[8:00 a.m.] Praying for What We Need Most (Ephesians 1:15-18)

Remain standing for the reading of God's Word and I'm going to

add one verse because it completes the prayer of the

things that he is petitioning God for.

That last verse will be given a whole sermon next week because

it's it's a tremendous sermon. Ephesians 115 to 18 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,

praying that God, 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, having eyes, the eyes of your heart

enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope to which

He has called you, and what are the riches of the His glorious

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. Thanks.

Though this is the word of the Lord, you may be seated.

The largest newspaper publisher possibly ever in the United

States, he owned over 28 newspapers from the West Coast

to the East Coast. The owner was named William

Randolph Hearst. William Hearst became famous for

several things. One of them was the fact that he

built this amazing Hearst Castle, possibly some of you

visited in Northern California, San Simeon, which even after all

of these years, thousands of people come to see it every

year. But he also probably, and more

so for us as the church did something that he didn't realize

at the time would do what it did.

And that is, there was a young evangelist preaching in Los

Angeles, and somehow another Hearst who had never met him

told all of his newspapers across the country.

I want you to puff Billy Graham. I want you to promote him.

And this launched Billy Graham's ministry onto a national scene

and which never stopped. But Hearst is also known because

he was an amazing collector of antiquities, and he had

thousands of them that he had purchased all over the world and

stored in multiple warehouses. One day he was reading a story,

actually a story that had a picture in it, an old ancient

picture of a magnificent vase that was known.

It was famous and Hearst decided I have to have that for my

collection. So he sent his agents out around

the world to search and they searched and searched.

They went to museums, they went to antiquities collectors.

They went all over the world looking and looking and looking.

And after months they came back and said we have good news.

We have found it. But it was an unexpected answer

because they said after going through all of our inventories,

we have discovered that it is in one of your warehouses,

uncrated. He was willing to spend any

money to get that vase, but he already had it.

And in this passage today, what we see is Paul telling us that

there is something that you have that you don't even truly

recognize what you have. And so I want you to understand

deeply what is yours. After explaining in the 1st 14

verses this amazing set of truth truths that are not found any

other place in the Scripture, they were truths that were truly

had been revealed to Paul and him alone, at least the fullness

of their explanation. And that's why we have taken our

time to go through this amazing revelation that God wanted us to

have and gave to Paul to give to us.

And so when he states at the beginning of our Scripture here,

for this reason, this is what is pumping his heart because of

these magnificent truths that are here.

And he's so desirous of us understanding what we have, what

we already possess. So as he's speaking to his

Ephesian friends and therefore to us, I want you to understand

how great your spiritual wealth is that you have gained from the

Lord Jesus Christ. He said.

I'm so pleased. I'm so thankful for your love

and for your faith. And yet there's something

better, something even more that he wants them to know.

He's eager for them to become fully, fully mature in Christ.

And so he prays. He prays not for something new,

not for something different or something else, but for

something deeper, A deeper understanding and even

usefulness of what they already have.

Praise for four things, which is why I read verse 19.

There are 4 petitions that he has here.

A deeper knowledge of God, a clearer view of the hope of

their calling, a grander view of the riches that they have in

Christ, and then the exceeding greatness of God's power for

them. We'll examine these first. 3

today he opens his prayer amazingly petitioning the

Trinity itself. He says the God of our Lord

Jesus Christ and the Father of glory to give them by the Holy

Spirit what they needed most. First, they needed to know God

so much more deeply and by giving them a spirit from the

Holy Spirit, a wisdom that reveals the wonderful personal

God who has made Himself known to us through what Christ has

done for us. This is the wisdom of God that

transforms our actions, our thoughts, our desires, so that

we effectively use this knowledge that is found in His

Word and use it for His glory because we know we are serving a

wonderfully personally intimate God that's with us at every

moment. Paul wrote to the Corinthians

and he said something similar. He said, now we have received

not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that

we might know, experientially know the things freely given to

us by God, taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts

with spiritual words, which is what you experience often when

you read the scripture one day, come back a couple days later

and read the same scripture and say, wow, I didn't see that.

Why? Because the Holy Spirit is

giving you thoughts in this infinite Word that is ours.

Paul wants them to grow and deepen what has been revealed.

To know God deeply and personally is what salvation is

for. It's not just to save us from

our sins. No, it's to deepen our walk and

love and joy of a personal God every single moment of our

lives. This is when you know it's

becoming yours, when God becomes real to you that you experience

it. Not just because you know what

we're supposed to believe, but you know this one we believe in.

I've learned in my ministry, rather than asking someone when

they became a Christian, instead to ask this question, when did

God become real to you? When did prayer become a joyful

continuous conversation with a real person that you know is

listening with a caring heart? So much so that you almost don't

want to stop praying because He's there.

And every morning when you walk up, wake up, you look out the

beautiful sky, sunlight, the beauty around us all gifts of

God. The very breath you're breathing

is a gift of God. Yesterday one of our dear

friends left this earth is not breathing here today, she's

breathing heavenly air. We do not know.

Every day is a gift and every day is an adventure because of

the person of Christ. When Jesus said he meant this, I

stand at the door of your heart and and knock.

If anyone opens the door, I will come in to their heart and I

will dine our fellowship with them.

He wants a deep personal relationship to lead us in that.

In fact, he told his disciples on his last night on earth in

John when he said this, he said if you love me, you will obey my

commands, and if you obey my commands, my Father will love

you and listen to this phrase, and we will come and make our

home in you. What a wonderful, deep

relationship he desires to have with us, he says, and to know

God increasingly his way as we grow in this wonderful,

wonderful knowledge of this personal God, really what we

call our sanctification. It's when we set ourselves and

our own desires to the side to consider His desires first.

Proverbs 3, many of you know it puts it this way so well.

Lean not on your own understanding, but in all of

your ways. Acknowledge Him and He will

guide your path. You see, this is what Paul

yearns for his friends. He desires for them to know this

good and wise God and the wisdom that he actually places within

us for a living. The second thing Paul prays for,

and again, he actually uses the word.

And so I pray also, I pray that this real person knowledge in

our heart will go even further. He wants us to make sure that we

move the knowledge of God into the passion of our living, you

might say from the mind to the soul, although actually that's

not separated, but it is unique because the way we think and

appreciate, but the way we love in response to what we know is

what He's seeking for with us. He calls this the eyes of heart,

our heart, which is powerful spiritual insight.

This is where deep down, we know something is true.

I had a privilege too many years ago to remember when I was at

the University of Texas, I'll have to say.

So glad they won yesterday. But any rate, I had the

privilege of speaking in a fraternity house, and we had an

invitation from one of the members.

And so they had a dinner and then anybody who wanted to come

and hear what we had to say, and they knew we were going to talk

about spiritual things to come into the living room.

And a small group came. Many didn't, as a matter of

fact, some went into the kitchen and started making all kinds of

noise while we were out there. But we gave the gospel and

afterwards just greeting a few of them.

One of them said, could I talk with you tomorrow?

And I said, certainly, let's have coffee down the street.

So we sit down and I met Henry. And Henry I said, what did you

think about last night? And he made the statement, I've

never forgotten. He said, Pete, I knew what you

were saying was true. How did he know that?

Because the Spirit of God opened his eyes.

He saw the truth and he responded to the truth.

I kept up with him for a while. I don't know where Henry is

today. He brought one of his other

friends who was the one making the most noise in the kitchen.

I think his name was Terry. And he too prayed to receive

Christ that day. It was wonderful.

Paul is saying that he that he wants us to see this

enlightening work of the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 19 says the commands of the Lord are radiant, giving

light to the eyes. There's things the Holy Spirit

can open to us that are yet ours to enjoy.

But enlightened to what he says. Three things.

A clearview of the hope of Our Calling, a grander view of our

riches in Christ, and in the exceeding greatness of God's

power for us and in us that will hold till next week.

Or what does the hope of His calling mean?

How can we know that hope? Paul is saying that our hearts

would be our asking, praying. Our hearts would be so flooded

with the light of the Spirit that we can see something of the

future that is truly our iron already belongs to us.

I want you to see it more clear, the glorious way of life that He

has for us. When Christ returns and we see

Him, we will be like him, holy and blameless.

But we're not only called to be something which is the most

important, but we're also called for something that is still as

we live here, here now, but even more so, how we will live when

we go to heaven. Have you ever wondered what will

we do in heaven when we'll be there for eternity?

What will we do? A wonderful man.

Some of you may have read Alice Willard, knowing that he was

dying of cancer, thought deeply about it and has made one of the

most wonderful statements I've ever read.

He put it this way. Your eternal destiny is not

cosmic retirement. It is to be a part of a

tremendously creative project under unimaginably splendid

leadership on an inconceivable scale, with ever increasing

cycles of fruitfulness and enjoyment.

That is the prophetic vision, which the eye has not seen in

the ear hasn't heard. Heaven is full of activities, so

much so that all of his inhabitants embrace and live

with gusto and no fatigue. What a wonderful world, Paul is

saying. I want you to look to the fact

of the reality of that. In fact, he told the Colossians,

keep seeking the things above. Set your heart and your mind on

the things above because they are real and they're important

and they're wonderful. This hope of the calling that we

have before it is the assurance that Jesus is returning for us

and bringing the heaven life with Him, a life of which

there's never again hate or fear or tears, only love and joy.

The third request and the last that we'll look at today is to

know the riches of the glory of His Saints, of the inheritance

in His Saints. Now this phrase the inheritance

in the Saints in the original language is not real clear which

is the subject of it. But it can be taken in two ways.

And actually I see them as two sides of the same coin.

It can refer to the inheritance that God has in us, which Christ

created. Christ even said, I come to give

those you've given to me back to you.

OK? We are the ones who become God's

righteous children or, and I believe as well.

I believe both that we can refer it refers to the inheritance

that we have in Christ. So either we're Christ's, God's

treasured possession, or we're treasured because of the

glorious things that are now in US for forever, permanently.

In either case, Paul prays that we would have eyes enlightened

to see it, to enjoy it. And in fact, reading the whole

letter of Ephesians, especially the first part, Paul most

frequently speaks of riches that we have in our inheritance, as

in verse 3, chapter 1. We've been blessed with every

spiritual blessing. Verse 7.

We've received redemption according to the riches of His

grace. Chapter 2, verse 7, in the ages

to come, that God might show the surpassing riches of His grace

in kindness toward us. Eugene Peterson, one of my

favorite authors, writes and states it this way.

We have been called to grasp the immensity of this glorious way

of life that He has for His followers, the utter

extravagance of his work in us. So what are these riches of

grace that have been given to us, These blessings by his

grace, Paul adds in verse 8, have been lavished on us,

lavished with the riches of grace.

Bible scholars have counted at least 33 of these blessings of

God that come to us at the moment of salvation, or more

that come by the Holy Spirit and our sanctification.

But 33 things that become true of you at the moment your eyes

were open to Christ. Why?

33 Don't know. They're just simply given to us.

Seven of them are mentioned in chapter 1 alone, and then more

in the next 5 chapters. But I provided you with a little

card that lists these 33 blessings, Riches of grace.

I grouped them arbitrarily into 6 categories.

You might say. They could obviously be listed

in many ways, but I did this to help us grasp a little bit more

how to look at them. Look at the headers.

We have been included into God's family 5 riches there.

We have been restored to our true intended creation, the 10

riches just being restored. We've been given wonderful

intimate relationship with God seven places where He's adopted

us, where He's made us His children, etcetera.

We are deeply valued and seen in the graces of appointment of

what He's made us to be, Heavenly holy priest.

For Him. We're given a place and a way of

significant service in His Kingdom, and we've been made

whole and complete forever. Let me just highlight a few for

you while we have some time. The first five are what scholars

call the divine Cree of God, decree of God.

This is the stunning realization that you and I of all people

have been included in God's family, and it was done before

the foundation of the earth. Notice #11 We are free of all

condemnation, No Fear of future judgement.

Jesus has covered everything forever. 14 You're not only

forgiven for all your sins, but you've been given a clean

conscience. The psalmist right?

Many times God says I will remember your sins no more.

I don't know about you, but I'm so often tempted to remember my

past sins. That's never of God, that's

always of faith. He's always lifting us forward.

16 to 21 The blessings of a permanent, life changing

relationship. 26 You have immediate access to our holy God

because of Christ's righteousness that clothes US.

27 to 30 we've been given this place of service and in 31 we've

been marked with a sign and a seal of the Holy Spirit, which

means the whole spiritual realm sees that you have the mark of

royalty. You have the mark of being royal

sons and daughters. Spend time meditating on these

riches and what they can mean for you.

Make it your prayer that God opens the eyes of your heart to

grow more deeply in love with Christ.

And as you do, your intimate knowledge of God will grow so

deep and your eyes will be open to see more and more of the

depth of these riches. Let me pray for us, our great

and wonderful Father. Please help us to remember what

you have already given us, that we can dig, dive more deeply,

climb more highly, extend more length and breadth into your

love. We have been loved with an

everlasting love, We have been given with a growing

understanding of everlasting grace, and we've been made heirs

of an everlasting Kingdom which has been made sure of the blood

of an everlasting covenant. Amen.