Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians and chapter one. Ephesians chapter one. And I'll read the passage we'll look at tonight, verses 15 through verse 23. Ephesians chapter one and verse 15. For this reason, I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he brought about 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 every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Verses three through 14 in this chapter are one long sentence, is one long sentence in the original language a sentence of doxology, that is of praise and of worship. And now in verses 15 through 23 we have one long sentence of prayer and so what has happened here is that doxology has been turned into prayer. And this is the way it should be in doxology. We bless and praise God for his great mercy and his salvation. And then this should lead us in our hearts to bow and to bow our knees before him in prayer and in petition. Paul begins here in verse 15 and he says, for this reason, which points us back to the spiritual blessings that he has just enumerated in that long doxology. They have all come from God the Father. They have come to us through Jesus Christ, as he says in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And then he goes on to enumerate these spiritual blessings. In verse 4, God the Father's eternal election of us. in which, before the foundation of the world, he put us into our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. In verse 5, he predestined us to adoption into his family as sons through Jesus Christ to himself. Then we see in verse 7 that He has redeemed us, we have redemption. He has purchased us from the power and the guilt of our sin by the blood of His Son. We have forgiveness of our sins and we are acceptable in the sight of God the Father. Then we see down in verse 11 that we have an eternal future which is called our inheritance. Verse 11, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will. And then in verse 13, he tells us that after we listened to the gospel and we believed, then we received the gift of the Holy Spirit who came to seal us for our salvation. At the end of verse 13, he says, having also believed, you were sealed in him, sealed into union with Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit of promise. What does this sealing mean? The idea comes from an ancient practice when different merchants would put their cargo on a ship. And the problem would be, how would the different merchants know the different pieces of cargo and who they belong to? And so what each merchant would do, they would put their own distinctive seal, their mark, on each piece of cargo so that they would know who it belonged to and nothing would be lost in the journey. This is what God the Father has done with each one of us. That He has marked us by the Holy Spirit as belonging to Him. He has sealed us for the final day of our redemption. If a believer would ask the question, how can I be certain that I will make it safely into heaven? The answer is that God the Father has marked you and he has sealed you with the Holy Spirit. And he knows every saint in whom he has sent his Holy Spirit to dwell. And it is impossible that any of his people would be lost. The Spirit has sealed them and he will guard them and keep them to their final salvation. In verse 14, he says, the Spirit has been given to us as a pledge of our inheritance, a down payment, a foretaste of the glory that is to come. And what we read throughout these verses are recurring phrases like, to the praise of the glory of his grace, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his grace. So this is a doxology of praise because all of these blessings have been freely bestowed upon every believer through Jesus Christ. And these blessings that are spoken of here are eternal. They are blessings that are incomprehensible, they are vast, they are beyond all comprehension in this present world. But now the doxology turns to prayer in verse 15. He says, for this reason, because of all these spiritual blessings that have been so freely given to us, now Paul turns to prayer. Paul was in prison when he wrote this letter to the Ephesians. He had heard of the faith of the Lord of the Ephesians, the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, he mentions in verse 15, and their love for all the saints. Faith always produces this fruit of Christian love for the saints. And Paul's response to their faith and love was to give thanks to God as he says in verse 16, he says, I do not cease to give giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers. He is giving thanks here to God the Father because salvation is the work of God alone. Whenever there is any conversion, whenever there is any sinner who repents of his sins and comes to Jesus Christ, it is the work of God the Father alone. It is the giving of a new heart. It is a spiritual regeneration. It is a supernatural work of God, a divine work of power. And the only one to whom thanks is to be given is God the Father. I have not ceased, he says, to give thanks. for your salvation. But now that they have come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, now the question is, what did they need most of all now in the Christian life? How was their new spiritual life to be sustained? And how are they to grow in their faith in Jesus Christ? The answer is through the spiritual means of the increasing knowledge of the truth and glory of Christ and what he has done for them in salvation, which is what the apostle now begins to pray for in the following verses. In verse 17, we see he addresses the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, a slightly different phrase than what he would normally use. the God of our Lord Jesus Christ in the sense that Christ became a man to become our mediator, and God the Father, He is God, Christ is the mediator, and so the Father is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. And all the while, Jesus maintains the full divine nature equal with the Father as well. He is also called here the Father of Glory. or the glorious Father, which speaks of the glory that has belonged to the Father from all eternity. And then Paul prays that the Father of glory may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. Some say the word spirit here, a spirit, the spirit of wisdom, It should be translated with a capital S referring to the Holy Spirit, but others say, and it seems to be the majority opinion, that it should be a small s which would refer to the human spirit. Most English Bibles translate it with a small s. I find I have a preference for understanding this to be the Holy Spirit, and in reading the commentators, I have to be honest, I'm not entirely convinced that it's not. But I defer because of the majority opinion. But nevertheless, even if we accept that this is a small ass, the human spirit, we cannot remove, we cannot remove the work of the Holy Spirit which lies behind this verse. Because we are in a prayer, and in a prayer we ask God for something that we do not have, and which only He can give. If we were able to give ourselves this spirit of wisdom, then we would not need to ask and to pray for it. We are not speaking here of human wisdom. We are not speaking of a wisdom that arises from the minds of men. We are speaking of a wisdom which only God the Father can give to us. And how does He give it to us? By the Holy Spirit alone. So the Holy Spirit is the only one who can give us this spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. All wisdom, all revelation, all knowledge of God enters our minds by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. wisdom here. Wisdom is the proper understanding, it is the proper insight into the truth of the Word of God. Wisdom in the Bible always leads us to a moral and upright life in the keeping of God's commandments. So we speak here of spiritual wisdom, which only the Father can give to those who know His Son, Jesus Christ. James says in James chapter 1 and verse 5, If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all men, meaning to all who believe, generously and without reproach, and it shall be given to him. Then we see at the end of verse 17 that he mentions the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of God, the true knowledge of God, the true understanding of His Son, Jesus Christ. This knowledge is a recognition and it includes an adoration of the glory and the power and the majesty of God as He is revealed to us in the Scripture. Solomon says in Proverbs chapter 2 and verse 5, he says, then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. This is what Paul is praying for, that all believers, this is what this prayer is all about, that all believers would come to a deeper and fuller experiential knowledge of God. The Lord said in Jeremiah chapter 9 in verse 24, he said, let him who boasts, boast of this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth. But then we see in the middle of that phrase, that word revelation, that the Father would give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. The word revelation is an interesting word. It means that there is a revealing, there is an unveiling, a disclosure. The idea is that something is hidden and then it is revealed and then it is unveiled to see. Sometimes this word is used to speak of the inspiration, the revelation of the Holy Scripture. This is the way John used in Revelation chapter 1. In verse 1, he began the book of Revelation. He said, the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show to all his bondservants, and he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant. If we turn over for just a moment to chapter 3 and verse 2 and 3. We can see the word used in this way here. Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 2, Paul says, if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you, that by revelation, the same word, that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery as I wrote before in grief. In brief, he's speaking of the revelation, the inspiration of the holy Scriptures by the Holy Spirit. Back in chapter 1 and verse 17, the word revelation here is also used of the second coming of Jesus Christ. Because he is now hidden to the world and the world cannot see him but he will be revealed from heaven on the last day. This is the way Peter uses it in chapter one in verse seven. He says, your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. But how is the word used here? The word is used here in this verse, not in the sense of any new inspired revelation, because we have all the scriptures given to us in our Bibles. but it is used here in the sense of a true, deeper, and spiritual understanding of the written word. The idea is that there are things that are already written in the scripture, which we still need to have more revealed to us. They are on the written page. They are on the written page, but we still cannot see them as clearly or as fully as we should. Until they are open to us. Until they are revealed. Until the veil is taken off of our eyes. And so this is the kind of revelation that we are praying for here. The word is used in this sense. When Jesus said to Peter, In Matthew 16 verse 17, He said, Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And Jesus used the same word in His prayer in Matthew 11 verse 25. He says, Thou dost hide these things from the wise and intelligent, but dost reveal them to babes. So the Word, the Word has already been revealed. But what we need is a further insight, a revelation into the right understanding of it. And this can only come from the Father of glory by the Holy Spirit, a revelation into the written word. We are not saying here that every man should come to his own fanciful interpretation of scripture. We are not saying that men should allegorize the scripture, but what we are saying here is that there is a true meaning in the passage of the Holy Scripture, which is very often deeper than what appears on the surface of the written and literal word. There is a spiritual understanding of scripture. because it is the Word of the Living God, written by the Spirit, and only the Holy Spirit can bring us to that understanding. A good example of it would be what we saw this morning in the book of Ezekiel chapter 34, where the Father said, I will set over them One shepherd, my servant, David. And then the promise was that I will cause showers to come down in their season. They will be showers of blessing. We would not understand those showers as just being showers of literal rain upon the earth physically. But they would be spiritual showers of blessing as what Paul is speaking of in the first part of this chapter, the spiritual blessings of Christ that he sends down upon our souls. Every Christian knows this experience. of reading his Bible, and then suddenly things that he has not seen before, the scripture comes alive under the light of the Holy Spirit, things that once seemed to be hidden to us are now revealed, and our eyes are opened to see deeper, fuller, and true meaning of the Word of God. This is what happened with the disciples in Luke chapter 24 and verse 45. where we read, then He, Jesus, He opened their minds to understand the scripture. The psalmist prayed in Psalm 119 and verse 18, he said, open my eyes that I may see wonderful things out of thy law. So there are always hidden treasures in the word for us to see. And we will never come to the end of such things in this present life. We should search for them as for gold. We should seek after them as hidden treasures. And we should pray to the Lord Jesus, as Paul does here, that he would give to us this spirit of wisdom and of revelation into the knowledge of him. It does take wisdom with the revelation to bring us to this true and deeper knowledge of him. The spirit breathes upon the word and brings the truth to light, William Cowper wrote. Father of glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. But then we see in the beginning of verse 18, he says, I pray that the eyes of your heart, the eyes of your inner man, your spiritual soul may be enlightened. The King James would translate it. The eyes of your understanding may be enlightened that you may know. And so the idea here is that even as Christians who have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, there are still areas of our understanding that remain in darkness. And we need further light. We need the illumination of the Holy Spirit to shine the truth upon us. that we might come to see more of the glory and the truth of Jesus and his salvation as clearly as we should. We are like the blind man who was brought to Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus spat upon his eyes and laid his hands on him and Jesus asked him, do you see anything? And the blind man looked up and said, I see men, for I am seeing them like trees walking about. And so then Jesus laid his hands upon him again. And the man looked intently and was restored and began to see everything clearly. The blind man He needed another touch of the healing hand of Jesus for him to see clearly. And we need the work of the Holy Spirit in us that we may see more clearly as well. Isaiah said of the time of the coming Messiah in chapter 29 of his prophecy, he said, the eyes of the blind shall see. In Revelation chapter three in verse 18, Jesus says to the churches, he says, I advise you to buy from me. And he mentions different things that we should all buy from him. And one of them is, eyesalve, to anoint your eyes that you may see. And so that's what we need, our eyes to be opened here that we might see more of our Lord Jesus. So we look at the end of verse 17 and the beginning of verse 18, and we have this collection of these different words here. The end of verse 17, we have wisdom, we have revelation, we have knowledge. Then in the beginning of verse 18, we have enlightenment, we have understanding that you may know. And so that's what this is a prayer for, for further and deeper experiential knowledge of God and Christ. The goal of Paul's prayer is that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened so that you may know, he says. And now he tells us three things. that he wishes that we would know more of. And the first is the hope, in verse 18, the hope of his calling. We might call it the hope that lies before us. He mentions God's calling. Every Christian has been called by God. We find that in many passages of the Bible. We call it God's call. Romans chapter 1 in verse 6, Paul says, you also are the called of Jesus Christ. And he writes, to all who are beloved of God in Rome, called as saints. He writes to the Corinthians that they are saints by calling, so every Christian knows what it is to be called by God through the Gospel. And what happens when we are called is we hear the Word. We hear the Word of God. We are convicted of our sin. We come to see Jesus as the only Savior. Others hear the same gospel and they have no interest. Others hear the same gospel and they are unmoved. Some are indifferent, some mock, others scorn the gospel as foolishness. But the Christian hears the gospel, he cannot turn away from it. It comes to his soul in the power of the Holy Spirit. It becomes truth to him. He believes what God has said. And when that happens, that is God's calling. That's what makes the difference. And his call is always individual and it is effectual. Jesus said, all that the Father gives me will come to me. and his calling always comes through the gospel. Paul said to the Thessalonians, our gospel came to you not in word only but in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. For some it comes very suddenly, a single verse of scripture and God calls him into his kingdom. For others, it comes more gradually, like the dawn in the morning. But however it comes, it always brings one to the same end, which is faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior. But God's call is not a call that comes just randomly and haphazardly. But it is a call that comes with a purpose and an end, His purpose, His end, in view And His purpose in His calling of us, in every Christian that He calls, His purpose is always to bring them to their eternal glory in salvation. Paul said to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 12, the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. That's what he calls us into, into his kingdom and into his glory, the purpose of his call. We should turn to one verse in this regard. It's found in 1 Peter 5. verse Peter and chapter five. Chapter five and verse 10. And Peter says, and after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. So here we have His call, the God of all grace, He has called you. And what has He called us to? To His eternal glory in Christ Jesus. This is the goal of His call. This is what he intends when he calls us. He is not just calling us with no end in view. He is calling us to bring us to this eternal glory. And in between, he says, he will perfect, confirm, and strengthen and establish you. He will give you everything you need in this time, this little while of suffering, until he brings you into the eternal glory. In other words, it is effectual. He will accomplish His end. Calling is in the beginning of salvation. Glory is in the end. And He will bring us there. Faithful is He who calls you, and He will bring it to pass. He who began the good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. So this is the hope of the calling that He has given to us. The hope of his calling. We go back to Ephesians and chapter one. Ephesians chapter one in verse 18. This is the first thing Paul would have our eyes be enlightened to see more fully. The hope of his calling, the hope that we will immediately enter into the presence of Jesus at death. hope of the resurrection into glory in the end, at his second coming, the hope that we will stand before his throne in perfect righteousness on the last day. This is the hope to which he has called us. We often speak of hope. We use the word hope. We often speak of hope as something we can only wish to be true. We speak of hope as something that we desire to come to pass, but we cannot be sure, we cannot be certain. But hope in the Bible is something that is certain. Hope in the Bible is always sure and it never fails because it is built upon the work of Jesus. It is upon the power and the faithfulness of God. The world hopes for things that can only be seen in this world, and even then, its hope is uncertain. But the Christian's hope looks into eternity, and the Christian's hope is always sure and certain. It is the hope that we have by his calling. There is nothing that can ever stop the power of God. from completing the salvation that he has begun in us, which began with his calling of us. Paul placed calling, God's calling in that unbreakable chain of salvation in Romans chapter 8 and verse 30. He said, whom he predestined, what does he do with those whom he has predestined? These he also called. And then when he calls him, and whom he called, he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified. So there's the hope of our calling, that God will bring it to pass, we will be glorified with our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what Paul is praying for, that our eyes would be opened to see the certainty of these things, that our faith would be strengthened, and that we would see with eyes more clearly this great hope that is before us by the calling and the work of salvation he has begun in us. The second thing that Paul prays our eyes would be open to know more of is the inheritance that is to come. We see this at the end of verse 18. He says, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? Now we have an inheritance as believers. And our inheritance in the world to come is God himself. We are the children of God, and children have an inheritance. Paul said to the Romans, if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. And Paul has spoken of our inheritance back in verse 11, where he said, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined to it. And then he says in verse 14, in the beginning of verse 14, that the Holy Spirit is given as a pledge of our inheritance, which is to come, a down payment of our inheritance. But down in verse 18, he is speaking of his inheritance. Not our inheritance, God's inheritance. He says God's inheritance, his inheritance in the saints. which means that the saints are God's inheritance in eternity. Back up in the end of verse 14, he says, he speaks of a view to the redemption of God's own possession. to the praise of His glory. We are God's own possession because He has purchased us by the blood of Christ. And God's possession in verse 14 is the same as His inheritance in the saints down in verse 18. So, inheritance goes both ways. We both have an inheritance in the world to come. We have our inheritance in God. and he has his inheritance in us. We cannot describe the unsearchable treasures and the infinite riches of our inheritance in God, but neither can he describe the glory of his inheritance in us. This is why at the end of verse 18, Paul speaks of the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. The riches of the glory. Glory means the radiance, the brightness, the splendor, the majesty, the excellence of something, the glory of something. And Paul is using these words here because he cannot seem to express how precious and valuable that we are to God in eternity. He adds the word riches. The riches means the abundance of these things, the extreme value of these things. This is how God values His inheritance in the saints, is that He first calls it glory. And then that is not enough. And so now he calls it the riches of the glory that he has of his inheritance in the saints. There's a difference between our inheritance and his inheritance. Our inheritance is freely given to us. His inheritance was purchased by the blood of his son, Jesus Christ upon a cross. How valuable are we to Him as His inheritance? The answer is found at the cross where there God paid that cost above all others in the giving of His Son, Jesus Christ, in the death upon the cross. When we come to our inheritance, We will regard ourselves as exceedingly rich, filled with immeasurable joy. But so will God when he receives us and Christ presents the church to him in all of her glory without any spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Our inheritance is to stand before the throne of God and to see the face of Jesus. His inheritance, His inheritance is to look down from His glorious throne and to see heaven filled with a vast number of redeemed sinners all of them clothed in white robes and washed in the blood of His Son, and all of them made perfect in holiness, and every last one of them conformed to the image of His beloved Son, Jesus. The Father loves His Son, and what glory and joy it will be for Him to have His inheritance filled would save sinners, every one of them, perfectly like his beloved son, Jesus. The beauty and the perfection of Christ in every one of us, there's the riches of the glory of his inheritance. Paul, Paul wants our eyes to be opened and our eyes to be enlightened. so that we might see more of how precious and valuable we are to God himself as his inheritance. The third thing he prays for here is that our eyes, the eyes of our heart may be enlightened to know more of this. The third thing is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. We see in the beginning of verse 19, He says, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us believe? These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might. Now Paul uses here four words to describe the power of God, which is already, already at work in us. The first word in the beginning of verse 19 is power. Whose power? It is His power. It is divine, omnipotent power. And so He calls it the surpassing greatness of His power, which is toward us, at work in us who believe. The second word is in the second half of verse 19. It is the word working. These are in accordance with the working. The surpassing greatness of His power, He says, is working. It is operating in us. This divine power is exerting a divine energy in us. The third word is strength, at the end of verse 19, which speaks of God's supremacy, His dominion. It is a word that is often used for miracles. The fourth word is at the end of verse 19, which he calls his might, which speaks of the divine attribute and the angels or the saints sing in Revelation chapter five and verse 12, worthy is the lamb to receive might. And so he brings all of these together to speak of the great power, which is already at work in us as believers. this surpassing greatness of his power, this working of the strength of his might. Paul seems to take words and heap them upon one another because he cannot seem to overestimate the great power that is at work in us as believers. Then he gives us an example of this power in the resurrection and the exaltation of Christ, verse 20 and 21. He says, which he brought about 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 every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. Jesus died upon the cross and he cried out, it is finished. Our sins were atoned for. Everlasting righteousness was brought in. He had accomplished all that the Father had given Him to do. A perfect salvation for His people. On the third day, God raised Him from the dead. And then He ascended Him up through the heavens to take His seat. He seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. And whatever powers, whatever principalities were in the heavenly places, Jesus swept by all of them to go far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come to the highest and the most glorious place in heaven, which only belongs to God. And the father made him take a seat at his right hand in the heavenly places. This is where our Lord Jesus Christ is tonight. This has already taken place. He has gone from the grave to glory. He has been taken from the tomb to the throne, the highest place in heaven. And then in verse 22, the father now gives all things in subjection under his feet. and gave him, and he put all things, he says, in subjection under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church. All things are mentioned twice in that verse. Everything, all things in heaven, all things on earth. All sovereignty, power, dominion has been given to Jesus. so that every atom in this entire universe is under the power and the rule of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is so for only one purpose, for one purpose alone, to promote the eternal welfare and the salvation of his people, which is his church. Paul is telling us here, that back in the beginning of verse 19, that power that is at work in us now is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to the highest place of heaven. That power is now the power that is at work in every believer. Now you say to me, well, how can this possibly be? And how come I am so weak? It seems to me I am so weak and frail and prone to so many troubles and sins and wanderings. We give a couple reasons to see more of how this power is at work in us. The first is our union with Christ is what he speaks of. We see in verse 23, he says, which is his body, the church, which is his body, his people, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Christ is the head. We are the members of His body. And as the members of His body, every believer is united to Him. And He has all fullness and grace. And out of His fullness, we all receive And so he fills his body with the power that belongs to him. We read very often in the earlier verses of the chapter here, the phrase, in Christ, in Him, over and over, it all speaks of our union with Him, and we are all united to Him in this eternal, unbreakable union, and the same power that is at work in Jesus is at work in us for our salvation. The power of His resurrection, the power of His ascension is already, and it has already come to be at work in us. in the spiritual resurrection that we have experienced, which Paul now will speak of in Ephesians chapter two, where we were dead in our trespasses and sins. And God raised us from that spiritual death and gave us new life. And we are already seated with Christ in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The power that raised us from our death of sin and gave us new life is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him into heaven. Do we know, can we even begin to comprehend what power it takes to raise a dead man to life? It takes divine omnipotent power. And that's the power that has already been at work in us in our conversion and in our new life. We too often fail to realize what has already happened to us as Christians. We underestimate the power that is at work in us. We are still in the same bodies that we had before our salvation, but our souls have been regenerated. We have new hearts within us. We are new creations. There has been this most astonishing transformation that has already begun in us. We see, we see everything in this world differently than we did before. A powerful transformation has taken place in our minds so that we think our very thought processes, our desires, our ambitions, our goals, and our life have all been changed. The fear of God is within us. We do not wish to offend Him. We tremble to do so. We fight against our sins. I am not saying we are perfect. We are not. I am not saying we are perfect. We are not perfect. We sin, but we mourn over our sins. And we believe in the Lord Jesus. as the only Savior, and when we sin, we repent afresh, we go to Him for forgiveness, and we believe that He gives us forgiveness. We love Him. We love His Word. We read His Word. We love His worship. We love to hear His voice in the Scripture. We love His ways. We love to do His will. There is nothing more pleasing to us than to be pleasing to Him. When we sin, we have shame, and we have guilt, and we know what it is, and we must go back to Him and be restored once again. All of these are new desires that are within us. They are desires that are contrary, completely contrary to the people of the world. These are things in us that are not in them. And they are in us only by divine power that has come from God through Jesus Christ. The same power that raised Him from the dead has already been at work in us to raise us from our spiritual death and to give us this new life. I ask you another question. Why have we continued to follow Jesus even to this present hour? Why? Has our attachment to Jesus made us richer and more wealthy in this world? Has it made us more popular? Has it made our life easier and more pleasant The answer is, it has done the contrary. And in a sense, we are losers. We are all losers in this present, in the things of this present world. And yet we cannot give up following Jesus, and we love it so. How does that happen? By the living power of the resurrected Christ that is still at work in us. By the surpassing greatness of His power that is working by the strength of His might in our souls to give us perseverance. Do we understand something of the power that it takes for a saint to persevere to the end and be saved? How many begin the Christian life and peter out after a little while? But by God's grace, we have not petered out. We are persevering. And that is this great power that Paul is speaking of here. We may see the great power again as we even consider What he has said about the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in us and has sealed us for our salvation. As he says back in verses 13 and 14, the Holy Spirit, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has come to us permanently and he will never leave his temples. Can we even begin to comprehend what grace and power it takes for the Holy Spirit to come and take up His residence permanently in us as sinners and begin the great work of sanctification. God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, equal with the Father and the Son in glory and power, the Spirit of infinite power has come to dwell in us. Rev Genesis chapter one in verse two, the earth was in chaos, darkness, void of any life. And then we read that the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters and he was the agent of the creation. Whenever God spoke, the Holy Spirit brought all the order, beauty, life into this world. The same Holy Spirit of infinite power has now come to dwell within us. Do we not think that he has more love for us than he had for the creation? Do we not think that he has more love for us for whom Jesus died upon the cross? And if he finished the work of the father in that first creation, then surely he will finish the work in the new creation and he will accomplish all that the father has given to him. So it is this great surpassing power that is already at work in us by the working of the strength of his might that Paul wishes us to see more of. We have three things that he prays that our eyes would be enlightened to, that we would see more clearly the hope of his calling, the inheritance, and the power that is at work in us. And so we've seen what Paul prays for in the passage, and I give you just three very quick applications of what we've seen. The first is that we must be praying Christians. Very simple. That's what it's all about. It's about prayer. Every Christian should be a praying Christian. In the midst of all the busyness of life, We must find the closet where we can go to our Heavenly Father in prayer. The second application is we must pray for the spiritual blessings of the Christian life. That's what Paul is praying for here, that the Lord Jesus would open our eyes, open our minds to understand the scriptures. Our prayers The content of our prayers often betray the priorities of our life. When we pray only for earthly needs, something has gone amiss. We can pray for earthly needs, and we should. We can pray for our daily bread and we should cry to God over the troubles that we have. We should pour out our heart to him over all the trials that we have in this present life. But we must also pray for these spiritual blessings that he speaks of here in this passage. And then last, we ought not to be content to live at a low spiritual state. So many Christians in the present world live at a low level. But this prayer shows us that we do not lead to be there. And we can rise to a higher level. And we can always, and we should always be increasing and growing in these things. In the grace and knowledge of Christ. And we should desire and we should pray. Paul prayed for the Ephesians, he prayed for us, and we should pray for ourselves and for one another in this way. Let us pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for your blessed word. Thank you for the glorious things that we have as your people, all the spiritual blessings that have been given to us in our Lord Jesus Christ. It is beyond our comprehension. And we see so dimly and darkly and at a distance so often these things. And so we pray that you would fulfill this prayer in each one of us, that our eyes would truly be opened. that we would have a spirit, the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the fuller knowledge of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Teach us these wonderful things, we pray, that we may rejoice and we may live as we should and we may do your will and be pleasing to you. We thank you now for the power that is at work in us. Continue, oh Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to do your work of salvation in us. And we ask that you would hear us in Jesus' name. Amen.