Ephesians: Our Identity In Christ
Part 4
Eyes of the Heart
Ephesians 1:15-19
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. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, 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. (Ephesians 1:15-19a)
Heart problems abound in our culture. In a society so fast-paced as ours, heart problems are inevitable. I heard of a Spanish professor from Cuba. He had fled the country years before when Castro took over. There he had been the owner of a factory. He talked about the heart problems we Americans face. This Spanish professor thought they could well be avoided. He described the lifestyle of work in his former country. He told of the long lunch breaks that lasted approximately two hours. The workers would go home for a hot lunch and a nap, called a siesta. Then they would return to work. Although they worked there eight hours, they did it in such a way that there was a time to relax. He said to me that heart attacks were not common in his country. And he implied that we Americans ought to take it a little easier.
Well, of course, we could tell him a thing or two! We don't have time for a siesta. In fact, there is hardly time for sleep at all. We live in a culture where we have to work hard, and long. The stress level is high. We have to eat on the run. Push, push, push - that's the American way of life. But, that is our problem, isn't it? We do work hard. We work so hard that there is no time to smell the flowers and enjoy life. So, in our culture, we have heart problems. It's a big problem.
But there is another kind of heart problem which is even bigger. You may call it blindness of the heart. You may have never heard of this problem, but I can assure you it does exist. In fact, it exists universally among non-believers, and is too often found among believers. Many have hearts that cannot see. Unfortunately, they are like Rose Crawford, who had been blind for 50 years. She had her sight restored in a simple surgical procedure in an Ontario hospital. But she could have seen twenty years earlier. There were techniques which had been developed that made twenty years of blindness unnecessary. Sadly, she hadn't known. She wept for joy when she could see, but she had suffered twenty years of blindness needlessly. If only she had known.
Did you know that the heart can see? In our text, this is what Paul prays for us. He prays that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. Did you know your heart had eyes? It does. Unless you learn to see with the eyes of your heart, you will never really see Jesus as you should.
Until now, Paul has been describing who we are and what we possess in Christ. From verse 3 through 14, we have a 203 word sentence. It is as if Paul began to describe the richness found in Christ and could find nowhere to stop. He piles word upon word in an attempt to do justice to the richness of Christ's grace. And now we come to a place where he launches forth in a prayer that we might see what he's been describing. It is as if he somehow knows that mere human language can never describe adequately the glory of Christ. He knows we really need to see these truths. And he knows that all that we need is found in Jesus Christ. Already he has told us that Christ is the sum of all things. And now he prays 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. To accomplish this, he prays that we might experience a revelation that will bring us to a deep and intimate knowledge of Him. He prays that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. He desires that the light of God's revelation may shine on your souls so that you may know all that God has done for you, in you, and through you.
Intellectual understanding of Christ is not enough. Alfred North Whitehead once commented that "a merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth." [1] We need more than intellectual understanding. We need to really see. We need to see because we need hope in a hopeless world. We need resources for our spiritual poverty. We need power to live. These things are all found in Christ. And we must see that with our hearts if we would truly see.
He speaks of the eyes of our heart. The heart in Scripture is the seat of the will, intellect, and emotions. The mind informs, but the emotions experience. What we are being told here is that we need to experience the wonder and the thrill of knowing Jesus better. We are told that the purpose of this revelation is that we come to the knowledge of Him. The word for knowledge here is a compound Greek word which means "intimate knowledge." In 1:18 the word for know means "to know by experience." In other words, we need to experience Jesus. The old hymn says, "All that thrills my soul is Jesus." Our souls need to be thrilled in Jesus. We need to experience personally the joy and glory found in Christ.
It is much like music, or a sunset, or a delicious dinner. You can represent these things logically and analytically if you so choose. A musical score, for instance, is the mathematical representation for music. A marvelous concerto or symphony can be represented by the notes on a page. Or you can represent music by sine waves, where you can analyze the varying wavelengths of sound. But this is not experiencing music. Looking at notes on a page doesn't thrill you like being surrounded by a full orchestra soaring to the heights. Likewise, you can describe color by wavelengths and frequencies. But you must see color to really know how a color looks. You can describe taste anatomically. You can describe the chemical reactions which occur when we bite into a lemon. But you will never experience the pungent sour taste of a lemon until you bite into one yourself.
We can describe God theologically. We can list His attributes, and describe His work in creation and redemption. But unless we experience God ourselves, we will never truly know Him. "Taste and see that the Lord is good," says Psalm 34:8. This is what we need. This is what Paul calls us to in this passage.
We must open our minds and our hearts to what God has to say to us. We do not merely need to open our minds and hearts for the sake of opening them. G. K. Chesterton once described H. G. Wells as someone who "reacted too swiftly to everything." He said about Wells, "I think he thought that the object of opening the mind is simply opening the mind. Whereas I am incurably convinced that the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid." [2] And we do indeed have something solid on which to shut our minds and hearts. Paul prays that we would have a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, that our hearts might see, the hope, the riches, and the power which are ours in Christ. Seeing the revelation of who we are and what we have been given in Christ is what makes the difference in how we will live.
The Hope Of His Calling
Paul prays that we know what is the hope of His calling. It should be apparent that we do need hope in a hopeless world. A number of years ago, off the coast of Massachusetts, a ship rammed an S-4, submarine. The submarine sank before anyone could escape. The entire crew was trapped. Ships rushed to the scene of the disaster, but there was nothing any of them could do. They were forced to watch and wait. Divers were sent down to evaluate the tragic situation. One man put his helmeted ear against the vessel and listened for any sounds. What he heard was someone tapping in Morse code. Because he knew Morse code he could decipher the message. It was this: "Is - there - any - hope?" To those people trapped in that submarine that question had become an eternal question. [3] But for all of us, it really is an eternal question. We need hope. At times life looks so completely dark and bleak that we virtually despair of hope.
Some people have no hope. Vincent Donovan was a missionary among the nomadic Masai people of East Africa. The Masai were victims of intense cruelty at the hands of Arab slave-traders and their European backers. The last stop on the mainland before they were carried abroad for slavery was given a name by this proud people. They called it Bagamoyo. Bagamoyo comes from two words: bwaga, which means "to throw or put down," and moyo, which means "heart." As these people were captured far inland, they were then driven to the coast toward Zanzibar. They sailed from Bagamoyo, where they "put down their hearts" - with no hope for freedom. Donovan also discovered that the Masai language has no future tense. [4] For people without hope, there's no need to think of the future. Why think of the future when there's no hope for change. The Masai are not the only people who have felt totally hopeless. But Christians need never feel that way. For us there is hope. For us there is a bright tomorrow. God in Christ has assured us of it.
But we do not need to despair of hope. We have a hope in Christ. It is the hope of His calling. What is His calling? It is who we are in Christ. The Bible teaches us that He has called us with a high-calling (Philippians 3:14), a holy calling (2 Timothy 1:9), and a heavenly calling (Hebrews 3:1). It is the calling described in Romans 8:28-30: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son." In other words, God has called us to be conformed to the image of Christ. This is who we are in Christ. This is who we are becoming in Christ. We are being changed to be like Christ, because He lives in us. It is a calling which is sure. In fact, Romans 11:29 says that this calling cannot be changed: "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." God began the work in us and God will carry it on to completion. 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says, "Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." In Philippians 1:6 we read, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." In Christ we are secure. The future is full of hope for the believer, because we have been called by a God who will not let anything deter Him from bringing us fully mature into the image of Christ.
The Riches Of His Inheritance
God wants us to know of the riches of His inheritance. Some people only measure riches in terms of material possessions. I heard of a pastor who said, "My car is so rusty, I need a tetanus shot to drive it." But true riches are not material.
God has not only shown us who we are in Christ, He has also shown us what we possess in Christ. We possess "all spiritual blessings" in Christ (v. 3). We possess "an inheritance" in Christ (vv. 11-12). Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have all co-operated in this effort. The Father has chosen us and predestined us. The Son has redeemed us by His blood and forgiven us. The Spirit has sealed us and guaranteed us an inheritance. We are already rich indeed in Christ.
Warren Wiersbe tells the story of William Randolph Hearst's desire to acquire a valuable piece of art. It seems he had read about this piece of art and determined he had to have it. He sent his agent to scour the world to find this art. After the agent had searched for months, he finally reported that he had found the treasure. It was in a warehouse owned by Mr. Hearst. It was already his! Had he taken the time to read a list of the treasures he owned, he would have found that he already possessed what he wanted. [5] We must begin to experience the inheritance we already have in Christ.
But not only has God given us an inheritance, He has made us an inheritance. Our text talks about His inheritance in the saints. Our inheritance is found in Christ. God's inheritance is found in the saints. In other words, God has given Christ to us, and us to Christ. We are His people. We are agents of the Kingdom. God has given us to the world, and also to one another. He has gifted us for ministry, and will use us to display His power and glory. He delights in us as we reach out our hands to minister in His name.
The Greatness Of His Power
Now, in order to live lives which reveal our inheritance, we must have power beyond our own. So we are not only told who we are in Christ, whose we are, and what riches we have, we are told whose power operates within us. Part of Paul's prayer is that we would see His power. We do not have to face life in our own strength. God has directed His power toward us who believe. And it is in this power that we find the strength to live.
We do not have to be exasperated with our own lack of strength. God has not called us to live in our own power. He has called us to rely upon His power. Our power is not enough. Our power frustrates us. Thank God we do not have to live in our power.
It is power that we already have. God causes His power to work in us as we trust Him by faith. Like a lamp plugged into an electrical outlet, the power is there, all we need to do is turn it on. And faith is the switch which turns on the power. That is why Paul prays for our enlightenment. Only as we begin to see these things by faith will we walk in them. Only as we begin to see who we are in Christ will we hold our head up high. Only as we begin to see whose we are, and what God has given us in Christ will we begin to enjoy what we have. And only as we begin to see whose power we have will we begin to function on the level of that power.
Do you see what seeing with the eyes of the heart can do for you? Seeing the revelation of the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe will meet several basic needs we all have. We all need hope in this hopeless world. In Christ we have that hope. He has called us with an irrevocable calling. The future is secure. We all need resources for life. In Christ we have an inheritance. We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. He has gifted us. He has equipped us. All we need is found in Him. And we need power for living. Our lack of power is overcome by exchanging our power for His power. He has given us all we need. We stand complete in Him.
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Footnotes
[1].LeRoy Lawson, Galatians/Ephesians (Cincinnati: Standard, 1987), p. 153.
[2].G. K. Chesterton, Autobiography (London: Hutchinson, 1937), pp. 223, 224.
[3].Gene A. Getz, Looking Up When You Feel Down (Ventura: Regal Books, 1985), pp. 80-81.
[4].Vincent J. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1978), pp. 4-20.
[5].Warren W. Wiersbe, Be Rich (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1976), p. 30.
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