And then he, in this case here, he often, his prayer hints at and foreshadows the truth that he will expound. He then he feeds and he instructs them with God's revealed truth, and then he calls them to faith and action based on that truth. The change and growth in the lives of the people of God must start with prayer for them. Prayer must be the starting point for all that we do in ministering to each other and for each other. As individual personal believers ministering and working in each other's life, we must start with prayer. As a church leadership, prayer is of paramount importance, so much so that when the deacons were incepted, they started there in the book of Acts, it came about because of the reluctance of the disciples to put aside prayer and preaching for the practical ministry of the word. Prayer is vitally important. As a church body, prayer is the first and primary activity of the church. I'm gonna borrow Jim Cimbala's A famous statement, he said, if you cannot be at all the services of worship, the most important time is the prayer time. I don't know if you know of Jim Simbales. Anybody know that story? Fresh faith, fresh fire, fresh wind, fresh fire. Nope. Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. Oh, I see an American head pop up. Oh, yes, I've heard of that. Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, it's a great story. I'll give you a two-second little crash course in Jim Cimbala. What happened was, in 1972, he was a pastor of a little tiny church in Brooklyn. It was struggling. There was only maybe 20, 30 people there. And he was literally pastoring two churches at opposite ends of the city. And he would drive from one church, preach, and do this whole thing. And then he would drive to the other church, and preach. And then he would drive back, and do the evening service, and drive back, and do the other service again. and he was wearing himself out, and the church was struggling, and he finally got so discouraged, he went down, and he did the only thing possible, he went fishing. No, that's not the only thing you can do possible. He did go fishing though, and he was standing at the far end of a fishing boat, and he was just pouring out his heart to the Lord, and saying, Lord, what am I gonna do? What will I do about all this? And how can we build these churches? How can we see these churches begin to grow? And the Lord gave him one basic idea. If you will put prayer first as a priority in everything you do, then God would act and God would work. And he went back to his church and he said exactly what I just said a minute ago. If you can't be at every service, come to the prayer meeting. That's the most important service of the week. And they started out with 20, 30, and then 40 people, and it wasn't long before there were 1,100 people packing into Brooklyn Tabernacle to pray on a Tuesday evening. I don't know if you know the story, but now, around the clock, around the year, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, there are teams of people in Brooklyn Tabernacle that are praying together. And people send prayer requests in from all over the world. And they pray, and they pray, and they pray, and they pray, and they see incredible answers to prayer. We may even watch the video of his story because throughout the whole process, his teenage daughter went off into the world and she got involved in drugs and alcohol and all kinds of mess. And through the prayers of that church, he was restored and brought back to the Lord. That was his own personal story as a mix of all that. Listen, when you read the Apostle Paul's letters and you listen to how he writes and what he writes, the things he places in order, prayer is number one. Paul is often mentioning how he prays without ceasing. Notice again as a reminder how Paul prays for these Ephesians in front of us. In verse 15, Paul is motivated to pray for them. He says, After I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers." He hears about their faith and love. In verse 16, Paul prays unceasingly for them. In verse 17, Paul prays that we would be given a spiritual gift of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. Now that means it's a knowledge of experience of knowing Christ. It's an apprenticeship type of knowledge. A couple of us here have worked apprenticeships in our lifetime. And it means they go out and they give you a hammer and they give you a saw and they give you a framing square and they say, build. When I was 16, I started working as a carpenter's apprenticeship, and I learned by doing it, step by step. I made lots of mistakes and lots of wrong cuts and wrong measurements and so on. I'll make a few less nowadays, but that's how we learn, by doing it. And we gain the practice of knowing Christ by walking with Him. And Paul prays that we would know, sorry, verse number, 18, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may, nope, verse 17, that he may give you, to you, the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. And then he prays in the next verse, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope, and he mentions three things there. That know is a totally different kind of know. They're different words, and the idea in the first one is a knowledge of experience. The idea in the second one is a mental, intellectual knowledge. It's something that we receive. So if you like, the first one's a knowledge we walk into by doing it, the second one's a knowledge we receive through learning, through study, through understanding. Okay, that's what he's talking about there, that we might know, and then he mentions three things. We may know the hope of his calling, we looked at that last week, and then he says, secondly there, we might know the riches of the glories of his inheritance in the saints, and we're gonna look at that one today, and then next week we'll look at the last one, Paul prays, for the enlightening of the Holy Spirit to know the exceeding greatness of the power of God at work in us. And I got to tell you, I'm looking forward to unpacking that one. It's a good one to look at. But for today, I want to look at the riches, knowing what the riches of the glories of his inheritance in the saints are. And we're going to look at three aspects of it. Number one, what is God's inheritance? Number two, what is our inheritance? And thirdly, what is our responsibility as inheritors of that inheritance. Look at stuff like this. It's kind of like looking at a diamond, a large intricately cut diamond. And ladies love to look at diamond, to hold up in the air and see the way it sparkles and flashes. And if you ever have a chance to get one of those jewelers thingies they put in their eye, you know, and they clamp on it and they look down at the stone, We had one of Heather's rings repaired one day and I said, can I look that thing and see what's like? And he said, yeah, and he let me and I see it. And as you turned it around in the light, every time you turn it, it exposed a new facet, a new edge, a new corner, and the light hits it a bit differently. And you can see color and shape and sparkle and you can see all kinds of intricate workings and the stone itself is beautiful inside and every time you turn it a little bit you can see a little bit more and every time every turn kind of prompts you turn again turn again and you turn it around and around and around and over and under to see all the beauty of that stone. And the reality is when we come to scripture to look at something like the inheritance of God, it's like looking at that stone. And the more you look, the more you want to look, the more you see, the more you want to see. And it's my prayer this morning for all of us, that we will be compelled by studying, by looking long at these things, that we will worship God deeply and lovingly. We will pray and plead on behalf of each other that all of us would know the riches of the glory of God's inheritance in us. We will pray that all of us will know God deeply, to love God even more deeply and love each other as a result of that. That knowing these riches will in turn excite and motivate and drive us along to live lives that are godly and holy and worthy of the calling with which we are called. So first of all, what is God's inheritance? Notice what he says in verse 18, that the eyes of your understanding may be 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. Now, we might know the riches of the glory of his inheritance. God's inheritance for us or in us, God has inheritance. Excuse me, my mind is going 100 miles an hour and I'm trying to pull it back down into slow gear so I don't go all over the place. What I'm saying is this, the verse talks about God's inheritance in us, first of all, and scripture makes it clear that there are inheritance for us, and God has an inheritance. So first of all, what is God's inheritance? First of all, I'm gonna remember is the Lord owns everything in all of existence. The Bible makes it absolutely clear that God created everything for his own use, his own enjoyment, and his own glory. But God's inheritance is his people. He is taking for himself a people for himself to be his own special inheritance. Listen to what the Bible says in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 9.26, the Bible says this, therefore Moses prayed to the Lord and said, oh Lord God, do not destroy your people and your inheritance whom you have redeemed through your greatness, whom you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Israel was God's people, and Israel was God's inheritance, which He redeemed and delivered out of Egypt. And sadly, a vast majority of the people of Israel never came to faith in their Redeemer and Deliverer, and never came to repentance of sin. Some did, you know, the Old Testament saints, Abraham and David, Moses and Joshua, and a whole host of others that are not named for us. Now, the other thing is also true. We as a New Testament people of God have been grafted in with the Old Testament believing saints. Listen to what it says in Acts 26. The Lord is speaking to Paul. He says, I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles. to whom I now send you to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me." We who are believing have been grafted in with the people of God from the Old Testament. There's a spiritual people in the Old Testament, the ones that believed and had faith and trust to God and repentance, and they knew salvation. We've been grafted in with them. Ephesians 3.6, if you've got your Bible right across the page and mine, in verse 6 it says this, and Paul is describing the mystery given to him to make known the mystery. It says this, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ through the gospel. The beautiful thing is that God has always been taking a people for himself to be his own special inheritance. We are God's inheritance. When you stop and think about the glories of our inheritance in a moment, you're gonna think, wow, that's, you feel like God made God a raw deal. But you know, God is working in us to change us and make us into a special people. And I want you to just take your Bibles and flip over to 1 Peter chapter two, and we're gonna read verses four through 10. And we're gonna look at what this inheritance is like, what we are like as the people of God, His inheritance. Reading from verse four of 1 Peter 2, it says this. Coming to him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is also contained in scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame. Therefore, to you who believe, he is precious. But to those who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. They stumble being disobedient to the word to which they also were appointed, but, verse nine, you also are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people, but now are the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. That's an incredible statement about who we are as a people of God. In 1 Peter there, we are a spiritual inheritance for God. We're God's special inheritance, a spiritual house. The people of God is the church, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, filled with His presence. All of us individually have the filling of the Spirit of God in us, but corporately together, as a church, we are also the temple of the Holy Spirit. Unlike the Old Testament tabernacle and temple, which were physical gathering places for God's people, where the Shekinah of God's glory resided behind a veil, now the people of God, the church, is a spiritual house where each individual believer and all of us corporately are filled with the Holy Spirit. We're a spiritual house, a spiritual inheritance for our God. Also notice we are a holy priesthood. The idea of holiness means to simply set apart or be removed or dedicated for something, dedicated for service. We are priests interceding on behalf of each other, set apart to be holy to God, ministering before the Lord, offering spiritual sacrifices of prayer and worship and singing hymns and songs of praise to God, glorifying God by speaking God's word and ministering to each other. we're a holy priesthood. I don't know if you knew that. You're a priest before God. And as a priest, you have a function to fulfill. In the Old Testament, priest's function was to take the animals and to tuck their throats and take the blood and splash it on the altar and burn it and cut it and skin it and all that stuff. And once a year, the high priest would take that blood of a lamb and a bull and go behind the veil into the very presence of God's Shekinah glory. And he would sprinkle the blood once a year, seven times on top of the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat there. He did all those things in ministering, interceding on behalf of the people of God with God. And all of us now? Our High Priest has already offered His own blood once for all, and all of us now as priests of God have a ministry to fulfill. But it's not blood and burning and wood and skinning animals and so on. It's a ministry, a spiritual ministry. And we intercede. How do we intercede for people? Pray for them. Yeah, that's the number one ministry we have as priests of our God, is to pray for each other. God's inheritance, which is us, is a holy priesthood. God's inheritance is also a chosen generation. It's a royal priesthood. I kind of tripped over that. What does he mean by that? How is he describing us, God's inheritance, as a royal priesthood? We all have royalty in us. Did you know that? We do. You know how we have that? It's a beautiful thing. You know that Jesus, what tribe did Jesus come from? Who can tell me? Judah. That's right. Which tribe is that known for? Kings. Who are the tribe of the priests? Levi. Never ever to mix, never ever to have a king was not allowed to offer sacrifices. In fact, you remember the story of Uzziah the king? He goes into the temple of Kippur, Sanctuary is what I'm looking for. He goes in there, he's got a blood, the boy's gonna offer blood. He's gonna offer blood on the fires of the altar of incense. And the priests go charging in after him, 80 of them, and they grab ahold of Uzziah and they say, It is not for you, O king, to offer sacrifices here on the altar." And they drag him out. And Uzziah, first of all, turns around and he reaches out his hand to grab them in anger. And the Bible says leprosy broke out on his forehead and his hand. You know what the priests did? They grabbed him and they hauled him out. What happened to every one of those priests who grabbed him? They're all of a sudden unclean because of touching a leprous man. Here's the point. A king was not allowed to offer sacrifices, but Jesus, our high priest, is a high priest after a different order than all those other generations of priests. He's a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He is a royal high priest. Guess what? We're in Christ. Those who have faith are in Christ and we also are a royal priesthood. Because of our connection, our being bound up with Christ, we are a royal priesthood, a royal generation, a holy priesthood to offer sacrifices to God. Sacrifices of praise and prayer and so on. God's inheritance is also a holy nation. One of the wonderful things about the people of God, the church, is that this is a nation not made up of location. We're not all Aussies because we all live in Australia. The only true Australians really are the Aboriginals, I suppose, and even before them. The rest of us all came here at some point. My family, three generations ago. Some of your family is even longer than that. But we're all a nation here because of location. But as a people of God, as God's inheritance, we are a holy nation, united as blood brothers and sisters, united by the blood of Christ, united for a purpose of glorifying Christ, united to Christ as his body and his people. That's God's inheritance. And God's inheritance, it's not like you when you get your inheritance, right? Your mom and dad save up all their money. There's an ad on TV right now, I just can't help thinking about it. The lady there and her son's talking to her about inheritance. And she goes, no, I'm leaving it to the gardener. And there's a guy out there, he's all buffed and toned and he's raking the lawn. And his inheritance was gonna go to somebody else. But you know what? Our inheritance is not something that we can improve on or we can do something with. God's inheritance, He takes it and He makes it so much better. He's improving it. He's adding to it. He's shaping it. He's taken us as a people who once were sinners and lost and separated from God and He's washed us clean and He's welding us together. He's making us a people. He's making us an inheritance fit for Himself. We are God's inheritance. We as a church are God's inheritance. He purchased us by the death of Christ. He washed us clean in the blood of Christ. We are a people redeemed and set free from slavery to sin. We are to be God's inheritance. I want you to know that. Paul is saying, listen, I want them to know the riches of the glories of your inheritance or his inheritance in us so that you understand what we are as the people of God. There's something incredibly powerful in this too. Did you notice all those descriptions he uses there? Spiritual house, holy priesthood, holy nation, chosen generation, special people. None of them is singular. They're all corporate, plural ideas. A house is a group of people. A nation is a group of people. It's a group of people together. He didn't save you, listen, He didn't save you to be an individual off on your own, by yourself. He saved you into a people. He saved you to be a part of a group of people, a house, a nation, a priesthood. We are to be together, praying for each other, ministering to each other. And that is what God's inheritance is. It's an incredible thing. You know something else? The Bible says in Colossians 3.10 that we as God's inheritance are a people renewed in the knowledge of Christ who redeemed us. We are as God's inheritance are a people justified, declared right in God's sight. We as God's inheritance will be a people perfected. There'll be no traces of sin remaining. I cannot wait for the day that we stand in heaven. face to face with Jesus, and all my sin is completely gone, it's totally done away with. And the work that He started in me so many years ago, 33 years ago for me, will finally be finished. We as God's inheritance, as God's inheritance, will be a people glorified in the future. We as God's inheritance will be a people in whom and over whom the Lord himself delights and rejoices and sings. We've been singing this morning, haven't we? Singing some of the riches of Christ in those songs we were singing. The Bible says in Zephaniah 3 verse 17, the Lord your God in your midst, the mighty one will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing. I don't know what it's gonna be like on that day. When we gather with all the rest of all the believers throughout all of time and space, and we're all together in God's presence in heaven, and the Father begins to sing a song of love over us, that would be an amazing sight, eh? You know that you're part of God's inheritance? It's an incredible truth to savor. They're some of the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Paul is praying that through the continued enlightening work of the Holy Spirit in us, we will come to know those riches. We'll enter into them. Beloved, we must, as a people of God, as His inheritance, pray for each other that we will all know these riches. Beloved, as His inheritance, dig deeply into the Scriptures to know more of these things in order to love Him more, in order to live for Him in a manner worthy of Him who called us. The second question is this, what is our inheritance? We talked about God's inheritance. Scripture records also a numerous place that we have an inheritance, and our inheritance is bound up with in the fact that we have the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior. So first of all, Christ is the heir. He is the one that's the one that's to inherit everything. In Matthew 21, verses 37-39, Jesus tells a parable about a group of vine dressers who were refusing to give to the landowner the fruit of the crop. And Jesus is implying to his listeners that he is the son, the heir. Listen to what he says. Then last of all, he sent his son to them, saying, They will respect my son. But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance. So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him." Our Lord Jesus Christ is the heir, and he has an inheritance. Hebrews 1 verse 2, listen to what it says. God, who at various times in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds. The Lord Jesus is the heir, and he has an inheritance. Now, our inheritance is tied to the fact, it's linked to the fact of our being in Christ. He is the heir of all things, and we share in that inheritance because we are in Christ. Listen to what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone. Behold, all things have become new. Our inheritance is a future blessing, which we are privileged to enjoy a foretaste of right now. We get a little taster of it. Being in Christ, we share in His inheritance. Listen to what the Bible says, Romans 8, 14 to 17. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. Do you want, do you need a great reason to praise the Lord, to worship God from the very depths of your heart and your mind, your soul? You need something more? Listen. Jesus did not simply save you from hell to give you a fire escape out of hell. Jesus saved you, not just so you could live in the downstairs servant's quarters, out of sight and out of mind. Jesus saved you and I to share in His inheritance. He saved you. Think of it like this. He saved you so that one day He could slide over on the throne to make room for you and I to sit beside Him. He's sharing His inheritance with us. That's a great truth. Our Lord Jesus Christ with him, we will inherit the kingdom. The Bible says this in Matthew 25, when the son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory and all the nations will be gathered together before him. And he will separate them one from another as a sheep divides his sheep. Shepherd divides his sheep from the goats, and he will set the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. And then the king will say to them, Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Listen, we're going to inherit the kingdom with him. The Bible says in James 2, God chose the poor of this world to be heirs of the kingdom. With our Lord, we're going to rule and reign in His kingdom. Revelation 20 verse 6 talks about how we will reign with Him for a thousand years. That's our inheritance. That's what's waiting for us. You looking forward to one day when somebody near and dear who's a generation above you dies off and you can claim the inheritance? I don't care how great it is, I don't care how sweet, I don't care how much money, how much stocks, bonds, receipts, whatever you inherit, I'm doing smart, I'm leaving my kids all my invoices and bills and debts for them to pay off, it's the best way to do it. Spend your kids' inheritance now, right? No. Listen, we are going to inherit something far beyond anything this world can ever offer. What gives us hope to carry on? What gives us joy through all of our life? It isn't just being delivered out of hell. It's being delivered out of hell to share all the blessings that God has given us in Christ. But somehow we live almost in oblivion to it. And Paul's saying, I'm praying for you that you will know these things. We will rule in his kingdom. We will also, with Jesus, inherit eternal life. In Matthew 19, Jesus is speaking and he says, and everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life. Jesus is reminding us that there is a high cost to following Him. Being willing to elevate our personal relationship with Christ as infinitely higher than all human, earthly relationships. And that's a tough one. Being willing to name, to suffer greatly, sorry, for the sake of His name. That means being willing to suffer for the sake of the glory of Jesus' name. Those are the ones that inherit eternal life. We will also inherit eternal life with Christ. Not only that, there's more. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15, 51 to 54, that we will also inherit incorruption, a body that never breaks down, never decomposes, never fades or fails. You struggle with health, and all of us have different struggles with health. Mr. Rustin's smiling and nodding, he's got his cane there, and we went and visited him the other day, and he's had surgery in his ankle to put it back together. It's great to see you here. For those of us, lots of us suffer with health issues. Here is an incredible promise of our inheritance that includes incorruption. Listen to this. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15, 51 to 54, behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep. We shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Listen, part of our inheritance includes the fact that when we get to heaven, and we're face to face with Jesus, all the infirmities, all the problems with our physical health will be finished and done with, and we'll put on incorruption, and this body will never break down, decompose, fall apart, break apart the way it does now. We'll never experience what it means to get old ever again. That's part of our inheritance. Listen, child of God, you've got an incredible inheritance waiting for you and it's all wrapped up in Christ. So much more I want to say. I was looking through all the scriptures. I talked about inheritance in one of my search engines. There was something like 291 references in the Bible to inherit or inheritance. Rather than do that, what I want to do, I want to take the rest of our time to unpack kind of some implications of this. Paul's structure, like I said at the very beginning, the epistle like this, there's an explosion of praise to God for the blessings that he has blessed us with in the first three to 14, and then there's this prayer in which the truth is contained, and then there's two chapters of truth exposed and expounded. Then there's a long series of imperative commands for how they are to live as believers. So truth revealed and exposed leads to commands to live according to it. I took some time this week to go through the whole book of Ephesians and I picked up every paragraph and broke it down into what it was doing and what it was saying. And there was truth given and there was imperatives and there was truth given. Well it starts off with there's lots of truth. some consequence, lots more truth and some consequence, and then you hit four in verse one, and he writes, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. And we're gonna answer our last question, what is our responsibility as inheritors from this? Paul, having pled and prayed with God to enlighten the eyes of their hearts, he now pleads with them, in the last couple chapters there. He says, I therefore, the praise of the Lord, beseech you. It's not a gentle hint or a light suggestion. He's not saying, you know, I highly recommend. Like we went to see our mechanic this week and had the jackaroo fixed. And you go in there and he's a really cool guy. He doesn't do work, doesn't need doing. Every once in a while he'll go, you know what, you have to do this. My car went in one time and it had three out of four engine mounts were not really working. So the engine was sort of sitting a little lower in the car than it was supposed to. He says you got to fix this, this is important. You hit a hard bump and you're going to have an engine much lower than you expected. And then sometimes he goes, you know what, this is kind of important, but you know, it can wait, it's an old car, it's not that big a deal. And what Paul is doing is saying, listen, he's saying, I beseech you, I urge you, I plead with you. This is of the utmost importance that you do this. It's not a light hint or a gentle suggestion. In light of all the truth of Ephesians 1 verse 1 to 3 in verse 21, for us this morning, It means in light of the simple facts unpacked in one word, our inheritance, He's saying, I urge you, I long for you to do this in this world and in this day in which we live, there is no greater or higher or more necessary demand placed on us as believers than to live in accordance with the truth that we have been taught and enlightened to by the Spirit of God. Listen, Christian, you are not your own. I'm not my own. We've been bought with an incalculable price. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, we belong, we belong as the inheritance of God himself. We belong to God. He has taken us as a people for himself. How we live is not up to us. I read an interesting article, I got posts on my Facebook of all things about integrity. And the reason why integrity is so critical, especially for those who are in church leadership, integrity is of the utmost importance. And Paul is saying, listen, I urge you, I beseech you to walk worthy of the calling. As those of us who have been adopted, we are to walk in a manner fitting to the name with which we are adopted, Christian. If somebody walked around Washington City, the capital city in the States, and he had his last name was Obama, and he was getting drunk and riotous, vandalizing, stealing things on drugs, and his last name was Obama, and he was related to Barack Obama. There'd be a lot of things they'd be saying to him. His aides would be pulling him aside and saying, hey, listen, buddy, you're not free to live any way you like. You belong. You're related to Barack Obama. You're related to the President of the United States. You better behave in a manner fitting with the fact that you're related to that man. Whatever you think of Baratheon, it's just an illustration. You and I walk around saying, I'm a Christian. I have been adopted into the family of the king. I am to walk in a manner worthy of that calling. As those who are joint heirs with Christ, we are to live in a manner worthy of the inheritance we're receiving. How are we going to do that? How do we live in a manner worthy of his calling? In Ephesians 4, 17-32, he starts to unpack it, where to no longer walk as the Gentiles, the unbelievers, the unbelievers living in the futility of their minds, their understanding being darkened. You notice the contrast? What's happened in Ephesians chapter one for us? The Spirit of God has enlightened our minds and our hearts' understanding. The unbelievers, their hearts, their mind, understanding, it's darkened. And Paul says, listen, don't walk any longer like the unbeliever in the futility of their minds, their minds being darkened. We as the inheritance of God, as God's special people, are to put off the old man. We're to be renewed in the Spirit of our minds, in four in verse 23. Not only that, we're to put on the new man, which is putting on the Lord Jesus Christ to allow the Spirit of God to enlighten the eyes of our hearts as we soak up the Scriptures, so that we can put on the new man. What I'm trying to say is this. We are God's inheritance. We are a special people that God is taking for himself. We have his inheritance, all that's wrapped up in Christ and his inheritance as the heir. And we're to live in a manner that's consistent, that meets those, not standards, wrong word. It's to be worthy of those things. Doesn't mean that we can work to be worthy. I'm not trying to say that either. What I mean is, we are God's people and we are to walk and live in a manner that's worthy of that calling. We're to walk, as he says a bit later, no longer according to the way the Gentiles walk. We're to walk in verse, Hebrew 5 and verse 1, as imitators of God, as your children, walking in love. We're to imitate the way God loved us and walk in love towards other people, loving God himself. We're to, as light of the world, we're to walk as children of light, not as children of darkness. What Paul is trying to say to the Ephesians is this. All this truth has an implication. It's to change the way we live and walk before our God. We're not free to walk the way we want to. We're not free to live any way we want. We are bought with a price. It does make a difference. And five in verse 15, we're to walk in wisdom, being filled with the Holy Spirit. Again, there's so much more, and you can probably figure out already the way I'm talking about it. There's so much more I want to unpack and go through, but we don't have time. Listen, so what's the message for us today? Number one, pray, Christian. Pray. Pray that God's Holy Spirit will bring you to know and understand the great truth of our inheritance. of God's inheritance in us. We are God's special people. We are God's own special inheritance. We are joint heirs with Christ. We also, along with Him, will inherit His inheritance, ruling and reigning in His kingdom. Pray, Christian, pray that all of us as believers in Christ will come to know, to really know and understand and savor These incredible truths, praying that we will open the word of God to mine out and know its truths, and not just to know them and have no effect on us, but to know them and live it out. I think the world around us reminds me of Thomas, the disciple. And the disciple's upstairs in the upper room, and Jesus comes, and Thomas is not there. And they say, Thomas, you're not gonna believe this, the Lord has risen. And Thomas makes an incredible statement. We always blame Thomas, they're always a doubter. Listen to what he says very clearly, it's absolutely important. He said, unless I see the body, I will not believe. You know what they're saying? They're saying, unless I see the body, I will not believe. Meaning what? Angus mentioned a couple times this morning, the love that we have for each other. What I'm trying to say is this, that we pray that being enlightened by the Spirit of God, we know these truths, not just to pack up head knowledge, to walk around going, I know what it is to be part of God's inheritance. My head's five times the size it was before I knew that. No, it's to build up that knowledge so that as we walk and gain that experiential knowledge with Christ, it will change us. and we will begin to live in accordance with the manner of that calling. Listen, you weren't just called to get out of hell and escape hell's fire. You were called to be the people of God. You were called and given inheritance. There's an incredible promise and future awaiting us yet. Does that make sense? Okay. So we pray that God will enable us to understand it. We pray that God's Holy Spirit will fill us and enlighten us and empower us to live in light of these truths. We also preach and teach and share and expound and explain to anybody that will listen. And all the time we're doing that, we continue to pray. That's why I keep going back. This series is Lord, teach us to pray because that's where it all begins. And when we minister through prayer, minister in prayer, and minister like that, it results in a change. not only in our own lives, but in lives of those around us. All right, let's pray. Yeah, would you stand with me, please? Father in heaven, this morning we come before you again And Father, a lot of those words didn't come out the way I planned them, and Father, not always the way I thought it would. But Father, I know by the power of Your Spirit, You can untangle and unravel some somewhat confusing statements. Father, I pray that this morning that the Spirit of God would take the Scriptures and take the truths, the wonder of our glorious inheritance. And Father, Your inheritance in us, and our inheritance in and with Christ. Father, we weren't just saved to be out of hell. We were saved to be a people of God, a people for Your own special possession. And Father, You have given us inheritance that's beyond our understanding, beyond our grasp in many ways. And Father, we thank You for it. We thank You, Father, for the Lord Jesus Christ who suffered on a cross and He bled and He died. And Father, He was raised again the third day. And Father, we give you thanks for the hope that we have, the inheritance that's waiting for us. And Father, we pray too, as Paul worked out his letter with truth expounded and then calls to obedience and calls to change. Father, we pray that as a people of God, we would walk and live in a manner that's worthy of the calling with which you have called us. Father, help us to no longer walk as the unbeliever in the futility of their minds, their understanding being darkened. But Father, help us to walk as men and women who have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit to know these truths. Father, help us to walk in a manner that's pleasing to you. Father, help us to put off the old man and to renew our minds. And Father, to put on the new man. Father, that we might be honoring and pleasing to you. Father, we might be what you have designed and called us to be. Father, help us to walk in love. As Angus was mentioning earlier in the service, Lord, he mentioned about the love that believers are to show each other, to show the love that we have received. Father, this world is waiting to see the body of Christ acting and functioning the way it was supposed to, the way it is supposed to. Father, we pray that we would be a people who are loving and caring for each other. Father, we pray too that we would walk in light, not in darkness. And Father, in all these things, we pray that we would be a people who are pleasing to you. Father, we thank you for the salvation that we have. Father, for the few that cannot be here this morning for one reason or another, Karen is still away sick and struggling with her back. Fathers, Father, away on vacation, we pray for your blessing on them. Father, we pray that wherever they are, they might come into the sound of the gospel, the sound of the preaching of your word, and they might be encouraged and built up and challenged in their faith to go on and serve you a little more. Father, thank you so much for our time together. We ask you for your blessing now, in Jesus' name, amen. We're done.