Children ages four to seven, Children's Church. I want to thank Deacon Jim Boggs for remembering to pray for Rod Andrews' family. Got in the middle of my prayer and drew a blank. And that's a prayer, let me just tell you, that's a prayer. You don't want to pray for the wrong person on that, you know? You don't want to usher someone off to glory before they're actually gone home to be with the Lord. But thank you, Jim, and we'll all be remembering Janet and Andrew's family in our prayers this week. I'll make a note of that. Thank you for the privilege of being able to come and share God's Word with you. Ephesians chapter 1 is our text. Ephesians chapter 1. We're going to start in verse 15, looking at verses 15 to 23. This is the Word of God. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward 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 in 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 toward us who believe. according to the working of his great might. 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 one to come. And he put all things 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. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this wonderful section of your word. We desire, Father, to hear from You this morning. We desire to hear Your truth. We do not need to hear the words of a man. We need to hear the Word of God. And so we seek Your face and we ask that Your Holy Spirit would come and would empower Your Word to go forth with power. Father, I pray that my words would be faithful to Your Word, that I would not speak anything but what is true and right And I pray that you would prepare all of our hearts to be good soil to receive the seed of the word and bring forth fruit. Fruit that will endure to your glory and praise. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it's great to be with you again. It's great to be able to pick up where we left off last month. Last month, we took a look at the first half of Ephesians chapter one, focusing on verses three to 14. And we looked at those verses under the theme of identity, asking the question, who are you? The question was answered by this section of scripture, verses three to 14, which in the original Greek is a 202 word long sentence of praise unto God. It is Paul's exaltation of God for all of the many spiritual blessings that we have received through Christ. And so we saw that the answer to the question, who am I, is that we are blessed. Children of God, we are adopted into God's family and we are given every rich spiritual blessing in Christ. Predestination, election, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, inheritance, and the seal of the Holy Spirit. This time we're continuing on looking at verses 15 to 23. And what's interesting is that in the original Greek, this is all one sentence. It's 167 words long. It's not quite 202, but it's still a pretty long sentence. And here, Paul has turned from praising God to expressing his prayer to God on behalf of the Ephesians. And today, as we look at this passage, I want us to do so under the theme of aspiration. asking us the question of, what do you most desire for yourself? What is the deepest longing and desire of your heart? Someone has said that the three most important questions you can ask yourself in life are, who am I? Why am I here? And where am I heading? And I believe that Ephesians 1 answers all of those questions for us in a way that is centered on Christ, anchored in the gospel, and aiming at glory. So we're going to be focusing on answering the theme of aspiration under, why am I here and where am I heading? What is my deepest heart's desire? What is the trajectory of my life? And we will see that Paul's prayer for the Ephesians, his prayer for them is grounded in thanksgiving for the work that God has already done. But his prayer is focused on asking God to grant the Ephesians a deeper knowledge of himself. That that is what they need more than anything else is to know God. Paul wants the Ephesians and God wants us. God wants us to ground our identity in himself. In who he is and in what he has given to us through the gospel. And God wants us to ground our aspirations in himself, that we might know him the more and that we might strive after him with all that we have. So we're gonna break this down into three main headings this morning. You have some space in your bulletin to take notes and I've provided you with a bit of an outline. We'll begin by looking at Paul's thanksgiving and then the heart of his prayer and then his proclamation of the supremacy of Christ. Paul begins by expressing to God his deep thanksgiving for the Ephesians. Paul says, I do not cease to give thanks for you. Now what does Paul mean by that? Does he mean that literally day and night, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he never stops giving thanks for the Ephesian believers? That's a literal reading of that phrase, but that can't be what Paul means. It's impossible. You can't spend every single moment of your life giving thanks for someone, nor would it be proper for Paul to do so, because it would have kept him from doing all the other things that God had called him to do. So what does he mean? What he means is this. He has been faithful and consistent in praying for the Ephesian church, And his prayers for the Ephesian church have been grounded in thanksgiving. Why does Paul give thanks? He gives thanks because he's heard two things about the Ephesian church. He's heard about their faith in the Lord Jesus, and he's heard about their love for all the saints. We can see based on that that faith in Christ and love for fellow Christians are the two distinguishing marks of being a true believer. Now, I didn't say those are the two things you need to do in order to be saved or to be careful, but those are the two distinguishing marks of a true believer. In Acts 16, when Paul and Silas were in prison in Philippi and God shook the earth and broke their bonds and the door came open and the Philippian jailer was about to kill himself and Paul said, wait, don't kill yourself, we're here. The Philippian jailer was overcome by their joy and by their peace in the midst of trial and he asked them, brothers, what must I do to be saved? And Paul's answer was very simple, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your household. And we must not forget that all that is necessary for salvation is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is faith alone in Christ alone that saves us. And that is because Jesus has fully paid for all of our sins with his precious blood. He has finished the work. And all we need to do is rest in Him, trust in Him, receive Him, and rest in Him. That's what it means to believe in Jesus. But the Apostle John also said in 1 John 4, he said this, Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God. because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. And so we are justified by faith alone in Christ alone. But if we have been justified, we must love God's people. If we belong to Jesus, God has adopted us all into the same family, and we are brothers and sisters. I have three wonderful children. They are 10, seven, and four. And every once in a while, they don't get along. But they always love each other. They always love each other. And so the two distinguishing marks of a believer, the sure evidence of God's grace at work in a person's life, are faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and love for all the saints. The second thing we can note is not only are those the two distinguishing marks of a true believer, but Paul thanks God continually for the Ephesians because it is God who has done that work in their hearts. Notice he doesn't say, I thank you that you have faith in the Lord Jesus and that you have love for all the saints. Way to go, good job, you did it. He doesn't say that. He says, I thank my God for you. since I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints because it's God who gives the gift of faith. And love is the first fruit of the Holy Spirit. And so if you have faith in the Lord Jesus and if you have love for your fellow Christians, you can praise God because you carry the distinguishing marks of being a true child of God. And you can praise God because God has done that work in your heart and not you yourself. The third thing to notice may seem obvious, but I don't want to miss it. Paul is thankful for other believers and the work of God in their lives. Was the Ephesian church perfect? Had they arrived? Were they without sin and without problems? No, they weren't. Paul is going to address some things that they need. They needed to love each other better, particularly across cultural lines. They needed the Holy Spirit to do more work in their hearts. But Paul doesn't focus on that first and foremost. He first and foremost focuses on giving thanks for his fellow Christians. Because no one becomes a believer but by the grace of God. And so we should be thankful for every believer. Whether we agree with them or like the same things they like or not, we should be thankful for one another. Moving from thanksgiving, we move into Paul's prayer, what he's asking for for them. He says that he remembers them in his prayers. In verse 17, he expresses the heart of what he prays for. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Now the Ephesians already know God. To come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and love for other saints, you have to know God. And so they already know God, but Paul's prayer is that they would know God. And so that is the central, most important thing. In our call to worship, Psalm 27, David says, one thing I have asked of the Lord that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. Now in Psalm 27, David's under attack from his enemies. People are out to get him. But he asks for one thing, to know God. to be able to worship God, to be able to draw near to God. In his high priestly prayer in John 17, Jesus prays this for the church. He says to his father, and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Would you be able to agree with David in his one request of the Lord, his one thing? Does that reflect your heart? If someone were to ask you, what is the essence of eternal life? Would you say, well, it's living forever? walking streets of gold, and seeing all your loved ones who went on before. Is that the essence? All those things are wonderful, and I'm looking forward to them, but is that the essence of eternal life? Jesus said, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. What will make heaven heaven is that there we will see God face to face and we will know him even as we are known. That is what makes heaven heaven. Remove God and you could have eternal life. You could be free from all sickness. You could have all of your friends and family with you and it would not be heaven because God would not be there. We pray for all sorts of things all the time. We have prayer requests in the bulletin, we have friends and family members who have needs, and we should pray for those things. But at the heart of our prayer should be that we would know God better and that others would know God better. When we talk about knowing God, there are really two aspects of knowing God. There's knowing about God, and then there's knowing God personally. Knowing about God, we sometimes call theology, that's what that technically means. Theology is the study of God, truths about God, and that's important. We need to know about God. In his book, Knowing God, J.I. Packer makes this distinction between knowledge about God and the knowledge of God. And this is what he says about the importance of knowing about God. He says, knowing about God, is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square, and leave him as one who knew nothing of English or England to fend for himself. So we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live life in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know about God. disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life, blindfolded as it were, with no sense of direction, no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul. Does life ever feel that way? Just like it's a strange, mad, painful thing that you're stumbling and blundering through? It's a call to us all to be more and more grounded in the true knowledge of God. But knowing about God is not enough. We have to really know God, and that is where theology becomes internal. It becomes personal, and here's what Packer says about that. He asks, how can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for this is simple but demanding. Listen to it. It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God. Read that again. It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God. Now look at your Bibles, if you still have them open. Look at Ephesians 1. How many theological terms are in Ephesians 1? Predestination. Adoption. Redemption. Forgiveness. Hope. Glory. Wisdom. Revelation. Knowledge. Power. The whole of Christian theology is in many ways summarized in Ephesians chapter 1. All of the important concepts about who God is and what he has done in Christ are there theologically. But what is Ephesians 1? It is praise to God and then a prayer to God. So what Packer says we must do is exactly what Paul has done. It's exactly what we must do. Take the truths that we learn about God, make them a matter for meditation before God so that they can be turned into praise to God and a prayer to God. We shouldn't just study theology, leave it on the shelf, and then go live our lives. To do so is to be schizophrenic and to act that the knowledge about God has nothing to do with the way we live our lives. How does God reveal himself to us? That's what we see in verse 17. Because Paul doesn't just pray that the Ephesians would know God, he prays specifically how they would know about God. And what he prays is that God would give them Now, depending on what version you have in front of you, it will say either a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, or it will say the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. And either it's a spirit, not capitalized, or it's the spirit, capitalized. And this is actually one of the changes that if you're using the ESV, the older ESV actually said a spirit, and I believe the newer ESV says the spirit. Paul is either saying that God gives us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. In other words, our spirits, our internal who we are, God enlightens so that we might have wisdom and we might have revelation in the knowledge of him. Or he's saying that he gives us his Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Now, my preference is to go in the direction of saying that Paul is praying for God to give more of the Holy Spirit to the Ephesian believers. So I would prefer the translation that would say the spirit of wisdom and revelation, referring to the Holy Spirit. Because I think if you look at the flow of what Paul is saying, he says that he may give you the spirit of wisdom and 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. It is the Holy Spirit who enlightens the eyes of our hearts. And I think if we use it as a spirit, Paul's really saying the same thing twice. He's saying that you would have a spirit of wisdom, that you would have the eyes of your heart enlightened. But if we understand it as the spirit, it's saying, Paul's saying, I want God to give you more of the Holy Spirit so that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. Do you know that your heart has eyes? Some of you might be thinking very literally and wondering like, what in the world is he talking about? But do you know that your heart has eyes? We all see unseen things. All of us. We all see unseen things. We see them with the eyes of our heart. And the difference is the eyes of our heart can be darkened so that the unseen things that we see are the same unseen things that the world sees. Power. Fame. Wealth. Influence. Status. Pride. If the eyes of our heart are darkened, they're turned inward. And the things that we see that are unseen are all self-centered and self-focused and self-directed. But if the eyes of our heart are enlightened by the Holy Spirit, then we look outward and we see the light, we see the truth, we see what is real. And that is we see that we are not supreme, but God is. We see that our kingdom is not what matters most, but his does. We see that our glory is not what we should strive after, but his. And so we need the eyes of our heart to be enlightened because we all see and strive for unseen things. They're called our aspirations, our dreams, our hopes, our ambitions. We all have them and they drive what we do, who we are, how we live our lives every day. Is it climbing up the ladder of success so that I can get more money, get more power, get more status and be a bigger person? Or is it loving God and loving others, seeing the glory of his kingdom and living for it? Paul's prayer is that we would know God. And the way we know God is when the Holy Spirit enlightens the eyes of our hearts and we see what really matters most. And that's why I wanted to frame this in terms of aspiration, because I think at the heart of what Paul is praying for, he is praying that our desires would be God's desires. that our dreams would be his dreams. And what are they? Well, as God enlightens the eyes of our hearts, and we know God better, we see three things. Hope, inheritance, and power. But they're not self-centered. They're Christ-centered. So let's take just a few minutes to walk through them. Hope. Everybody hopes. Some people hope against hope, whatever that means. Ever wonder what that means? Probably how West Virginia fans felt yesterday as they went up against Alabama. I hope against hope, and then it almost came true. Our niece is a freshman at the Naval Academy, and Navy played Ohio State yesterday. They took a lead into halftime, and they were hoping against hope that they might be able to beat Ohio State, and then reality moved in. What is hope? I mean, we throw the, like, I hope it doesn't rain today. I'd really like to spend some time outside with my family. Or, man, I hope the Braves make the playoffs. Don't hope on that one too much. What is hope? Is it just some wishful thinking? It's not what Paul is talking about. He says that we may know what is the hope to which He has called you. If God has called you to a hope, the hope is sure and steadfast. Ephesians 6 says, we have this hope as, Hebrews 6 says, we have this hope as an anchor for our souls. where Christ has gone into the heavenly places on our behalf and is sitting at the right hand of God. Here is hope. Hope is an anchor that is fixed in heaven. Jesus Christ, your great high priest, and a rope that is tied from Christ to your heart. And God is the one who has secured it and nothing can ever remove it. Hope is Christ, and hope is sure. Hope has already won the victory. That is the hope to which he has called you. And then inheritance. Paul prays that we would know the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. We don't have time to look at this in detail, but there's kind of two different ways you could go with this. What does he mean by the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? There's two directions that this goes in. We saw the same thing in the first half of Ephesians. It's either God has a glorious inheritance in the saints. That's biblical. Psalm 2, God the Father says to Christ, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance. And in 1 Corinthians 15, we're told that at the end of all things, the son will hand the kingdom over to the father. So it is absolutely biblical to say that Christ has a glorious inheritance in the saints. And the wonderful thing about that is that you and I are part of Christ's inheritance. We are part of what God the Father gives his son as his inheritance. But it's also true that we have a glorious inheritance from him, and that's the other way you can understand it. It's the glorious inheritance that he has in the saints, what he gives us. The Bible says we have an inheritance which is kept in heaven, undefiled, kept by God. You know what both of these are pointing to? The same thing. So to me, it doesn't really matter which way you want to understand it. In fact, I'd like to encourage you to understand it both ways. Because here's what the Bible says. Christ's inheritance is you. And your inheritance. Is Christ. The central promise. of the covenant of grace, of the grace covenant, that is throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, made over and over again, is a variation on this promise, you will be my people and I will be your God. And at the end of the whole story, in Revelation 21, a passage that was my grandmother's favorite passage of scripture, Revelation 21, one to four, says this, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." Ever since God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 12 and said to him, fear not Abraham for I am your hope and your very great reward. For thousands of years, now it's been nearly 4,000 years since God spoke those words to Abraham, the people of God have had this hope for an anchor to our souls, that God one day will take us to himself, we will be his and he will be ours forever. How will we get there? We will get there by the power of God. And that's the third thing Paul focuses on. We will get there by the power of God. the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. What power is that? It is according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. That's why we gather on Sunday mornings for worship. You know that? It's not just because it's a convenient time in the middle of the weekend. We gather for worship on Sunday morning because the power that is at work in us to save us and to bring us to heaven is the same power that raised Christ from the dead. didn't just raise Christ from the dead, but seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that is to be named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. Think about that. The power that is at work in you to get you to your inheritance and to make you God's inheritance is the same power that raised and exalted Christ. Is there anything in the world that could stop it? It's the power of God. You want to ask how mighty is God's power toward us who believe? One way to answer that question is to ask this question, how supremely does Christ reign? And that's why Paul goes into this long explanation of how supremely it is that Christ reigns, because that's the measure of the power that is at work in us who believe. Christ's reign is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come. Did he cover it? Is there anything that can thwart God's purposes? If Christ has been exalted to that place, the supremacy of Christ's reign should prompt in us two things. Strong worship and deep encouragement. Strong worship because Christ is worthy of our worship. He is supreme. And deep encouragement because Paul tells us that God put all things under His feet and gave him his head over all things to the church. To you, to me. Christ has been given as our head. He's our leader. He's our captain. He is the head of the church, and the church is his body. I know we're out of time, and I just want to say this in closing. Paul ends by not only saying that Christ is given as head over all things to the church, but that the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. The church is the fullness of Christ. What does that mean? How do we even begin to wrap our heads around that? Here's the picture. If we've been united to Christ, and he is our head, and he is at the right hand of God, sitting in the heavenly places, our salvation is as secure as his sitting at God's right hand, far above all powers. But how does Christ spread his kingdom in this world? How does Christ extend His love, His gospel, His reign in this world? He does it through His body. He does it through His church. He does it through you and He does it through me. I mean, if it doesn't blow your mind enough to think that you are Christ's inheritance, you are Christ's body. the manifestation of his kingdom, the extension of his grace, the outreach of his love. How will Christ inherit the nations? We are the arms that will reach the world and bring Christ's inheritance into him. That should change everything. The more we understand that, it should change everything we do. I said at the beginning that someone said there are three most important questions you can ask yourself. Who am I? Why am I here and where am I heading? I want to add a fourth to it. And that is, how am I going to get there? Right? Doesn't do any good to know where you're heading unless you know how you're going to get there. Who am I? If you belong to God through faith in Christ and your identity is found in being a greatly blessed, deeply loved, adopted child of God, you are further identified as a redeemed, forgiven member of the body of Christ. Why are you here? The hope of his calling is that you are here to glorify God and enjoy him forever and to represent Christ to a fallen world. Where are you heading? You are heading to inheritance. both to receive a secure inheritance in Christ and to be Christ's inheritance as part of his kingdom. And how will you get there? You will get there by the immeasurably great power of God. Let's pray. Father, there are no words to express The depth of our gratitude for what you have done for us in Christ. The one who reigns supreme. The one who reigns over heaven and earth. Has reached into our lives and wants to use us to reach the world for him. We are in awe that we should be called children of God. We are in awe that we should be given the hope of a calling to glorify and enjoy you forever and to spread your love to the nations. We are in awe of our destination to be with you in the new Jerusalem. to have the dwelling place of God be among us, to have you be our God and us be your people forever, and we are in awe that it is your power and your power alone that will get us there. Father, let us worship you in spirit and in truth, and let us with strong encouragement live for you with abandon and joy. knowing that we cannot lose because Christ has already secured the victory for us. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.