“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.”
A very interesting thing happened to me early in this past week. In fact, it really began last Sunday afternoon, and I began working on this sermon early Tuesday morning.
What happened was that I began feeling that I was not giving you, as a congregation, the right thing. I began to entertain thoughts that this study in Ephesians was boring and that I aught to try to be just a little more entertaining; lighten up a bit; address topics that more lent themselves to giving you counsel for the hard days and encouragement for the uncertain future.
When I go to a sermon resource site on the internet, I see that to a large extent, the most recent sermons submitted there deal with what’s going on in the world at the moment. Right now everyone seems to be cranking out sermons centered on the first anniversary of the September 11 murders last year.
There are even ‘Labor Day’ sermons. I haven’t seen one yet, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see ‘Back to School’ sermons ~ and I can pretty much guarantee you that in about 4 more weeks as I check that website, I’ll begin seeing ‘Halloween’ sermons.
Now, I know there is a place for addressing these various things (except maybe, ‘back to school’), and to some degree it is important that preaching touch people where they are. Anyone preaching to a specific congregation of people over a long period of time should find opportunity to speak to the issues of life. Pain. Grief. Financial Stewardship. Family. Being a Christ-like example in the workplace.
But since you very wonderful people have chosen to make Cornerstone Christian Chapel your church home, and since you have given your monetary and spiritual and emotional support to this ministry, I want to share my heart with you this morning on what I see as my responsibility to you, so that you will know what to expect from me and understand my motivation in bringing God’s Word to you in the style that I do.
Our text today has provided the perfect opportunity to do that, and, in fact, the content of our text is the very thing that inspired me to share this information with you.
I just think it’s interesting that I began experiencing this angst, this uncertainty, shortly after preaching to you last Sunday, and then when I sat down two days later and began my study I found encouragement right there in the next verse, that I should keep my focus more on the Holy Spirit’s role in my preaching and in your lives. Let me go on to explain.
If you remember last week’s message, you will recall that Paul was praying for his readers that the Father of glory would give to them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
The wisdom he was talking about referred to learning. Not the kind of wisdom we often mean these days when we’re talking about knowing how to best deal with a situation, or knowing when to keep our mouth shut and so on. But what we mean when someone is so saturated with knowledge on a given subject that he or she is just naturally the one you turn to when you want to know something about it.
Paul wants his readers to have this kind of wisdom in the Word of God. But more, and indispensably vital to the understanding of the Word, he wants his readers to have God’s revelation of Himself through that word...that knowledge, that wisdom.
You may remember that I encouraged you to pray that for each other, and asked that you pray that for me. And this brings us, not only to the text of our study today, but also to the reason I preach the way I do and place my focus where I do.
You see, Paul prays for the Ephesians, and therefore for all believers, and I pray for you, that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened to see and understand certain things.
Before we go on to look closely at what those things are that we are to see and understand, I don’t want it to escape your notice that the seeing and understanding of them is dependant on God’s enlightenment.
Christians, I am afraid that very much of the preaching in our pulpits today consists of counsel (some of it very worldly) and advice that anyone, churched or unchurched, may understand and glean some benefit from; but that is not necessarily grounded in the wisdom and revelation of God’s Word.
As a preacher, I don’t have many opportunities to sit and hear other preachers, unless I listen to them on the radio, or find manuscripts of other’s preaching and read them. So I do not intend to launch an attack on radio ministries today, and I’ll preface my next remarks by saying some of these guys are far more talented in the craft than I ever hope to be.
I love to tune in and listen to Alistair Begg from Cleveland, Ohio, whenever I get the chance. Frankly, I love the Scottish accent so much that I’d tune in to listen to him read ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’, but happily, his preaching is also Biblical, and rich with significance for the believer’s life, and filled with the Holy Spirit’s influence.
And there are others whose preaching is valid and helpful and Spirit-led. But I have to warn you today believers, be careful to think through and analyze what you are hearing, and be discerning of its true worth.
Because there have been times that I have sat listening to some, and while I chuckled at their jokes, and was touched by some of their illustrations, and had to agree with their commentaries on the state of our society and its ills and the direction we’re taking as a nation, and all of the other current issues they address, in the end I realized that they had said nothing that would serve to enlighten me to the deeper things of God, or who I am in His eternal plan.
I was very effectively told how I should conduct myself as a Christian, and I was very cleverly made to feel just a twinge of shame that my prayer life isn’t what it should be, and that maybe I allow too much of the attitude of the world to creep into my daily life and that maybe I’m not always the example I should be to my children...
...but in the end, even the end of a feel-good sermon that finished on a very positive note and left me feeling somewhat lifted up, I hadn’t heard anything that would require the enlightening power of God’s Holy Spirit in order for me to comprehend it. And that, my friends, is the element that should never, never be missing from the pulpit of Christ’s church.
Now, while I was entertaining my doubts last week, and engaging in just a tiny bit of self-pity that I don’t seem to have the ’zing’ that some of these other preachers possess, or the great accent that makes any sermon pleasant to listen to
(“If ye don’ strrrraighten oot, yer goin’ strrrraight ta Hell” ~ ahhhh, that was wonderful; say it again...)
I asked my very honest and loving wife if my sermons in Ephesians were boring.
I don’t ask anyone else you see, for the same reason a mechanic doesn’t ask me how he should fix my car, and a doctor doesn’t seek my counsel as to how to treat a patient.
But I also don’t ask others because it wouldn’t be fair to them, in that no one wants to hurt the preacher’s feelings.
But my wife I can trust. She won’t puff me up, but she loves me too much to crush me. So I trust her.
Her response to my question was, “They’re not boring; just a little dry at times, but not boring”.
So I determined that I would try to be a little more ‘wet’. Maybe spend a little more time digging for good illustrations; good stories to share. You see, even us preachers can keep learning if we try.
But I want you to understand today, that I must never lose sight of the task I’ve been given to do. I must never lose my focus and let myself be deceived into thinking I must keep you happy by giving you fluff. I must never let myself be lulled into the death trap of thinking that I’ll lose you if I don’t boost your egos enough, or make you laugh enough, or ...
Listen. Jesus is the light of the world. It is He, and He only, who makes the blind eyes see.
In recent weeks we’ve seen that the natural mind cannot comprehend the things of God because they are spiritually appraised; and we’ve seen that only those with the indwelling Holy Spirit, revealing the things of God to them, can begin to know and understand Him.
So no matter how talented the man in the pulpit may be; no matter his natural charisma, or his lovely accent, or his ability to cleverly weave illustrations and stories with exegesis of the Hebrew/Greek languages; no matter the depth of his discernment of present politics and the world’s spiraling condition...
...he is no good, he is powerless and impotent, unless through his message God is enlightening the eyes of your understanding, so that you may know.
As we go on to talk about these three things Paul prayed for the Ephesians and that I pray for you, I want you to know, my friends, that not just today, because we’re in Ephesians 1:18,19, but every time I have opportunity to teach God’s Word, my primary purpose and goal will be to give you something that God’s Holy Spirit can use to draw you closer to Christ, to continue the process of conforming you to His image, by the enlightenment that only He can bring to your heart.
And I know that if I am faithful to that call, and as He does His enlightening work in your heart, He will also give you wisdom and strength and peace and assurance and confidence to successfully react and respond to the circumstances and events of daily life.
So let’s talk about
THE HOPE OF HIS CALLING.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling.
Now we’ve talked about this word ‘hope’ in the past. It is not a hope for things, like I might ‘hope’ that someday we’ll have the largest and most active church in Montrose or on the Western slope. Or someone might ‘hope’ that someday they will be able to afford that home they want to buy, or retire to that Caribbean condo they have their eye on.
It is an assurance. It is a confident and joyful expectation, and a firm conviction that what has been promised is a sure and imminent thing.
So what is our hope? It is the hope ~ or confident assurance ~ of His calling.
Now I want you to be clear on this point. There is a general calling that goes out to the whole world from God. The calling of the gospel of Jesus Christ is for all, in a general sense.
But that is not the calling that Paul is talking about here. He is writing only to believers. His letter is addressed to the Christians in Ephesus, and since he has prayed that the eyes of their hearts might be enlightened, and since we know that only those regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit can be enlightened, then we also know that when he prays for them to know the hope of His calling, he must be referring to something much more specific than just a general call of God to repent and believe the gospel.
In our Romans study we read Romans 1:7
“...to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints;...”
and we asked the question, “Who are the ‘called’ that Paul is referring to there?”
Once again, we determined that this could not be a general reference to the call of the gospel to all the world, but something much more specific. Because Paul called them ‘beloved of God’, and he called them ‘saints’.
So we concluded that the ‘called’, are those who heard the general call and responded in faith. By His Holy Spirit, God called in a very specific way, those whom He foreknew, and predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, as we see in Romans 8:29-31, and this is the calling Paul is talking about also, in Ephesians 1:18.
So what we’re really talking about here, in saying ‘the hope of His calling’, is assurance of our salvation.
The first of the three things Paul prays for them, is that the eyes of their heart be enlightened to know how absolutely and eternally secure they are in Him.
Have the eyes of your heart been enlightened to fully understand this? When the devil tries to tempt you with doubts; when he makes you look at yourself and your failings and your insecurities and your present, shaky circumstances, do you answer him with scripture as Christ did in the desert, and say, “My God has called me to Himself, and to the praise of His glory he has sealed me with the Holy Spirit of promise, given to me as a pledge of my inheritance in Christ”?
When you sing “I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name”, are you just parroting the words, or are you singing from a heart that has been enlightened?
When Abraham was offered worldly security in a political alliance with the King of Sodom, he answered from a heart that was enlightened as to where his real security lay; “I have sworn to the Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven an earth, that I will not take a thread or a sandal thong or anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich’.”
When David was offered Saul’s armor he found it cumbersome and shook it off. He was so accustomed to wearing God’s armor, he chose to trust for his protection, in the One who had delivered him from the mouth of the lion and the paw of the bear.
Have the eyes of your heart been enlightened to the fact, Christian, that your hope is a sure and eternal thing; that His calling is so certain that He already sees you, not only as justified, but also as glorified?
If so, then you can joyfully shout with the Apostle, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”
The second thing Paul prays for them is that they might know
THE RICHES OF THE GLORY OF HIS INHERITANCE IN THE SAINTS.
Now we won’t spend a lot of time dickering over whether Paul is talking about God’s inheritance, or what we will inherit in Him.
Paul is praying that the eyes of our heart will be enlightened so that we may know... and then he lists three things that we should know, about our place in Him, what we have to look forward to in Him, and the power He has to bring it about.
So to me, the best way to look at this second request, is that Paul wants God to occasionally take us to the mountain top, as it were, ~ as He did with Moses and as He did with Abraham, ~ have us look around us with our spiritual eyes and get glimpses of what He’s preparing for us, and preparing us for.
Jesus Himself almost seemed to struggle with ways to tell us about where we’re going. It’s humorous if you think about it as you read the 13th chapter of Matthew, and the 13th chapter of Luke, and hear Him saying, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it?” and telling the illustration of the mustard seed.
And then again saying, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?” and talking about leaven and what it does to the meal.
When I meditate on that setting and try to picture Him as He spoke, I get a picture of someone who has seen and experienced something so entirely outside the realm of human experience; so much grander and more beautiful and amazing than anything the most imaginative of us can conjure up, that to dig for ways to describe it and make his hearers understand is both a frustration and a joy.
I can almost hear Him chuckle to Himself as He thinks, “This is really fun...trying to put it in terms that will give them a hint...but I know there is no earthly illustration that works...so I’ll give them a few word pictures...just enough to whet their appetite...but oh how I long for that day when they will all be gathered there with me, and they’ll see for themselves! When they will receive their inheritance in full!”
And once more, this only serves to illuminate how close Paul’s heart was to the heart of his Lord, when he prays for them that they have a firmly settled assurance of their security in Him, and that by the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit they would increasingly understand and comprehend the glory of the riches of the inheritance that awaits them.
My church family, I pray for you that as the days go by, and as Christ continues His sanctifying work in you and by His Spirit draws you ever closer to His own heart, that you will, through the gift of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, have your hearts increasingly enlightened to know the hope of His calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in you... the inheritance you have obtained, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will.
And don’t ever let anyone embarrass you with jibes about ’pie in the sky’ or scoffings at the predictions of things to come. Don’t let anyone shame you, that you should be concentrating more on the ills of society and putting your efforts into bettering the planet instead of dreaming about some fantasy place where you’ll never grow old or get sick or die, and you’ll walk on streets of purest gold and enjoy eternal bliss high above the cares and concerns and pains and sufferings of this life.
Don’t give them a voice. You just say to yourself, ’This world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through’ and invite them to come along, but don’t slow down for them a minute. Keep your eyes on the eastern sky, and remember that eye has not seen or hear heard, nor has it entered the mind of men what God has prepared for those who love Him. And if you are truly His; if you have the Holy Spirit in you, then you cannot help longing for home.
But Paul prayed a third thing for the Ephesians. He prayed that their hearts would be enlightened to know
WHAT IS THE SURPASSING GREATNESS OF HIS POWER TOWARD US WHO BELIEVE.
I looked up this word, “surpassing”. It means to throw over, or to run beyond.
After reading that definition I was reminded of something I had seen in the movie, “The Right Stuff”, about the birth and infancy of the American space program.
Occasionally throughout the film, the character, Gordon Cooper, played by actor Dennis Quaid, extracts praise and encouragement from his wife by asking, “Who’s the greatest pilot you’ve ever seen?” and of course, she finally has to break down, smiling, and say, “You, honey. You’re the greatest pilot I’ve ever seen”.
At the end of the movie, Gordon Cooper, who was the last astronaut to go into space as a part of the Mercury space program, takes off into the blue. And as the crowd watches and cheers him on, the Narrator says, “On that day in May, 1963, Gordo Cooper went higher and farther and faster than any other American. 22 complete orbits around the world... and for a brief moment, Gordo Cooper became the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen”.
This is the definition of ‘surpassing’. The word is used only two other times in the New Testament, and both times, by Paul. One is in this letter, chapter 2 verse 7 where he talks about the ‘surpassing riches of His grace’ (oh, boy, I can’t wait till we get there...) and the other is in II Corinthians 9:14, where he is praising the Corinthians for their generous gift, supplying the needs of the Jerusalem Christians who were poor and under persecution, and mentions the ‘surpassing grace of God’ evident in them.
And Paul wants the Ephesians; the Holy Spirit wants you and me, to know how very far and high the power of our God surpasses all other power, and that His power worked toward and in us.
To accomplish what?
To make us Christians. To preserve us to Himself. To give us His kind of life; resurrection life through the regenerating power of His Spirit, and according to the same power He exerted in raising Christ from the dead and seating Him in the heavenly places at His own right hand. We’re going to talk about this next week in detail.
Friend, you cannot make yourself a Christian, and you cannot make yourself a better Christian.
You cannot give yourself life in the first place, and you cannot raise yourself from the dead.
You cannot live the Christian life in the flesh, and you cannot please God or accomplish His purposes by working yourself into the ground to do projects and perform rituals and live by the creeds and standards of cultural christianity.
Paul’s three prayers for them are based on the endowment of a spiritual gift, and these things he has prayed are spiritually received and understood, and in the understanding of them is the power to give you absolute assurance of your salvation and your standing in Him.
In the understanding of them, is the power to open your spiritual ‘eyes’ to catch glimpses of the riches of the glory of the inheritance that awaits you in Him.
In the understanding of them, is the power to help you comprehend the surpassing greatness of the power of God to keep all the promises He has made, to finish the work He began, to bring you safely home to the place He went to prepare for you, with the promise to return and receive you to Himself.
Oh, my! How I love to teach these truths! I love God because He first loved me; and I love Him for making me a preacher! I get to join the ranks of those who have gone before in the confidence that what He says He is able to perform.
Noah confidently preached the coming flood.
The prophets preached the destruction of the evil-doer and the blessings of God on the faithful.
Job declared that his Redeemer would one day take His stand on the earth, and that with Job’s own eyes he would behold Him.
John the Baptist predicted that the One coming after him would baptize believers with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Peter warned that this old world and all the elements will burn up with intense heat, and God will build a new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells.
And what an honor it is, to be commissioned of God to preach these things that have not yet come to be, but with absolute confidence that He, who is able to call into being that which is not, and raise men even from the dead, will bring it all to pass just as He said. And you, believers, are part of that plan, and recipients of the riches of His glory, and the objects of His resurrection power.
May the eyes of your heart 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.
I pray this for you, in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
