If you will take your Bibles and turn them over to Ephesians chapter 1, and if you don't mind standing in honor of the reading of God's word. We're going to start in verse 15 and go until the end of chapter 1. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power to us who believe. according to the working of his great might, that he worked 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 above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him fills all in all." This is the reading of God's word. Now, I'd like to pray and then you guys can sit down. Dear Lord, we just come before you humbled, Lord, myself personally, literally trembling at the responsibility that is mine right now to open up your word and explain clearly and truthfully what you've said to us. Lord, I thank you that your spirit is strong in weakness. that this is your word and this is your authority. And Lord, we just we need you to speak to us today and encourage us to remind us of the hope and who we belong to and the power that's in work in us. Lord, we trust you to bless the reading of your word and to just change us today. In Jesus name. Amen. So I want to kind of give you sort of a path, kind of a rough outline of where we're going to go. So I read that passage, and we're just going to walk through it verse by verse from that passage. But when I kind of chose this section of scripture, I sort of didn't realize how big of a task I was setting out for myself. Because as it turns out, this is kind of Paul's outline for the rest of the book of Ephesians. Almost everything we see here, carried on from where we are now, gets on a little bit into the end of that passage in chapter two. He hits these same themes over and over and over again. He hits the theme of knowledge. He hits the theme of enlightenment. He hits the theme of hope and inheritance. He explains those things. The entire book of Ephesians is explaining this one passage. So we need to understand what he's saying to the Ephesians first, and then we can know how to apply that to ourselves. So there's not going to be very much application starting from right now until later. Because we want to kind of keep track of his train of thought. And that will help us know, once we know what he's saying, that will help us know how to kind of apply it. Because we can't apply it in some way that it was never meant to be applied to the original readers. So with that sort of setting the tone and the pace, and now you know where we're going, we'll start right in. So you're going to need your Bibles open, and you're going to be flipping them a lot. And I'm going to be reading a lot of scripture, because like I said, we're going to be staying a lot in Ephesians. So verses 15 through 16, it says, for this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers." So, for this reason, he's kind of, after he's just done explaining the spiritual blessings in Christ, he starts saying, well, because I've heard of your faith, and I've heard of your love, so for that reason, I do not see giving thanks to God for you." So he's seeing something that's happening in the believers here, these Ephesian believers, and this is causing him to give thanks and to pray further for them because he's not satisfied where they are, even though it's been a good report. So one kind of thing here is that he says, because I have heard of your faith. And at first glance, you might maybe think, well, he's just heard about the faith of the Ephesian believers secondhand. But I don't think that's what he's saying, because if you go back to chapter Acts 18 through the end of Acts 20, that whole section of scripture is about Paul's personal involvement in the ministry with the Ephesians. He shows up in Acts 18, visits with the synagogues, the Jewish teachers there, teaches for a little while, leaves Priscilla and Aquila there to go elsewhere. And then while they are there, that's when Apollos comes. And we don't really recognize how big of a deal Apollos is. He shows up back up in Corinthians, And we actually know he went there because in Acts it says he went to Corinth, then Paul came to Ephesians. So even early on in the life of the Ephesian believers, they're sending out missionaries, and like big deal missionaries. Apollos is mentioned several times throughout the New Testament. And this is like when there's just a handful of believers. He goes on, and Paul comes back, and he finds there are these twelve believers. He's like, hey, do you guys have the Holy Spirit? And they're like, we didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. He says, well, we'll fix that right now. He lays his hands on them, prays for them, and they receive the Holy Spirit. And this Ephesians, or Ephesus is where Remember that big riot that happened because there was a silversmith guy there who was making idols? And then he's like, we're losing business. This Christianity thing is horrible. This Paul guy in particular, we don't like him. So they're running him out. And he barely escapes with his life after one of the rulers there was like, guys, Caesar is going to kill us if we don't settle down. So Paul leaves. He comes back in chapter 20. He's on his way to Jerusalem. He says, I'm pretty sure I'm going to jail at some point. I don't think I'll ever see you guys again. He specifically calls the elders of the Ephesian church to come meet him. And he gives them this long, beautiful passage. If you go back through and read there, you'll see a lot of the same things we see in Ephesians in that passage. So the point is, he knows these people. He knows them well. He knows they're a strong church. He knows that they love God. And he personally experiences this. So why is he talking to them here in Ephesians like he doesn't know personally? Well, first of all, I think When we interpret it that way, we're sort of reading a little bit too much into even these words, because kind of the most simple explanation is that he's always sending out different representatives. That's what Titus was, and Timothy, he has several others. So it could just be a simple case of before this letter was written, he had sent someone out, like, hey, I haven't seen or heard from the Ephesians in a little while. Can you go check on them? And they came back, and they're like, Paul, great news. Awesome faith, awesome love. And he's like, great. So ever since I heard that, I'm so thankful that you guys are still with it. Or it could just be that because Ephesus was such a central church, central city, it was huge. I think I read somewhere that the population of this city was like a million whenever Paul was preaching. It's a big city. It's kind of a circular letter. It's intended not just for Ephesus, because it's a really large, important region to be circulated around through the region. So he could know the Ephesian churches. And he's writing to Ephesus. And it's titled to Ephesus, because if you're trying to reach a larger group of people, he's going to send it to the main city. And then he's addressed to that, but it's meant to be circulated. And so he could just hear basically that they've reproduced themselves in the smaller towns. But the main thing we want to take away from this is just that this is a good church. Galatians, where they've left the gospel. This isn't Corinthians, where they've got the gospel, but they're not practicing it very well. This is Ephesus. This is a growing church, an important church, a great church, a church he's personally been involved with. It's not a bad church. So he goes on from there. He says, I give thanks to you. So he's encouraged by what he's seeing there. And he prays a prayer of gratitude, never ceasing to give thanks for them, specifically mentioning them in his prayers. And then he prays something for them. what he prays for them is not kind of what we would expect for him to pray for like a church that is struggling, or we would expect him to pray for a church like Galatians, like Corinthians, like they don't know the gospel very well, so I want to explain that to him. He doesn't say that. He says, I pray that God, so starting in verse 17, that the God of our Father, or the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom, of revelation, and the knowledge of him, and having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." So he prays that God might give to you. So that right there is sort of the main subject of and the verb and indirect object of this whole thought here. So God's doing something and he's giving it to the Ephesian believers. The gift word, or the giving word there is related to the Greek noun for gift. This is a gift that he's praying that God would give them. This isn't like, it's a valuable thing. This is something good, something needed, like just any gift you might receive on Christmas or your birthday. So what is this gift? Well, it's really, this passage is kind of difficult to untangle with the grammar. So you have a spirit of wisdom and revelation and I think these are kind of one thing, and I think that even though the ESV has this capitalized as spirit, I'm not sure that that is right, because they already have the spirit, right? Because if you go back up here to verse 13, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised spirit. So they already have the spirit, so they don't need to get the Holy Spirit again they have the Holy Spirit and then also the When the New Testament was being written, they didn't have like capital letters and little letters. They just had all caps. So it's not like, you know, in the original manuscripts these were capitalized. And, you know, like I said back in Acts 19, he specifically prayed for some of these believers that they would have the Holy Spirit. So I think they already have the Holy Spirit, and the word for spirit in the original Greek can also kind of refer to your own inward life, your disposition, attitude, quality about you. So he's praying that they would have something about themselves, that they would be characterized by wisdom and revelation. Kind of to what's meant by revelation, but I think by wisdom. It's we kind of have an idea of what that's talking about right a lot of times wisdom is kind of defined as the practical outworking of You know what you know like you put your knowledge to work that's not like bad, but I think it's a little more than that because you have a spiritual wisdom, but scripture also acknowledges worldly wisdom. So it's like there's this category called wisdom, and you can have either spiritual or earthly. Well, you can't it's more like kind of a worldview. Wisdom's kind of like a worldview because you start out with certain assumptions about how the world works. You have a certain set of facts that are assumed to be true or thought to be true. And then there's a goal. Wisdom has a goal. You're trying to reach something, right? You're governing your life this way so that you can reach something. And that something that you're trying to reach through this thing you call wisdom is greater fulfillment or just meaning to your life. And that's why the world has its own way of reaching these things. It has its own assumptions that they think the world works like. They have their own set of facts that they assume are true. I mean, we know they're not true. They govern their lives by these things in order to meet a certain goal that they feel would be meaning to their lives. Kind of one of the examples I was thinking of about this, of just how worldly wisdom works, is in the case of abortion. There's certain facts that they assume to be true. This is not a human being. It's just a clump of cells. There's not a human life here. The goal that this person wants is, well, I want to move on in my career or whatever. That will bring me fulfillment. Motherhood, that's not going to bring me fulfillment. So they govern their lives based on this fact and this goal towards an abortion clinic. And so that's worldly wisdom. And the reason why the Bible calls it foolishness and falseness is because the facts aren't true, the assumptions about the way the world works aren't true, and the goal isn't even true. This is not actually fulfilling. This isn't actually bringing meaning to your life. Spiritual wisdom, on the other hand, the facts are true, based on the facts of the resurrection, based on the facts of what God's Word says. These are objective truths. And there's a goal, and that goal is, it is meaning and fulfillment. That meaning and fulfillment is found in Christ. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 1, 18 through 25. You don't have to turn there because I don't want you to have to, because we're going to be spending so much time in Ephesians. I just want you to keep your fingers there, but I'll read this passage to you from 1 Corinthians. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. So he's kind of assuming there that, yeah, there's this thing called wisdom, and the world has its own wisdom. But I'm going to thwart it. So how's he going to do it? Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach, to save those who believe. For the Jews demand signs, and the Greeks seek wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Christ, the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of the world is wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men." Spiritual wisdom is gospel wisdom. When we trust in Christ and see who Christ is in our life and what he's done, and we govern our lives based on the cross, the resurrection, the gospel, we're going to find that fulfillment and meaning. Our lives have meaning because we're not wrapped up in ourselves. We're being torn away from being wrapped up into ourselves. And we have a goal. That's what heaven is. That's what the relationship with Jesus Christ is, that we have a goal. So we're not just moving through life just because we just like dying to ourselves. We just like being inconvenienced by other people's needs. We're doing this, we have a goal, and it's fellowship with Christ and loving one another. So, the spirit of revelation, so, you know, don't worry, I'm not about to, you know, get all charismatic and stuff like that, because that's, I don't think that's what he's talking about. I think he's talking about a special revelation and understanding of scripture, special revelation. And the reason why we need this is because, and this is really kind of technical, so I know it's not like, you know, it's not smiled upon to just read directly from your notes, but this is really technical, so I want to make sure I don't mess it up. We can't reason our way to God because he's so unlike us. He's above, he's other, transcendent, he's not temporal, he's not material, he's God, he's spirit. And we're his creator, like that is a fundamental difference, creator, creature. So we can't reason our way to that. We can't apply our own thoughts to get past this wall of separation between us and God. Just intellectually, we can't do that. And furthermore, that's just even without the fall. With the fall, that's made even harder. Because now, not only could we not ever reason our way to God just in the first place, we don't even want to. So in spiritual matters, we're severely inhibited, and they just render us incapable of rationing. I tried to use a different word, but reasoning our way to God. So kind of what happens there, that means that we can't know God if God's static. If God just stays put where he is in heaven behind that wall, we will never know God. But God's not static. Instead of just staying there, you have to come to me, he jumped that wall himself in giving us scripture, and then ultimately, in the most perfect and significant way, in the person of Christ. So in special revelation, which is mostly defined as scripture and Christ, those are your two main ones that you need to worry about, special revelation is the self-disclosure of God. That's him jumping that fence, that wall between us. I don't know, when I was in my associate's degree, I took a lot of psychology classes, and we talked about self-disclosure. It was one of the two good things I learned from secular psychology. Because when we talk with each other, have conversations with each other, we're revealing things about ourselves We, we do this all the time, sometimes without even thinking about it. Like, in the t-shirts we wear. Like, if I wear a t-shirt that says, like, Coke on it, I'm disclosing to the world something about myself. I'm saying nothing about Coca-Cola. I'm saying I like Coca-Cola. Which is kind of one reason why, you know, it's, well, we won't get into that. But these are just our preferences, and they talk to us, they tell other people about ourselves. Well, God does that, and if God doesn't do that, we won't know him. So he gives us scripture, and scripture, special revelation, Jesus Christ himself, is that self-disclosure. This is what God is like. This is what God wants. This is his will. This is his law. This is what he's done. All of these things tell us about Christ, and this This revelation, how this works is, this doesn't just... just happen, there's means that it happens, and scriptures that means. So how revelation travels is God speaks to the prophet, so the author of scripture, that revelation comes through him, through his pen, onto the paper, and then that revelation is preserved throughout ages, and it's through all the transmission process, the translation process, till it gets to your Bible, and then you read it. But that doesn't mean that it's been revealed to you. Just reading it isn't enough. God's spirit must take it off the page and into your heart. So that's what I think he's saying here, is you need spiritual wisdom and you need God's spirit to help you understand revelation. So this isn't like, you know, a charismatic sort of like, I have a vision or something like, this is our revelation. And so he's praying that the Ephesian believers would have spiritual wisdom and then be able to receive, in the most immediate context, what he's about to write to them. So what does he want them, what is the, in the knowledge of him, that sort of, That's what I'm calling the gospel wisdom. So you have the wisdom and the revelation. Both of these things are in Christ. And they're in him. They have to do with him. So they're both about him. We find wisdom and revelation in Christ. Not in our own reasoning, not in our own moral guidance, but in Christ. And so then he prays that the eyes of their hearts will be enlightened. This is some of the most challenging grammar I've ever come across in Greek. And I mean, it's just tough. You have the subject here, which is just your eyes. But this, having been enlightened, is a participle, which means there's a bunch of ways that that can be interpreted. And it's just really tough, and it took me days to just think through. And I'm still not totally hammered down on what I think this means. But I looked at several commentaries, talked to my Greek professors. And so there's three options, and I'll share with you the one that I think best makes sense. So the first one is, is this a separate request? Is he saying you want a spirit of wisdom, spirit of revelation, and then eyes of your hearts being enlightened. So you have one, two, three. That's less likely, I think, because it just doesn't really flow that way, especially because you have two nouns and then this participle can function as a noun. But it doesn't seem likely. This just doesn't really seem likely to me. The option two is what I'm calling an explanatory parenthetical, meaning you have this kind of phrase. You have that he may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, parentheses explaining what he just said. having the eyes of your hearts enlightened. So explaining what it means to have spiritual wisdom and revelation. So it's basically explaining what came just before. I really like that option, but I think option three is probably correct. It's the result of receiving a spirit of wisdom and understanding. So you receive wisdom, spiritual wisdom and understanding, spiritual revelation, that enlightens your heart, and then what that leads to is what he's about to share with us about what we should know. So, it was kind of a lot of work to just get to say, it's just explaining what's about to come. It's saying this was the purpose. You have spiritual wisdom and revelation leading to having the eyes of your heart enlightened, which is a way of just talking about your mind, your soul, your heart. It's just a way of talking about just your inward person. And then so that will help you know the next section. Well, backtrack a little bit. So this is kind of one of the themes that this enlightened language is one of the themes that kind of repeats throughout Ephesians. So this is the first time I want you to turn someplace. You can go to chapter 5 and 8 through 14. And this is part of the reason why I think it's talking about what having this spiritual wisdom and understanding will lead to. So starting in verse 8 of chapter 5, for at one time you were in darkness. But now you are in the light of the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light." The light language being referred to doing good and discerning what is pleasing to the Lord, it's basically saying you now have the tools to discern what is pleasing to the Lord, which is what spiritual wisdom and revelation is. Spiritual wisdom and revelation comes to you, you have enlightenment, now you know what to do. So what does this result in? Well, enlightened hearts, the most immediate context is it's going to help us know what is the hope and the inheritance and the power. And then the rest of the book walks us through what this looks like practically. In chapter 4, 17 through 24, if we look over there, it says, Now I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. So they don't have spiritual wisdom or revelation, so they're walking in this futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus. To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your mind." So you're starting to see, like he's saying, you're going to get revelation. Your heart will be enlightened. It will affect you. That's what he's saying. So now, what are these three things we need to know? There's three things. It's hope, and inheritance, and power. So he says in verse 18, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the working of his great might. And these themes, again, are repeated throughout the whole book of Ephesians. So the hope to which he's called you. Literally, what is the hope of his calling? We saw hope earlier in verse 112. He says, so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be the praise to his glory. So he hits hope there again, and then kind of explains that in him you also, when you heard the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit. So even all of this first spiritual blessing things, these are all about hope and the hope and praise of his glory. So even the hope has to do with his glory. Hope is eschatological in its nature, like it's always looking forward to something that's not here yet. And you have this language of in verses 20 to 23, where he starts talking about how Christ has seated him at the right hand above the heavenly places, far above the rule and authority. So what he's saying there is, Jesus is already in heaven, he's already seated at the right hand of God, and he's going to come back to you. So this hope is looking forward to and thinking about the reality that Christ is already in authority. It's also contrasted, and I think more importantly, it's contrasted with verses in chapter 2, starting in verse 12, where he starts talking about the Gentiles. And in verse 12 of chapter 2, he says, Remember that you were at one time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. So here he's describing what it's like to not have hope. So we can kind of reason backwards. If this was like to not have hope, then what must it be like to have hope? Well, it must be that we're united with Christ, part of the Commonwealth of Israel, heirs of the promise, and with hope and with God. And he walks exactly that out. In that passage right there, he goes on to describe separated from Christ. He talks about a dividing wall of hostility, which could be making some temple languages, where you have the court of the Gentiles, this dividing wall, the Jews, Jesus. And he says, tore down the dividing wall of hostility. Now there's no wall between the Jews and these Gentiles. They both have equal access to Christ. And because the mercy seat is typifying Christ. So you have Christ on the mercy seat, then you have the Jews. Tear down this wall, Gentiles now have equal access to Christ. And they've been brought near to God. Literally, they now can come as close to Jesus as they want. And so this hope requires something from Ephesians in verse one of chapter four. I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. So this calling, this hope of his calling, the calling, we need to walk in a way that It was worthy of being children, being adopted into Christ's family. The walk language is another thing that gets taken up over and over and over again in Ephesians. And verse 210, for we are as workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We read in chapter four, 17 through 24, don't walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds, for they are darkened in their understanding. So this hope and this calling, they all have to do with how we walk. And it's be thinking about who Christ is, what he's called us to. We're not supposed to be discouraged. It's so easy. It's so easy to, just like in our own sin, to think, it's a present hope too, because it's so easy to think like, I am never, like I'm never gonna overcome this sin in my life. Like it's, I just, I repent, I pray, I'm very sincere in repenting and praying, and like, God, deliver me from this. And then it seems like I do okay for a long time, but then like, but then I just fall right again, and just, am I ever gonna be delivered from this? But we are. In Colossians, what we read there, or no, sorry, 1 Timothy reminded me of Colossians. In Colossians it is Christ who is your life, but in the very first verse of 1 Timothy, it says, Paul, an apostle of Christ by the command of God our Savior, and Jesus Christ our hope. Christ is our hope. Christ is our wisdom, and Christ is our hope. And he's with us now. He's with us now, encouraging us through the trials that we go through, whether that's cancer, whether that's just sickness, whether that's job stuff, whether that's our own sin, whether that's fighting. Like here in Ephesians, he talks about the rulers of this world. We know Christ is with us. So he goes on to talk about what are the riches of the glorious inheritance in the saints. So we need to just kind of break down kind of the theology of inheritance, because this is another thing we kind of think of as being like, this is something that's coming, and it's heaven, which again is like, well, that's true, but more than that. So first we need to talk about that Abraham is the heir, Paul says in Romans 13 through 15, for the promise to Abraham and his offspring is that he would be the heir of the world. It did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. So Abraham is called an heir. And then Paul goes directly from talking about the inheritance of Abraham to start talking about the hope and the promise of languages, continuing through chapter 4 of Romans. He makes the same connections in Galatians 3.29, and if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. So there's two things there. Then you are Abraham's offspring, Abraham is the heir, now you're heirs as well, through Christ, through Abraham. Christ is the heir, in Hebrews 1, 2 through 4, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things. He continues on down there, and he will say, Majesty on high, having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. I think this passage here in Ephesians 1 belongs under this category of Christ being the heir. For one, the way that the words are constructed, the of him, that we would translate his, The of him comes after inheritance, which many times, not always, many times means like this is what is immediately, this would be what's immediately modified by this word here. So it's inheritance of him, we would say his inheritance. So it's up, it's his, possessed by him, and it's in the saints. And there's the other reason why I would say that is as we read on, remember that language in Hebrews talking about the air of all things. When we go on here in this passage in Ephesians, it talks about how that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand of the places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age and the age to come." It's kind of a similar idea of being put in charge of all things. We are the heirs. In Ephesians 1.11, it talks about how we have inherited obtained an inheritance. And then he goes on a little later to talk about the Holy Spirit, who's the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire it, which kind of gives us an important idea to think about when we talk about the theology of inheritance, which is a term I'm making up. It's both we have obtained it and are waiting to acquire it. And if we put all this stuff together, So we're also co-heirs, Romans 8, 16 through 17, it says that we're co-heirs with Christ. And we also can look back to Old Testament language, like Deuteronomy 4.20, talking about how, but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. Deuteronomy 32.9, but the Lord's portion is his people. And portion there is kind of related to the idea of inheritance. So if we put all this together, we have, first of all, this inheritance is personal. It's us to God. We are Christ's inheritance. Christ is our inheritance, and it's tied through this promise that was originally given to Abraham. So all of this stuff here together is just the relationship, the inheritance is this relationship that the church has with Christ that's based on love and based on Christ's commitment to us. It's based on, we have access to all that Christ is and Christ demands all that is us. It's a sharing in the personhood of God. Like we have access to that whole, the whole being of God. He's our God. Right there at the end of this passage we're looking at, he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church. Gave Christ to the church. Christ is our inheritance. We're not waiting for streets of gold. We're not waiting for pearls. We're not waiting for anything like that. We're waiting for Christ. Christ is what we are waiting for. But what is, guys, we are what Christ is waiting for. When we think about like inheritance, like You know, we're, man, that's what's coming. You know, I'm, you know, I guess we're, you know, we're obviously sorry that whoever left us of the inheritance is gone, but I mean, we're excited to, I'm getting a million dollars. It's going to be great. And we're just excited about it. And you just stayed or whatever. And we're looking forward to it. Christ is looking forward to you. What does that do to you? Do you feel like something worthy of God waiting for expectantly, like we wait for an inheritance? How do we reconcile with our sin? We know we're sinners. We're broken. We don't pursue Him. And when we finally turn back, it's always just like, well, we'd always come up with some excuse for our sin, like, well, you know, I was tired. You don't need those excuses. He'll forgive us anyway. But like, he just, none of that matters to him. He's excited for us to be there with him. That's, I mean, that's what made me want to preach this sermon is just that thought that we are the inheritance of Christ. And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power? Paul does typical Paul stuff here and just piles on all the words in the Greek language for power. He says, what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the working of his great might which he worked in Christ? I mean, he uses, I know at least three Greek words for strength and power, and he uses all of them. And then it intensifies them. And it's linked to the resurrection and the ascension. So verse 20, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places. But look forward to in chapter 2, verses 5 through 6, even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. This connection with us and Jesus in the resurrection, or in the resurrection. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places. So this power that brought Jesus back to life brought us back to life and continues to renew us. So, and then we carry on in chapter 4, 14 through 21, if you want to turn there. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father." This is what we read earlier. From whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, according to the riches of his glory, that he might grant you to be strengthened with the power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have the strength to comprehend. What, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? I think it's amazing that he says that we need to have, we need to be strengthened to comprehend his love for us. We can't handle his love on our own. He has to give us the power to do that. We go on to chapter 6, 10 through 12. Finally, this is kind of his application point, be strong in the Lord. And in the strength of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, and against the cosmic powers over this present darkness against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. So this strength and power to fight evil It's kind of rooted in our knowledge that Christ is already in authority. Remembering the power that is ours through the resurrection and through the ascension, this is what helps us fight that indwelling sin. Because that's what these powers and authorities that we're supposed to go to war with, that's where we get that. And the other place in Ephesians where it talks about these authorities and how we're supposed to interact with them or fight them, as the 310 in Ephesians, speaking of Paul's bringing to light the mystery of the gospel. So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. So we need God's strength and we need God's wisdom in order to fight our sin, in order to fight the devil, in order to fight just the world around us, to untangle our friends and neighbors from the world. And so after going through these kind of three things that we need, he kind of reminds us about the properly ordered world, to have a proper understanding of how the world is. kind of calling back on that wisdom idea of assumptions about the world. So the assumptions are that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he put all things 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. Christ is over all. He's won. He's won in this age. He's going to win in the age to come. He's already over earthly power. No earthly power is outside of his control, outside of his sovereignty. So we have peace in knowing that, and we have motivation to live our lives in light of that. And we don't have to fear what the world has for us. We don't have to fear the devil. We don't have to be like some of the animistic, sort of syncretistic religions that we find where Christianity has kind of been married to this sort of spiritualism where we have to go fight devils or whatever. The devil's already fought. He's already lost. So we can't, two points of application there is that we can't be looking for our deliverer in somebody else. So whether or not that's our own strength, some political ruler, some political system, like I know America's in a rough spot. I know it's been in a rough spot for a really long time. Nobody, no president who will ever be elected is ever going to deliver us, ever. And we don't need to be looking for that. I mean, it's good to be involved. It's good to cast your vote. But at the end of the day, Christ is our Messiah. Christ is who's going to deliver us from all of these things. And he's who we need to have all our hope in. That's kind of what the hope language is, too, is just like, don't hope in all these other things. Because none of them will give you fulfillment, and none of them will deliver you. Only Christ is going to deliver you. So kind of just, I know I I said I wouldn't bring a lot of application in as I was preaching, but just to kind of close, I just want to kind of touch on the applications that I have here. So for one, I just want to remind you maybe of some of them. For one, remember these are strong believers. So this book, Ephesians, this is for obviously any believer, but this is the message he has for strong believers, which means everyone needs to grow in their knowledge of the Bible, grow in their knowledge of Christ. You never graduate from the gospel. I think sometimes just in our Christian world we think like the gospel is like this door that gets you into Christianity. And then like inside Christianity, you know, we just try really hard, pull our bootstraps up, and then we just get better. That's not it at all. That's not Christian at all. That's not our religion. The gospel is the door, it's the floor, it's the walls, it's the whole room, it's everything. We never get past Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, became one of us, took on our sin, died on the cross, rose again, conquered sin, death, hell, the devil, our own stubborn wills. Brings us to God and delivers us from the wrath of God. We never get past that never graduate from that Because if you do if you do think like well, the gospel is just that's just Christianity 101. I don't need that anymore You will find yourself without power You'll stumble and fall into sin. You'll get lost in the way. You'll find other messiahs to follow after. You'll find other hopes. You'll find other strengths. You'll lose focus of who you belong to. You'll lose focus of who belongs to you and what you're waiting for. You'll just, I mean, for all practical purposes, even though we know God keeps those, for all practical purposes, you'll just be living like the lost again. And you'll never leave the gospel. If you leave the gospel, then you leave the gospel. We see that true faith encourages faith. The faith of the Ephesians, they encouraged Paul. And Paul was a strong believer as well. And faith, that's what we labor for, to see people's faith. And we know, we learn that having knowledge and having wisdom and understanding, that has an effect on us. You know, we grow in that knowledge. And we need to remember not to be afraid or discouraged because Christ is seated in heavenly places at the right hand of God. That right hand of God language is kind of a way of depicting like, I mean, we all know what a right hand man is, right? That's Jesus on time's infinity. He is in charge of everything, and we need to remember that. We don't need to be afraid. So that's what I have for us today, and I hope it has been a blessing to you. I thank you for being patient with someone fresh and green and wet behind the ears. So let me pray for us, and then we'll continue with whatever it is that, however you guys do things here. Delora, we thank you for this Lord's Day to be reminded of your truth and reminded of your word, reminded of your promises and who we belong to. And Lord, we look forward to beholding you face to face with no longer seen through a veil dimly. Lord, we pray that you would change us and Lord, I just, I pray that you would Take your word, apply it to your people, and Lord, that whatever mistakes I've made, errors I've made, that Lord, you would cause those to be forgotten, and that only your word would continue. Lord, I pray you'd bless the rest of this day and your people. In Jesus' name, amen.