to them. Now my hunch is that for the Ephesians, this would have been a very striking thing to find out that Paul was praying for them. Ephesus was home to the temple of the great goddess Artemis, who's one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was an absolute pillar of Ephesian kind of economic, political, civic, religious life. Ephesus was also home to the practice of much magic and pagan superstition. I don't know if you can recall in the book of Acts, chapter 19, Paul was in Ephesus and preaching the gospel, and when people who had come from a pagan kind of magic and sorcery background heard the gospel and trusted in Christ, and they said, well, we've got to get rid of all our magic scrolls. We'll bring them together, we'll set them on fire. And they calculated the value of the scrolls that were burned. It was 50,000 drachmas, which is 50,000 days' wages worth. I tried to figure out how I can make that more meaningful. I think it ends up to be something like 136 years of wages for a one person. That was the value of the magic scrolls that were burned just off the people who became Christians. This is a place where spiritual dark arts are happening left, right, and center. I mean, it's no wonder that Ephesians is the book where Paul talks, perhaps more than any other New Testament letter, about the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms. And he, in chapter 6, you get to the end of the letter and he starts talking about the spiritual warfare in which Christians are engaged all the time. And that's Ephesus. And I wonder, living in that context, possibly, probably, the Christians in Ephesus felt a little bit overwhelmed. A little bit outgunned. A little bit outmusled. Maybe a little bit powerless. Now, our context is very different. And yet, for very different reasons, I suspect it's probably pretty easy for us also to feel a little bit overwhelmed sometimes as Christians in our society. A little bit outgunned. A little bit outmuscled, a little bit powerless. As the forces of secular liberalism keep on working to silence any public Christian voice, or to stifle any public Christian living, or to cover over more and more of our Judeo-Christian heritage, culturally speaking. Or maybe we go a bit more personal and we find ourselves going through a time of testing and trial, or of sickness and grief, or of burdens and anxieties, or of our deep concern for the ones that we love who don't love the Lord, or who seem to be slipping away from the Lord. And you put all this together. Do you not think we also could do with having a better knowledge of God's incomparably great power that is available to us in Christ? And so we've got to keep coming back to the scriptures to hear and believe the gospel again. To keep being reminded both where Christ is now, seated at the right hand of God in heaven, and where everything else is now, beneath his feet. And how it came to be like this, which was by the power of God. Because that is what is available to us in Christ. Well, we began with a question: what do you buy for the person who has everything? And we improved it to something far more important, which is what do you pray for the person who has everything? In the way we've discovered over the last two weeks is true for everyone who has trusted in Christ. And I take it that having looked at what Paul prayed, we've now got an answer. First of all, we give God thanks for such people. We give God thanks for his work in their life that has produced faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and a love for God's people. Only God can do that. So let's give him thanks for it. Whenever we pray for God's people. And then after that, we ask that God would continue working in their life, giving them the spirit of wisdom and understanding so that they would know him better. That they would have the eyes of their heart enlightened in order to know the hope to which he's called them. Their great preciousness in the sight of God and God's amazing power that's at work and available for those who believe. And I don't know about you, but when I compare what Paul prayed for with the things that I often pray for, I can't help but feel a little bit rebuked. But on the flip side, I hope, along with me, you find it also a little bit genuinely exciting to see that possibility of learning to pray along with Paul when you pray for fellow believers. In the Bible study group that uh my wife and I are part of uh up the coast, uh, one of the members of our group has uh just this week undergone a significant surgery. And um, of course, as a group, we've been praying for him regularly. We've been praying for his relief from immense physical pain. We've been praying for a good outcome from his surgery, we've been praying that his recovery would be swift. We've been praying for his wife and his children while he is a little bit out of action. And those are all fine things for us to pray for. They really are. And not one thing wrong with them. But you know, here I was this week preparing to preach on this passage, and I found myself thinking, well, how do I adjust those prayers in light of what I've so convinced that Paul prayed for? For the Ephesians. And so I kept on praying for the things I've been praying for, and then I added on to those things that through this trial this brother would come to know God better and to trust him more. Now that may not seem particularly revelationary to you, and you might find better ways of taking what Paul prayed for and adding that into your prayers, but uh that that was that's an example, I guess, of how I've sought to be shaped this week by God's word. And when I wrote to this friend, I sent him a little text and told him what I was praying for. I hope not in any sense of trying to uh boast, uh, but simply in the same spirit that I take it Paul shared with the Ephesians what he prayed for, for their encouragement. So often I think what we pray for is that people's circumstances might change. In contrast to that, I think the New Testament prayers are invariably that in whatever circumstance people are in, they themselves would be changed as God works in them, and that they themselves would therefore become more mature in Christ. Not fresh spiritual blessings, remember, but rather as those who in Christ have already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, that we would come to have a deeper appreciation of the things already given and a deeper knowledge of the one who gave them. Will you join me as we pray together? Our gracious Father in heaven, our God of our Lord Jesus Christ, we boldly ask that you might give to us also the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, so that we may know the hope to which you have called us, and the riches of your glorious inheritance in the saints, and truly your incomparably great power for us who believe. We pray this in the name of Christ. Amen. Amen.