Three ‘what’s’ equal revelation
JCC 07.03.10 am
Ephesians 1:18-20 “The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.”
He is writing to believers alone here
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
Everything depends upon the opened eyes
If the sight is gone or impaired, all is in vain
Jer 39: Zedekiah had his eyes put out by the king of Babylon, then he was taken down to the Imperial city
There were vast halls, palaces, hanging gardens and a city wall which was the wonder of the world at that time
Babylon is called, “the glory of kingdoms and the beauty of the Chaldeans’ Excellency” but the blind King saw nothing of its splendour; the golden city to him and its wealth were as though it was not there
Judges 16:21 Samson, his eyes burned out after he was deceived by Delilah, he saw nothing of the beauty that surrounded him
Blinded by the enemy; the devil wants you in darkness
Yet we see how God wants our eyes to be opened
Like blind Bartimaeus, only the power of Jesus can open up the eyes to see wondrous things Mark 10:46
By nature, we have no knowledge of spiritual things
No power to discern eternal good, our foolish hearts darkened
Only the Lord can enlighten the eyes of our understanding
The precious Truth of God, however clearly spoken to us, we can never see it, unless He Himself gives us spiritual sight
Divine things are only seen by the heart, not with the understanding
Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matt 5
The purifying of the heart is the enlightening of the spiritual eyes
Without this purifying we shall never see Him
We will have a distorted impaired vision
Like a person with cataracts
Unless the surgeon cuts away the cataract, allowing the sight fuller vision, we shall remain in darkness or at the most with a dim brightness
The spiritual eyes of the renewed person are set in the heart and not in the head
Paul’s prayer was to the Lord for Christians; for the converted, for those who had faith in Jesus and a love for the saints; Paul never ceased to pray that their eyes might be enlightened
He who sees most, needs to have his eyes enlightened to see more
How little of the Glory of God have any of us really seen?
If Believers need to have their eyes enlightened, how much more those who are unconverted?
They were born blind and the god of this world seeks to further darken their minds
If you have a longing to see Him and it is turned into a prayer and that prayer is kindled by a spark of faith, that longing shall be the beginning of light to your soul and you shall see the salvation of God
Notice that the text contains three “what’s.”
“The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.”
1. “What is the hope of His calling?”
Many people never think about Christianity because they cannot believe that there is anything of interest to them
They think it is a small and thing, fit only for ministers, women, the weak and the elderly
So, they neglect it, even despise it and look after their own little world
The idea of the text seems to be illustrated well by the mention of Abraham
Abraham was living in his father’s house in Ur of the Chaldeans when a call came to him
That call came from God
He was to separate himself entirely and get away to a land which he had never seen
What was the hope of that calling?
It was the hope that God would give him a seed and give to that seed a land to live in
The Lord said to him, “I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless you, and curse him that curses you: and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed.”
For that hope, Abraham gave up everything and lived in tents, a pilgrim and a sojourner with God, living entirely by faith
There must come to everyone who is a true Christian, a call from God
The Spirit of God personally applying the Truth of Scripture to the heart and making the chosen man or woman to know that they belong to him
The Believer then understands that he or she is separated from others by the Sovereign Grace of God
They then know that they must come out from the world and no longer live according to the sight of the natural eyes and the hearing of the ears, but by faith in the Son of God
This makes the Believer very different from the rest of society
Those who walk by sight will not understand you
They generally misrepresent you and frequently despise you, but you can be content
Why? Because you have the hope of your calling
You already have in your possession forgiveness of your sins, acceptance in Christ, adoption into the Divine family and the nature of the rank and the rights of a child of God
Our main possession lies in hope. What, then, is the Christian’s hope?
First, we hope and believe that we shall be under His Divine protection forever
That we are the object of His love and devotion
We hope that all things shall work together for our good in the future as we have known it in the past
And though we expect a stormy ride at times, Christ is at the helm, so we hope to reach our destination
We expect to be tempted, but we hope to be upheld
We expect to be slandered, but we hope to have our name cleared
We expect to be tried, but we hope to triumph through His victory
We are secured by this hope and we should dread nothing or fear any difficulty
We hope that however many years we have, underneath are the everlasting arms
We know that the Lord is our shepherd and that we shall not want
That goodness and mercy and will follow us all the days of our life
Then we also know that we shall live in the house of the Lord for ever
And so, death’s fear is conquered
We have hope in knowing that our God will separate the sheep from the goats and that He will discern those that are His
We hope in the knowledge that there shall be no sentence of condemnation for us, for it is written, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Rom 8
We hope for a sentence of absolution and we therefore, challenge the judgment which others fear
We stand clothed with Divine Righteousness, as we wait with expectation for divine justice
We are accepted in the Beloved and loved of the Father
What else can we hope for?
We hope for absolute perfection
This God who has changed our hearts will continue His good work of changing us until He has taken away every bit of sin out of us, every desire for sinning, and every possibility of sin
We expect Him to renew our minds and prevent us making so many repeated mistakes
We hope, also, that this body of ours will be perfected and will one day rise with Him
As we have now the image of the earthly, then we hope also to bear the image of the heavenly
Our body shall be like His, incorruptible
We are looking forward to a time when we shall have done away with aches and pains, with the tiredness and decay, with old age and its infirmities
Can there be more?
Yes, we expect to be forever in a condition of power, ruling with Christ, seated in Heavenly places
We shall serve our God and see His face
2. The second, “what,” “That you may know what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”
God’s people are, by Grace, made to be His saints, His elect; His holy ones, and then, they are viewed as His inheritance
He owns every star, every blade of grass and every moving creature, yet He chooses us for His inheritance
“How precious, also, are Your thoughts unto me, O God, how great is the sum of them!” Ps 139:17
The Lord sees all He has made and nothing touches His heart more than we do
He sees nothing that is a cost to Him except us; we cost Him His Son Jesus
We have an inheritance far beyond what we fully know or see
Paul calls it’ riches’ riches of the glory
It is to be ours for the asking, it is to be ours by simply believing and trusting in Jesus Christ
But what are these riches of the glory?
Everything from Salvation to having authority over all things, to eternal destiny
Illustration:
Many preachers I have heard can make me laugh at their jokes, or touch me by some of their illustrations, and I have had to agree with their comments on the state of our society and the direction we’re taking as a nation, plus all of the other current issues they address, but in the end I realize that not many say anything that would enlighten me to the deeper things of God, or who I am and how I fit into His eternal plan
But in the end, even at the end of a feel-good sermon that finished on a very positive note and left me feeling lifted, I haven’t heard anything of the enlightening power of God’s Holy Spirit in order for me to comprehend it and grow
I rarely hear anything ‘new’ or revealing
And yet, that is the element that should never be missing from the pulpit of the church
I must never lose sight of the ministry 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 tickling your ears
I must never let myself be lulled into the trap of thinking that I’ll lose you if I don’t boost your egos enough, or make you laugh often
The natural mind cannot comprehend the things of God because they are spiritually discerned
I can feed you spiritually or appeal to your natural mind
Only those preaching with the indwelling Holy Spirit can reveal the things of God to you, so that you can begin to know and understand Him more
So no matter how talented the person in the pulpit may be; or their natural charisma, or their lovely accent, or their ability to cleverly weave illustrations and stories with an exegesis of the Hebrew or Greek language; no matter the depth of their discernment of present politics and the world’s spiralling condition...
...they are no good; they are powerless and unable, unless through their message God is enlightening the eyes of your understanding, so that you may know
I will make it my key purpose and goal to give you something that God’s Holy Spirit can use to draw you closer and deeper into Christ
To continue the process of conforming you to His image, by the enlightenment that only He can bring to your heart, not I
Paul praying that God will occasionally take us to the mountain top, as it were, as He did with Moses and as He did with Abraham
Then praying for us to have a look around with our spiritual eyes and get a glimpse of what He’s preparing for us, and has already prepared us for
This illuminates how close Paul’s heart was to the heart of the Lord
When he prays for them he wants them to have a firmly settled assurance of their security in Jesus, 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
The disciples on the mount of transfiguration saw a glimpse of this glory
They had a reality check on who Jesus is
And, about what power and glory He wants the church to share in
3. Finally, the third “what”—“What is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.”
This word exceeding or ‘surpassing in the KJV is used only two other times in the New Testament. Both times, by Paul
One is in this letter, chapter 2 verse 7 where he talks about the ‘surpassing riches of His grace’, and the other is in 2 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 he mentions the ‘surpassing grace of God’ evident in them
And Paul prays for the Ephesians, and it includes us also, that the Holy Spirit would show them, plus you and me, how to know how far and how high the power of our God surpasses all other power, and that His power works toward us and in us
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 the standards of cultural Christianity
You will be opposed by the powers of darkness, and by your own evil heart, but you shall conquer, for God will put the same power in you which He manifested in His Son, and you too, shall lead captivity captive and have all power over the enemy
Why? Because He sits enthroned, and no one can bring Him down
And you, too, who believe in Jesus, shall have the same power to tread down all your enemies, your sins, your temptations, till you shall rise, and sit, by Jesus, sitting at the right hand of God
The very same power which raised Christ is waiting to raise the drunk from his drunkenness; to raise the thief from his dishonesty; to raise the religious from their self-righteousness and to raise the atheist from his unbelief; to heal the hurting and diseased, to awaken a dark heart to see the light of truth
God has power among us, and I for one, want us to know what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, because then you, and I, would throw away our despair and fear and get on with fulfilling the Kingdom’s work
There remains nothing for us to do, but to submit to His Divine power
God will work in us but we must be willing to be worked upon
To be willing, is all He asks you and me
To be trustful, it is all His Gospel requires of us
Both to be willing and trustful
If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat of the land
Be willing to let go of the sin which ruins you
Be willing to learn the Truth of God which will renew you
Be willing to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn
And most of all, be willing to accept a finished salvation
Paul’s three ‘what’s’ for them, are based on the endowment of a spiritual gift, and these things he has prayed, are spiritually received and understood
In the understanding of them is the power to give you absolute assurance of your salvation and for you to stand in Him
In the understanding of them, is the power to open your spiritual ‘eyes’ to catch a glimpse 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 one day to return and receive you again to Himself
I pray that your eyes and mine would be opened to more spiritual truths, Amen
