Ephesians chapter 1 in a moment, verses 15 through 20. Observing a special day of thanksgiving this past week has been very good for my soul. I needed it more than I had realized. Reminding me of all that God has given us, reminding me to praise God because he is good and to give thanks to him for all his goodness toward us. It has been so good for my soul, in fact, that I'm not finished yet thanking God and exhorting all of you to thank him. Today, I'm taking you to a place in the scriptures that is very meaningful to me. Well, not just to me, I suppose, but especially meaningful to me. I use it often to guide my prayers for you. From that place today, I'm exhorting you to thank God for one another and to pray to God for one another and to continue in that long after Thanksgiving Day has passed. Ephesians chapter 1, starting in verse 15, wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, 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 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 seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Let us, as this passage says, thank God for one another Certainly, we thank God, as we normally think to do on our Thanksgiving day, for such things as our food, our clothing, our houses, those things which, although they are merely carnal, they are good, we need them, God has given them, we're thankful for them. We thank God for such people as our family and friends. Even though our relationship with them is merely carnal, it's just of this world, still, it's good to have that family and those friends. God has given them, we thank him for them. But we also thank God for our fellow Christians in ways that are not merely carnal, but are spiritual. Specifically mentioned here in this passage two things about our fellow Christians for which we thank God. First, for our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You see how the apostle says in verse 15, after I heard of your faith, or ever since I heard of your faith, I give thanks for you. Our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our belief that Jesus Christ really did die on the cross for our sins, as the Bible says. That he really was buried. And that he really did rise again the third day, being the first day of the week. Our confidence that there really is forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Jesus Christ. Our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Which faith we did not have when we were born into this world. We were born into this world without faith in Jesus Christ. We did not have it naturally. Which faith we did not get just by our own choice. We did not, as people sometimes mistakenly say, choose to believe. A very common misconception that to believe is the same as to choose or to make a choice, or that we go from not believing to believing by choosing or making a choice. If you flip through your New Testament, or if you use your computer to run a search, you'll find that the New Testament never equates choosing with faith. It never says that we believe or have faith by making a choice or choosing to do so. The Bible says very famously in the words of Joshua, choose you this day whom you will serve. And he says, as for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord. Now, that kind of choosing, we certainly can do. You can choose to go to church on the Lord's Day as you have chosen to do this morning. But that's a very different thing from truly having faith in Jesus Christ. Many people could have heeded Joshua's advice, and rather than going up the mountain to go offer a sacrifice to Baal, they could go to the tabernacle and offer the required sacrifices to Jehovah, all while not truly having faith in Christ. That choosing that Joshua said to do is not the same thing. as trusting oneself to Jesus Christ. That choosing that Joshua advised, and rightly so, is a mere operation of the will, but faith in Jesus Christ is something materially different. We did not get faith by making a choice we did not choose to believe. Faith in Christ, which our family, our friends, our church pastors could not make us have by any of their efforts. Our parents, our friends, church pastors, they did things to try to get us to have faith in Christ. And if they did such things as tell us about Christ, testify to their faith in Christ, pray for us, it was good things they did and rightly done. But none of their efforts actually could make us have faith in Christ. But faith in the Lord Jesus, that faith which God gave us, that faith which was a gift from God, not something we already had, not something mere men could make happen in us, not something we just chose or picked, but faith which God gave us. It was a gift from Him by His grace. not by any of our deserving of it, but by his unmerited favor toward us. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, which was worked in us by the Holy Spirit. That beautiful description that the Lord Jesus gave, speaking to Nicodemus, John chapter three, about the Holy Spirit, going like the wind, you can't see where it's going next or where it just came from and yet it's doing its work and the Holy Spirit is like that. He goes and he works in someone a new birth. Not a carnal new birth, you don't go Get back inside your mother and get born again, like Nicodemus said. No, a spiritual new birth inside. Our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank God for our fellow Christians, for things that are spiritual. Two things named here. For our mutual faith in the Lord Jesus and we thank him for our love for all the saints. The love that we have, the love that we Christians have for all other Christians. Which love we did not have as we came into this world. You did not have inside of you when you were born love for all God's saints. Hear the word of the Lord from Titus chapter three. We ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. That's how we came into this world. We got worse and worse in those things as we lived our lives in this sinful world. So our love for the saints, which we did not have naturally when we were born, but which God showed us through all that Jesus Christ has done for us. God showed us this love. by sending his son into the world, and by everything that Jesus Christ did when he was here. Every act of his being loving toward other people, all the setting a good example, all the teaching us the truth, all the healings, and then of course, his suffering and dying for us on the cross. All of these things showed us love, this love which, again, just like faith, God has worked in our hearts by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit when he caused us to be born again. causing that faith to be in us, yes, that faith to be in us, but then also causing that love to be in us, which was not in us before. That love, which God has poured out on us so abundantly, so much through Jesus Christ, that now we overflow with that same love toward other people, especially toward the saints, our fellow Christians, those disciples with whom we together are following the same Lord Jesus. that love which is not the lower, baser forms of love, which people develop naturally. It's not romantic or erotic love, the love of enjoying pleasure that you get from some person or some pizza, not that kind of love. And not even that loyalty or brotherly love, which we may have just in ways that are purely carnal. No, not those lower forms of love, but that highest love, the Greek word for which in the New Testament is agape, which is the love of giving rather than of taking, the love of doing good, rather than of demanding good. That love. When I was thinking about this earlier, it struck me that recently the congregation decided as a whole to give some of the money that we put in the offering box to missionaries. home missionaries and foreign missionaries, as we used to say. Some working here in our own country, some working across the ocean in another country. And so that money, you're not keeping it just for yourself, you're not even keeping it just for your own congregation. You're letting it go to far away to be used by missionaries for the good of other people, mostly people you'll never meet. And there's love at work, a love of sacrificial giving, demanding nothing in return, that kind of love. Let us thank God for one another. for our fellow Christians, for our faith in the Lord Jesus and our love for all the saints. You might note here that someone is not a Christian, really, who does not have faith in Jesus and love for the saints. Now, when someone first becomes a Christian, first is converted, first repents of his sins and believes in Jesus Christ, well, faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints might not be as strong as later they will grow to be, but they will be present. Anyone who is converted to Christ, who truly is a Christian, will have in him faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints. Now think, think how we long for that in people that we know. How we long for faith and love to be present in those we know when they do not yet show forth those things. when they do not believably profess to trust in Jesus Christ, when they exhibit lower forms of love, but really not that godly highest love, when they're terrible, wicked people, or even when they're perfectly decent or nice people. and yet they don't show forth faith in Christ and love for all the saints. Think how we long for them to have faith in Christ and agape for all the saints. And think how we pray for them. We pray that they will. And then think how happy we are when we observe someone having faith in Jesus and love for all the saints. You might reflect on the times when we have got to witness that transformation right in front of our eyes. Think of how happy we are if someone comes to us we meet somebody, or someone starts coming to church with us, already having those things, those things already showing. Faith in Christ and love for the saints is already evident in those people when they come to us. Remember how happy we are to have that. or when someone we know has not been like that and then has by God's grace been converted and then we start to see it. We hear it in what they say and we see it in how they live. Sometimes it's undeniable just in their countenance, on their face. Just think how happy we have been in the times when God has provided that someone has, we've come to know somebody new who already has faith and love, or someone who didn't have faith and love has come to have it. That has been great joy to us. So it is fitting for us to thank God for something that previously was a matter of such longing to us, and now is a matter of such joy to us. Think how ungrateful we would be if we wanted that so badly, and then when it was granted, we didn't thank God for it. and think how pleasing to him when he gives those good gifts and we then are grateful to him for it. And so we give thanks to God for our fellow Christians, for our faith in Jesus Christ and our love for all the saints. And we give thanks to God in this way for one another without ceasing See that in verse 16, Ephesians 1.16, I do not cease to give thanks for you. So the apostle is not there talking about giving thanks just one day a year on the National Thanksgiving Day, nor is he talking about giving thanks for one another just one day a week on the Lord's Day and the assembly of the congregation, although of course it's good to do that, but never ceasing to give thanks. Not forgetting to thank Him when we get used to it being like that. You know, when someone was not in the faith and you were longing for it and praying for it, well then, when the person was converted, you thanked God for it? So wonderful was the change, you couldn't help thinking about it and thanking God for it. But now you know that it's been a year or two years or five years. Well, you're used to it now. It's not striking to you anymore. You're used to the person having faith in Christ and true love for other people. Well, the apostle here says, I do not cease to give thanks for you. Let us not stop thanking Him for this when we get used to it. You know, someone new comes into your life and you deal with that person at work, or it's a relative of yours or a neighbor, or especially if somebody comes into the congregation, that person has this very obvious faith in Jesus Christ and love for the saints, and you just thank God for that person. But then a few years go by and you're just so used to it, you could stop thinking about giving thanks to the Lord for it. But the Bible says here, I do not cease to give thanks for you, so let us not stop thanking him when we just get used to the blessing. And let us not stop thanking him if we find that that faith in Jesus Christ is not complete or perfect. yet, or if we find that that love for the saints is not complete or perfect yet. You find that there is some shortcoming in the person's devotion to Christ. You find that there is some shortcoming in how he treats you or treats other people. His way of loving you is not always just right. Well, let's not Stop thanking the Lord for that person's faith in Christ and love for the saints just because we find that it is not yet in a state of glorious perfection. Let us thank God for one another and let us pray to God for one another. You see how the Apostle in verse 16, having said, do not cease to give thanks for you. He also says, making mention of you in my prayers. Praying and thanking are not exactly the same thing. almost always do them together. Praying is asking things of God, telling him what our desires are for him to do. Thanking him is acknowledging his goodness in already doing things for us that we've prayed for that we didn't even think of to pray for. Thanking him and praying for him are done together, but they're not exactly the same thing. So we thank the Lord for one another. And then we pray to God for one another specifically here in, in, in this passage in Ephesians, we pray for one another for knowledge of God or acknowledging of God. Do you see in verse 17, near the end, that it says, in the knowledge of him. And then in verse 18, it says, the eyes of understanding be enlightening, that you may know. We're praying for knowledge of him. We're praying that we may know. Now, it's not referring here to normal, run-of-the-mill knowledge or knowing. In the Greek New Testament, the word for knowledge is gnosis, G-N-O-I-S. We have that in our language negated when we say that there is ignorance or someone is ignorant. That's a form of this Greek word gnosis. That's why there's that G in our English words because there's that G in the Greek term gnosis. That's the normal word for knowing, for knowledge. Here is an intensified form. Epignosis. E-P-I as a prefix. Epignosis. An intensified, strengthened form of the idea of knowledge. Now, every Christian has, of course, already some knowledge of God. And so we're praying not for the Christian to get some basic knowledge of God when he doesn't yet have any. No, he already has some. We're praying for more knowledge, for better knowledge, We're praying for knowledge that is more full, more accurate, knowledge of which the Christian is certain, and knowledge that is practical or Experiential, people say now. Experimental, they used to say in the Puritan era. Knowledge that is practical, experimental, experiential. I'll take that word experiment and remind you of your science lessons in school. The teacher might have written something on the chalkboard. that's a while back, on the marker board, that might be a while back, might have projected something up on the screen and you might have learned it by seeing the letters and numbers, reading the formula, but then the teacher took you over to the lab stations and you lit a Bunsen burner under a beaker and you put those things in there and saw what they did. So you had some knowledge derived from reading something on the blackboard, but then you also got knowledge by conducting an experiment. So here, epignosis is referring to that. knowledge derived from reading the Bible, from having the Bible read to you, knowledge acquired verbally in words, but then knowledge also confirmed by you living it, by experimenting with it and seeing the results. So we're talking about here about knowledge that includes simply being informed of the facts, of the truth, but also includes believing, approving, embracing these things we've been informed of, and experiencing what it's like to live according to what we know to be true about God. So we're praying for one another, specifically for knowledge of God. when the Holy Spirit of God moves in the heart of the sinner to regenerate that heart, to give a new birth from above. He produces in that sinner faith in Christ, repentance from sin, love for the saints, as I've already mentioned. Then, as a result of that regeneration, that new birth, the person no longer rejects or suppresses the knowledge of God like he did before. Instead, he now desires the knowledge of God. He seeks it. We then, who have become the disciples of Jesus Christ, we want to learn from Jesus Christ. gaining knowledge of God, that sure certain experiential knowledge. See how that appears in the familiar Great Commission. The church goes preaching forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. And those who by the work of God's Spirit in them believe in Christ are then called his disciples. those who want to learn from him as their master teacher. Disciples of Jesus Christ begin the lifelong pursuit of the knowledge of God through Christ Jesus. School may not have been your thing. It might be that school was really hard for you, you couldn't wait to get out of school, and you were good at other things more than school. Others of you, I know, were really good at school. School came naturally, you thrived in school. Either way, being a disciple of Jesus Christ is, in a way, being in school forever. But unlike your flawed teachers you had in school, he is the perfect teacher, the wonderful teacher, the all-knowing teacher. He is that teacher that when you learn from him, when you follow him, when you follow his example, You're never disappointed. There's no shortcomings in him as the teacher, no disappointments in him when you're in his school. The Lord Jesus has set in place the means by which we gain that certain knowledge of God. It's from the Holy Scriptures. I don't mean at all to try to tell you You've got to get knowledge of God from somewhere else besides the Bible. No, it is from the Bible that we want to seek knowledge of God. There is knowledge of God to be gained in nature, contemplating creation, yes, but we want primarily to be seeking knowledge from the Holy Scriptures. As a matter of fact, in the first chapter of Luke, when Luke is telling the reason that he's writing his gospel account, it says that you may know the certainty of the things in which you were instructed. And that word that he uses right there, that you may know, the verb form of epignosis, epignosco, or something like that, that you may certainly know experientially or experimentally know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed. It is the Holy Scriptures and the pastors in the congregation to teach you the scriptures. We're already in Ephesians. I'll just turn a page to Ephesians chapter four. Ephesians chapter four. I've got the New King James Version open in front of me, but I have the King James copied into my notes in this place. The Old Geneva Bible and King James Bibles get this passage right, and almost all the newer Bibles mess it up. I'll read this from the King James Version. And He, Jesus Christ, gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." A three-fold work of the pastors God has given. Verse 13, "'Til we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge epignosis of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So the means that the Lord Jesus has provided, His Word, the Bible, especially understanding it as your congregation's pastors are teaching it to you, and there is the means he's provided for our gaining this knowledge, this certain experimental knowledge of God. So we are to make use of the scriptures, especially the scriptures as taught to us by our pastors, better to know the Lord. Now, despite the use of these means, or even with the use of these means, we will not know God as we should know Him, we will not know God as we want to know Him, unless God gives us the knowledge by His Holy Spirit at work within us. So we pray that he will give it. I'm back now to the main passage in Ephesians chapter one. See how he says, verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know. To make good use of the scriptures as we read them and meditate on as they're taught to us by our pastors, we must have the work of the Holy Spirit inside us. The Spirit will take what we're being taught and by it make us wise. The Spirit will take things that we don't seem to understand and he will make them clear to us. The Holy Spirit will do the work of illumination in us. When we're trying to understand the Bible, it's like we're trying to read something in the dark. He will turn the light on for us. He will help us to gain this knowledge. And then there are three things that the apostle says here that we may know then. He's praying. We're going to pray for one another. for knowledge, that we'll know. But then the apostle lists three things that we, by God's grace, when we pray for one another about it, that we'll come to know. The first one, his hope. His hope, you see this in verse 18, that you may know what is the hope of his calling. The object of our hope being the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Our hope in Jesus being resurrection from the dead unto eternal life. Hope in the Bible refers to those things that we believe God for, but we do not yet have hope in our resurrection from the dead unto eternal life now the world has no hope or in another sense they have hope but nothing sure they're hoping for something hoping in something but there's there's no reason to be sure they'll get it But we have hope that is a sure hope, a living or lively hope, a hope that is grounded in Jesus Christ. And the apostle teaches us to pray that we will know this hope. Again, not meaning that we'll merely have heard about it, you know, Christians have heard about their hope, but that we will have this greater knowledge of it, this certain knowledge, this experimental or practical knowledge of it. having a sure, certain knowledge of that hope that we have in Jesus Christ, that when he comes back, he will raise us from the dead to an everlasting life with him. Having certain knowledge of that hope does us very much good. It serves us as the ground of joy for us and peace for us. Joy that doesn't ebb and flow with how things are going in life. Peace that doesn't go away when there's chaos around us. Sure hope is a sure basis for stable joy and peace. This hope is also a motivation for efforts at purity or holiness in how we live. Jesus Christ is coming back. Therefore, let us live wholly unto him until he comes. This hope is a restrainer of grief for us. We certainly have grief in this world. We lose things, we lose people, things hurt, we're disappointed. We definitely have grief in this world. The Bible says that those who are not in Christ, they grieve and they've got no hope and their grief just has no limits. And as you know, people, destroy their lives in their grief. They even take their own lives in their grief. But it's not like that for us. The hope that we have in Jesus Christ of the resurrection to eternal life causes our grief, bad and painful as it is, to kind of hit limits. You know, it whelms us, but doesn't overwhelm us. And that's what this knowledge of the hope does for us, restrains our grief from getting like it otherwise would be. So knowledge of three things. First, his hope, and second, his glory, the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. You see that at the end of verse 18. The riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. In the Old Testament scriptures, we read of God making men exceedingly rich or wealthy in the things of this world. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Job, King Solomon, the accounts of all their livestock and servants and crops and gold are amazing. In the New Testament scriptures, We read of the New Jerusalem, Book of Revelation, being made of gold and precious gems and pearls big enough to be a city gate. Now, those things in the scriptures help us to know the riches of the glory of the inheritance God has for us in Jesus Christ. Now, the riches that Jesus Christ has for us, when this life is over and we enter into the eternal bliss that Jesus Christ has for us when he comes back, gold, pearls, diamonds will be nothing like rich enough for him to pour out all of his blessings on us. The riches will consist in such things as goodness, wisdom, grace, love. He will cause us to have such an experience of the perfections of God such an enjoyment of what attributes of God can be communicated to us that it will make all the descriptions that can be made of wealth in this world seem like nothing in comparison. Our Lord begins sharing these things with us already in this life. You know what it's like to have some patience that you know you didn't have before. To have some peace that you know you didn't have before. You know what it feels like to realize, I'm not as foolish as I used to be. I have a measure of wisdom now. You know what it's like to have some of that from the Lord in this life. Well, when he comes again, and we come into our inheritance, he will bring us into an exceedingly rich sharing of those things with us. We will be transformed to where we no longer have any sin in us and are able to enjoy these graces in ourselves and we will be given a much fuller experience of these graces, of these perfections in Jesus Christ. We will be made like him. not exactly like him. He is both God and man. We will never be God. We will never be both God and man. We will continue to be man for all eternity. But how his human nature is glorified in heaven Our human nature will be similarly glorified so that we can see him as he is because we will be made like him. This is this rich inheritance, the glory of the riches of this inheritance, which the saints have in Jesus Christ. We pray that we will have a fuller, a better, a more certain knowledge of his glory of such riches. The third thing for which we pray to have epignosis, a certain knowledge is his power. You see that in verse 19. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe? God is infinite in power, all-powerful, omnipotent. He showed this in creation, where he just made everything by just speaking. He showed this in such acts of redemption as parting the Red Sea. And God exerts that great power in us who believe. in producing faith in us, figuratively in making a rock inside of us become a beating heart, causing us to be born a second time, making us into a new, different creature, giving us life, quickening us when we were dead in trespasses and sins, and then keeping us that way, keeping us in the faith, despite whatever the devil tries, or whatever the world does, or even whatever our own sinful flesh tempts us to. God exerts that great power in us who believe in raising us up of the last day and keeping us glorified for all eternity. Now that power that he has and has shown in creation and has worked in us who believe, it's that same power by which he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places. Again, the human nature of Jesus Christ, there's no power in the human nature to raise itself from the dead, no power in human nature to fly up through the clouds and go sit on the throne in heaven. No, this is the divine power, the power of God, raising Christ from the dead and seating him at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Now, having sure knowledge of that power of God does us, again, very much good. It helps us to have endurance or perseverance. You know, one of the sentiments that we get when we're exerting ourselves for a long time on something, going for a long run or working something really hard or you moms when you've been in labor for a long time and the baby has not yet come forth. One of the things that drags us down toward having the endurance to go all the way to the end is wondering, can I actually do this? Do I actually have the strength to make it? And when your thoughts are, maybe I don't have the strength to make this, then you can fail in your resolve to persevere. But when you have the strength and you know for certain that you have the strength, then you can endure no matter how difficult and long the task is. And that's how it is with the things in this life that are difficult and they continue to be difficult and we've got to keep at it even though it's hard. Well, when you have certain knowledge that the power of God is at work in you, The same power that created everything and the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in you. Then you can endure, you can persevere, knowing you have the power to. Certain knowledge of this power helps us in resisting temptation to sin. Something is alluring to you You're tempted to do it. You know it's wicked, but you've done it so many times. You just feel like you can't stop. Well, it helps tremendously to resist on the thousand and first time with a new resolve, because you know, the power of God is at work in you. It's not that there's insufficient help from him. The power is there for you to resist the temptation. Also, there is the confidence to try, the confidence to attempt, because, of course, up till now, there are good things that are good for your family, that are good for your congregation, that are service to Jesus Christ, but you've never done them. You're afraid to try, but really it's needed. Really, it's your duty. Well, if you know the power of God with certainty and know it from experience, then you get from that knowledge, the confidence to try it. You're thankful for all that God has done for you. But you know that you are not yet the mature Christian that you should be. You're thankful for all that God has done for others in the congregation. But you know that they are not yet the fully mature Christians they should be. The boys and men need to be either right now or in the future, good husbands and fathers, and maybe deacons or elders. The women need to be, either right now or in the future, good wives and mothers and grandmothers and such. But the maturity to be those things seems to be lacking at present, either when you look in the mirror or when you look around you. So let us all pray for one another that we will know the power of the Holy Spirit to work in us, that we'll know that power from the scriptures, and we'll know it from the experience of that power bringing us to maturity in Christ Jesus. This week, part of celebrating the National Thanksgiving Day, I read some, just a few pages, from William Bradford's history of the Plymouth Colony, 1620 and on. We all know something about the events of 1620 and 21, the first harvest, the first Thanksgiving Day. But I was reading about two years later, 1623, there was a severe drought when the corn was supposed to be growing and the whole crop seemed like it might die. The colonists, as you know, had thanked God previously when he had provided. Well, now with that drought threatening their crop, they humbled themselves before the Lord and prayed for rain so that their current crop would grow. And God sent rain on that occasion right away in answer to their prayers. And then they ended up that year with an abundant harvest and had another Thanksgiving day, fall 1623. So let it be that we thank the Lord for the faith and love He has given to us who believe. But in the drought of life in this sinful world, where we often look to each other and feel to ourselves like corn that hasn't had any rain, let us also humble ourselves and pray for one another, that we will more and more know the Lord, more and more gain certain and experiential knowledge of his hope and his glory and his power. Then, when the Lord rains down such knowledge in answer to our prayers, which he is sure to do, we will have even more cause again to thank him for the faith and love we see in one another and how it's growing according to knowledge. Amen. Let's pray about that.