"The Gospel According to the Trinity: Infinite Power" Ephesians 1:15-21 Sunday Morning Worship Service

The Old Testament city of Babylon was remarkable for its beauty.

It straddled the Euphrates River, and coming from the north, you would have your view of Babylon obstructed.

But the land would be green and lush.

Not often what we associate with that part of the world today, but it would have been green and lush and prosperous.

And yet the way the city was structured, it would have been difficult to see for a way out.

The most formidable structure of Babylon, which was one of the most significant cities in the ancient Near East, was its massive and very beautiful wall.

The wall was 70 or 80 feet thick at parts.

It was 320 feet high.

I mean, it's the length of a football field, but in the air, built around this massive city.

It was the capital of the Babylonian Empire, which had overthrown Nineveh and the Assyrians, becoming the most dominant city in the ancient Near East.

It would eventually be overthrown by the Persians, who would take Babylon themselves and operate from there as its sort of capital as well.

Babylon was not a rundown city, although it's you know ruins today, but at its zenith it was known for its immense beauty.

As you approach the city, you would be, of course, intimidated by the walls.

You could see some spires from the roof going over the top with different statues on top of the buildings, but these just massive statues, you couldn't get a full view of them.

At the center of Babylon was the temple to the uh mother goddess, the goddess of war and fertility.

Her name was Ishthar, and her temple was immensely beautiful as well, covered with ceramic tiles that were white and blue and red and yellow, and it would have been an impressive sight to just get glimpses of over the wall.

But to actually enter the city, you had to walk around the wall to come to the massive gate.

And your first view of the temple in all of its glory is walking through that gate, and you would be just gobsmacked by this huge, massive, glistening temple looking down at you.

The streets of Babylon were designed to confuse people.

Nothing was to scale.

It didn't make sense because you were blocked by the wall, this huge wall.

Once you got, remember, 70, 80 feet thick.

It was a long walk to get through it.

Once you get in, the city just opens up in front of you with the streets going every which way.

It was designed for beauty.

It was designed for safety.

An army couldn't make a surprise attack and get into the city and expect to escape.

They would get lost.

You know, no Google maps back then.

Wandering around the city, it was designed to intimidate you and to overwhelm you with its beauty.

Many of the buildings had ceramic tiles in them.

The ground, many of the roads had tiles in them with pictures of bulls and dragons and the sun and warriors on them.

As I mentioned, red and blue and brilliant yellow and white tiles that were kept clean all the time.

The walls had these incredible gardens hanging from them, the hanging gardens of Babylon.

Literally one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

I mean, this is not hyperbole here.

This is one of the most beautiful places in world history.

One of the first notable Jews to visit Babylon was the king of Judah, Zedekiah.

Zedekiah was overthrown by the Babylonian army, and he was led captive back to Babylon.

If you recall, at the end of 2 Kings, they put a hook through his nose.

They pierced his nose with a metal hook, connected a chain to it, and led him as if he were on a leash to Babylon.

They put him on display in the middle of the city at the king's table.

He was allowed to eat with the king.

He received portions of the king's table almost as if some kind of perverse trophy where the emperor of Babylon could display his different kings that had been subjected in humiliating ways.

Here was the king of Israel, the king of Judah, with the hook in his nose.

I don't think King Zedekiah appreciated the beauty of Babylon for one other reason.

If you recall the story at the end of 2 Kings, as they put the hook in his nose, they gouged out his eyes.

And so here he is led to one of the most beautiful places in the world, and he's unable to see it.

It would have been described to him by his companions.

All of the beauty would have been experienced in a second-hand way.

I don't think he would have properly appreciated it.

This is the situation that Paul is praying against in Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

He describes in verses 15 down through 21 the immense beauty that believers have before them, the immense beauty of all that we have in Christ.

And yet, Paul is praying, fully aware of the fact that there are those who may not be able to see that beauty.

They may not be able to behold it, because the eyes of their hearts have not been spiritually opened.

Because they are blinded to it, they are surrounded, like Zedekiah in Babylon of old, surrounded by the most remarkable spiritual beauty imaginable, and yet they are unable to perceive it.

And so Paul prays here in verses 15 through 21, begging the Lord that he keeps you from that fate, begging the Lord that the eyes of your heart is the expression he uses, would be open to see the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And Paul prays specifically in the middle of this prayer to the persons of the Trinity.

He prays to the Father, he prays to the Son, he prays to the Spirit to ask all three persons to be at work so that the eyes of your heart would be open and to appreciate what the persons of the Trinity are doing in your life through the gospel, not only now, but all the way back into eternity past and all the way forward into eternity future.

I want you to see the greatness of God.

Now, how he gets there is what is, I think, most noteworthy.

Verses 3 through 14 are one of the most significant and profound doctrinal treaties in all of the scripture.

Paul begins in eternity past in verse 3 that God has blessed us, the Father has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.

This goes back in verse 4 from before the foundations of the world.

Verse 5, he predestined us.

Verse 6, we'll be singing songs of his glorious grace all the way into eternity future.

That's because we have redemption in verse 7.

We have a plan for the fullness of time in verse 10 that we are part of.

This is all according to his purpose in verse 9.

I mean, this is a remarkable, eternal perspective on the gospel.

Eternity past to eternity future, with the cornerstone of that, the lever in the middle of that, the cross of Jesus Christ.

That's what Paul's describing in verses 3 through 14.

But then in verse 15, he transitions and says, for this reason, the this is verses 3 through 14.

The this is the eternal purposes of God through the gospel.

Well, that's the this.

For this reason, he says, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, I don't cease to give thanks for you.

Paul describes his mind going to the gospel and all the greatness and all the glory of the gospel, and for this reason, he goes back to thinking entirely about these Ephesian Christians.

And he wants to pray for them.

He wants to give thanks for them.

He wants to remember them in his prayers.

And so his goal here is going to be to pray about the full scope of the gospel in the life of the Ephesians.

This is Paul's prayer life, and this is his normal prayer life.

You're going to get a window in tear in this passage to how he normally prays, because he says in verse 16, I don't cease to do this.

Don't push that too far.

Don't, you know, like where Paul tells the Thessalonians prayer and the Philippians pray without ceasing.

Don't think, well, does that mean you don't eat?

Or does that mean you don't sleep?

No, he's just by that he means it's this normal pattern.

He's normally marked by praying for other believers, and this is what that prayer looks like.

This normal, typical prayer of Paul's, remembering other believers, and he's going to pray particularly.

The main thing he's going for is verse 18, that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened.

Enlightened so what is what is very interesting.

He has a list of prayer requests in there, and this whole thing just really cascades out of control.

It cascades out of control.

I want to read this whole passage to you, and as I read it to you, I want to put it on the screen so you get the understanding of how much Paul is pushing you forward from now into eternity.

Now, perhaps you won't be able to see this font because it is somewhat small.

You fortunately have a printed copy in your lap or on your screen that you can make whatever size you want and your cell phone there, but I wanted to outline it this way so that you see Paul's progression in his thinking.

I mean, this is, as I mentioned earlier, this is one of the longest sentences in the Bible.

This is a mark remarkably complex, remarkably intricate.

For homeschool families, you could make your your kids diagram that this week.

That would be fun for them.

That'd be a project that would take about two and a half weeks, I think.

The subject of this is the beginning of verse 16, the I there.

Paul is the subject of this.

I, he's saying, he's the one who's praying.

The verb's there is giving thanks, which he doesn't cease and remembering those are working in parallel to each other.

And the rest of the sentence flows out of that.

The rest of the sentence is giving thanks to God, remembering these particular things.

So as I read this, you can follow along on the screen if you can see it, or if not, you can read it in your own passage.

But as I read this, the main thing I want you to get out of this is how Paul in his prayer is being pushed forward into eternity.

This is the opposite of the way we normally pray.

Like just think of the Acts model.

We often pray according to the Acts model, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, where we start with praying to God for how glorious he is.

We confess our own sins, we give him thanks for who he is, and then we give him our requests.

Paul has that flipped.

It's like he didn't learn that acronym.

He starts backwards.

He starts with his supplication.

He starts by praying for the Ephesian believers, giving thanks for what happened to them in the gospel, having their sins forgiven.

And then he's just catapulted up into eternity future, eternity past and eternity future with all the things God has done for believers.

So I'm going to read the whole thing.

You can follow along, verse 15.

For this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards 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 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, what are the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe.

Those are the three things he's requesting in order there, that you would have this hope and the greatness of his power, all of his might made known to you.

We'll look at those in more detail later this morning.

All of this is great might, all of this is worked in Christ, it says in verse 20.

He worked this in Christ.

When he, speaking of the Holy Spirit, raised him from the dead and seated him at his, speaking of the Father, his right hand in the heavenly places.

Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.

I mean, just think of that language.

When Jesus is exalted, resurrected from the grave, exalted in heaven, he is far above all other rule.

Far above all other authority.

There is no ruler in earth that compares to this.

There is no person in earth that has this kind of power, this kind of autonomy, this kind of exalted state.

There's no authority in all of the earth that compares to this.

Doesn't matter how great you are as an emperor, you do not have the authority that Jesus Christ has.

He has more authority than you and anyone else.

He has more authority than the angels have.

This should remind you of Romans 8.

What can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus?

Can heights or depths?

Can angels or principalities?

Can forces of evil, can any demonic capability, can anyone separate you from the love of Christ?

No, because verse 21 says he is exalted above all rule and above all authority and above all power, even supernatural demonic power.

Christ is exalted above that.

Above all dominion, you might think you have a little dominion in your life, you have a little sphere of sovereignty that you have carved out for yourself in your own life.

Hardly.

Jesus is exalted above all of that, every realm of dominion, every example of power, every type of authority, every person in a ruling position, all of them are dwarfed by the authority of Jesus Christ.

He's exalted above every name that is named.

And of course, you know this, but when the Bible speaks of some name, it speaks of that person's will.

And you pray in according to the name of Christ.

So you say this prayer in the name of Jesus.

That means according to his will.

You're submitting it to his will.

So Jesus, it's another way of saying that Jesus' will is exalted above your will.

Jesus' reputation is above your reputation.

His authority is above your authority.

He is exalted above everyone.

Above every name that is named.

Invent a name.

This should remind you of Philippians 2.

One day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

He is above every name.

Not only in this age, but also in the age to come.

So you might say, certainly he's exalted above all of us.

But what about an eternity?

Will he be exalted above every name then?

Yes.

Invent a new person.

Jesus is above them.

A new king?

Jesus outranks him.

He is above everyone in every age.

And not just this age, but into eternity future.

That is the sentence.

That is Paul's prayer.

This prayer boils down to asking God, the actual request is given to the Trinity in verse 17.

Substantially in verse 18, that you'd have the eyes of your heart enlightened.

I want to focus before we get to the request on why Paul makes this a Trinitarian request, because that happens in verse 17.

The God of our Lord Jesus, the Father of glory, and the Spirit of Wisdom.

He goes to three persons to the Trinity there.

And the point of this is that he's being pushed up into glory.

I like the way this is diagrammed on the screen right here because it has kind of a water effect.

There's this idea of a current that Paul is trying to pray to give thanksgiving for the Ephesians, and he's swept up in the current.

And where does the current of his prayer go?

It goes all the way to glory.

I have seen a brother try to push another brother into the pool, and both brothers end up in the pool.

That's the description here.

Paul is trying to pray to give God thanksgiving for the Ephesians.

He's trying to thank God for them, and he ends up getting swept up as well.

You see, even the verb ten or the his voice change in verse 18, the eyes of your heart and how he's called you.

Verse 19, it's his power towards us who believe.

See how Paul falls in as well.

It's not just about you.

He's giving thanks for the Ephesian believers, and he's giving thanks for you, and then he falls in and he's swept up into eternity future.

And that's the direction of this current.

It is pushing him.

Right now, he's reminded of the work of God in verses 3 through 14.

So he's praying for the believers that he knows, and he ends up in eternity future.

That's where his prayer goes, is in eternity future.

This week I put in some drainage pipes in our yard from our gutter spouts, the downspouts, because we're washing away the wood chips in our path kind of thing.

We haven't replaced those all the time.

So I finally caved in and dug a trench and put a downspout in, and uh took only 47 trips to Home Depot to get all the right parts and all the right screws and everything.

The most helpful thing I watched was a YouTube video about doing this, three minutes long.

Better, more effective than 47 Home Depot trips.

And it explained the general principle here of the force behind water and how sometimes you can even put it the downspout, can even point up at the end because of the force of water is gonna take it out, the gravitational pull as it goes down.

You know, water as it's pooled there, one gallon of water has eight pounds of force to it.

So it's gonna force itself out.

It can't help but go to the lowest point.

It's got all this force and pressure pushing it there.

This is the way of Paul's prayer.

He's trying to just pray for the Ephesians, but the force and the pressure in his mind when he thinks about the Trinity is driving him into eternity future.

He can't stay there on the earth.

He can't stay there praying for the Ephesians, he can't stay in the here and now.

He tries to, but the pressure of the gospel is driving his mind, way more than eight pounds per gallon, too.

It is driving and forcing his mind straight up into glory.

That's what happens here.

He starts just I love this.

He starts in the world, I think about you, I remember you, verse 16 in my prayers, and he ends in verse 21, all the way in the eternal age to come.

He can't help but do that.

And the crux of this, verse 17, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, with the spirit of wisdom, to appreciate what's going on in this prayer, you do have to ask yourself the most basic theological question there is.

And you could ask yourself this question with any passage, it helps you understand any passage, but particularly this one.

The question is, of course, why did God create the world?

How you answer that question determines the rest of your theology, it determines the re it determines how you read the Bible, determines how you pray, it determines how you view your own life.

That's why I say it is the most basic theological question you can ask.

It's the first question of the Westminster Catechism and Confession, it's the first question of the London Baptist Confession of Faith.

It is the most basic theological question.

Basic, I don't mean easy.

Basic, I mean foundational.

Why did God create the world?

And the answer that the Bible gives repeatedly is that he created it to display his own glory.

He just created the world to display his own glory.

Now, some contorted, twisted minds, some uh humanistic minds take that as a sign of weakness in God.

I've had people tell me that that, oh, how shallow or how fragile or how egotistical must God be to need to create a bunch of people to glorify him.

But I want you to just understand that that is a very sinful response to the clear teaching of Scripture.

The Bible teaches that God created the world to share his own glory, to magnify his own glory, not because he needs your praise, but because he loves you.

So he creates objects to reflect reflect his praise.

Think of a billionaire who gives his money away.

You wouldn't say, oh, that billionaire is giving all his money away.

He must be so egotistical.

He must be so shallow that he needs people to thank him for giving his money away.

I mean, how arrogant is he that he's so generous with his money?

He would never say that.

He'd say how kind he is that he gives himself away, how kind and generous he is that he shares who he is and what he has with us.

And so it is with God that he is philanthropic by nature, that he is generous, he's omnibenevolent, he gives himself away.

He made the universe to display and reflect and magnify his glory as a blessing to us.

So you can't rightly understand anything in the universe until you understand how it glorifies God.

I have said that theological phrase more times than probably any other sentence from this pulpit.

You cannot rightly understand anything in the universe until you understand how it glorifies God because that's why it was made.

Now, I give you that as the background for Paul focusing on the Trinity here in his prayer, because what you see in verse 17 is that the three persons of the Trinity are likewise working to display each other's glory.

Each person in the Trinity here is striving and is at work and is doing things to display the glory of the other persons of the Trinity.

I know we can't rightly understand the Trinity.

We can't perfectly understand the Trinity.

We're not gonna, I don't have some secret analogy that will make the Trinity click and you will get it now.

But we can always try harder to understand the Trinity.

Both can be true.

You'll never perfectly get there, but you can also try harder.

Those are both true statements.

The basics of Trinitarian theology is that God is one.

There's one being of God.

There are not three beings of God.

There is one being who is God.

There's one essence of God, there's one essential nature of God.

All of the attributes of God, all of the perfections of God are singular in that one being of God.

He is God, and all that it is in him is one, and he is one God.

Yet that God, that God subsists, that one singular God subsists in three persons Father, Son, and Spirit.

The three of them together each have the subsistence of God.

One being, three persons, again, that's hard for us to understand.

The most common analogy that is given for it that I think is helpful is the idea that the Father has an image of himself.

The father has a self image, a perception of himself that is identical to himself.

That image is the Son.

This Why the Bible refers to the Son as the image of God.

He's the exact nature, the exact representation of God.

He is identical to the Father in every way, shape, and form.

Every attribute that is in the essence and being of God is the Son as well, because he is the image of the Father.

The Father and the Son have a love and affection for each other.

That love and affection is the Spirit, the holiness and the love and the joy the Father and the Son have in their communion, which also represents every attribute, every perfection of God.

So the three are perfectly God.

The three are one being.

There is not, again, they're not three beings.

There's one being, three persons that subsist as that one being from all eternity.

As long as the Father has been in existence, he has had a son, and he has had his spirit, they're eternal.

They're eternal.

Now, that may seem complex, and it is, and you can spend the rest of your life thinking about it and worshiping God for it.

Why did those three create the universe to glorify themselves?

But what is interesting here, what this little prayer here reveals to you, is that as the three create the universe to glorify themselves, they are not striving against each other to glorify themselves over each other.

They are striving to glorify the other persons.

The Father is striving to glorify the Son, who together with the Father is striving to glorify the Spirit, who is striving to glorify the Son again.

Each of the three persons is pulling the other.

So in Paul's prayer, here's where I'm going with this.

In Paul's prayer, as he starts off with the Ephesians and he's getting pulled up into eternity future, the same thing is happening within the Trinity itself.

The Father is pulling and pushing glory to the Son.

The Father and the Son are pulling and pushing glory to the Spirit.

The Spirit is pulling and pushing glory to the Father and the Son.

Each one is pointing to the other as they themselves strive to reveal the glories of the other persons of the Trinity.

And that's what you see in verse 17.

That the God, here's the heading of this, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There's no doubt that Paul understands the deity of Christ.

He's identifying here with an Old Testament phrase, God and Lord, Yahweh and Adonai.

That's a common Old Testament expression.

Here, Paul identifies that God, Adonai, with Lord, Yahweh, you could even say, Jesus Christ.

Jesus is his name.

Christ is the title.

Christ means Messiah, the sent one.

So Paul is very clearly identifying here as Jesus, as the Son of God, sent from the Father, sent from God.

He's pushing glory to Jesus Christ.

Who himself is the Father of glory, it says that the Father is the Father of glory.

This again is a very common Old Testament phrase.

The Old Testament describes God as the God of glory.

That's Psalm 29, verse 3, for example.

Psalms 29:3

God is the God of glory.

That's how the Old Testament describes God.

He is the God of glory.

The New Testament changes one word.

Do you see it?

It's not the God of glory.

In the New Testament, he's the Father of glory.

Do you see how that pushes glory to Jesus Christ?

It's pushing focus to Jesus Christ.

It's pushing the glory.

They have God is the fountain of glory, and He is.

The Father is the fountain of all glory.

All glory comes from him.

He is the source of all glory.

The Father is.

He is the source of all joy.

He's the source of all life.

And here he's identifying himself as the father of glory, which is a way of pointing out the sun.

If I introduce myself to you as the husband of Deirdre, do you see I'm pushing your focus to her?

I'm the father of Madison, Savannah, and Geneva.

I'm pushing your focus to them.

I'm calling myself a father and I'm identifying myself with them in a way that pushes the focus to them.

This is what's happening with the Father in Ephesians 1.

He is identifying himself as the Father of glory and of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's pushing the focus that is always on God.

He's pushing it towards Jesus Christ.

He is the eternal Son.

He is the Lord.

He is the Son of God.

And then the Spirit enters in verse 17.

And the Spirit of Wisdom, he's praying.

Paul is praying that the Father and the Son would give you the Spirit of wisdom.

This is obviously speaking of the Holy Spirit.

Paul is reworking what he did in verses 3 through 14, that the Father predestines, the Son redeems, the Spirit applies.

He's going through the same order again.

The Son who is the Redeemer, the Father who is the fountain of glory, the Spirit who is the one who grants you wisdom.

The Spirit is the one who works on your heart.

Jesus is the one who comes, He's the Son of God, He's the one who comes incarnate and dies.

The Spirit, who is spiritual, comes and applies the wisdom of God to your heart.

This again is a common Old Testament phrase.

The fear of Yahweh is the foundation of wisdom.

Wisdom in the Old Testament is the ability to live a wise life in a fallen world.

Wisdom in the Old Testament is a moral capacity.

It's not an intellectual capacity.

Wisdom is not IQ.

Wisdom is your ability to apply the principles of Scripture to a life in a fallen world.

That's wisdom.

And it begins with fearing the Lord.

It doesn't end there.

It ends with living out the principles that God gives you.

And you have to train yourself to do that.

You have to spend your life doing that.

Godly wisdom doesn't just happen.

Not every Christian possesses the same amount of wisdom.

You have to strive to apply the word of God to every situation in your life.

That's what wisdom means.

The whole book of Proverbs is about this.

Specifically Proverbs chapter 8, which describes the Son of God as the wisdom of God.

Proverbs 8 · chapter mention

The Father, remember, has an image of himself.

The Father has an image of his own wisdom.

That wisdom is the Son.

He was with the Father at the beginning.

Wisdom incarnate is Jesus Christ.

And so here, this all enters Ephesians where Paul is praying for you.

He is praying for you right here and right now that you would have the wisdom of God, which is Jesus Christ, which you only have when the Spirit applies it to your heart and teaches you how to live in a fallen world.

This is very practical.

Wisdom is not ethereal, it's something that you apply to life in a fallen world.

Well, how do you do that?

How do you find God's wisdom?

This is Job 28.

Where do you go to get wisdom?

You can go to a cave and mine it out?

No.

You go to the Word of God.

And that's where you see here in verse 18.

Or sorry, verse 17, that you have a spirit of wisdom and a revelation in the knowledge of.

And revelation speaking of the scriptures revealed to you.

This very quickly becomes the read your Bible more sermon if you notice this.

You want to be wise?

Oh, you pray, you pray, you pray that the Father of glories, who sent Jesus Christ to die in your place on the cross, redeem you from your sin, rise from the grave by the Spirit working in his life, would send his Spirit to you to open your heart in faith and give you wisdom that you learn from the Word of God.

That's Paul's prayer.

That's what he's praying for other believers.

How would Paul pray for you?

He'd pray for you in that way.

That you grow mature in understanding the Bible, that you grow mature in wisdom.

That is the centerpiece of his prayer.

That is the request.

That you grow to be a mature believer, mature in wisdom, mature in understanding the revelation of Jesus Christ.

How does that happen?

Verse 18.

You have to have the eyes of your heart enlightened.

You have to be enlightened.

This is a passive word.

The Greek word is photizzo or something like that.

We get the English word photon from it.

The idea of light comes from it.

You have to be enlightened.

The light has to be turned on.

It's passive.

It happens to you.

Paul is praying.

The eyes of your heart would be enlightened.

God does this to you.

And specifically, which person of God does this to you?

The Spirit.

He is the one that enlightens your heart.

He reveals to you, He's the Spirit of wisdom.

He reveals to you what the Word of God says.

He seals you through your own faith and regeneration and applies the scripture to your life and convicts you of sin and trains you in righteousness.

That's what happens.

That's what being enlightened is.

And I love Paul's expression that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened, because you don't normally associate eyes with your heart.

They belong in your head.

Your heart doesn't have eyes.

But we understand the idiom.

It's what you really love.

Paul bypasses the mind with this.

He's going to get to the mind later, but he bypasses it now.

He's targeting the heart.

It's not about what you hear and what you know, although that feeds the heart.

It's about what you love.

You are what you love.

You can know things and not believe them.

You can have head knowledge and not street smarts.

You get that?

And Paul's not praying that you would have head knowledge and not street smarts.

He's not praying that you would have, you know, wisdom that's not spiritual.

He's praying that you would have wisdom that is in your heart.

It is what you love, that you are marked by loving wisdom which is Jesus Christ, brought to you by the Spirit of God.

And you need the Spirit to do this, brothers and sisters.

You know that Jesus, the Holy Spirit ministered to Jesus in his life.

You know that?

How much more would you need the Holy Spirit to minister to you?

Isaiah 11, verse 2, it's a messianic prophecy.

Isaiah 11:2

It says the Spirit of the Lord will be upon the Savior, and so he must certainly must be upon you.

1 Corinthians 2.16 says that through the Holy Spirit, we have the mind of Christ.

As the Holy Spirit reveals God's word to us, we have the mind of Christ.

This is why it's better for, just why Jesus can say, by the way, it's better for me to go away and send you the Spirit.

Because when Jesus was on earth, you did not have the mind of Christ.

When Jesus was on earth, you had Jesus' teachings.

You had him around you.

Some of his teachings were hard to understand.

The disciples pointed it out multiple times.

Lord, we don't get it.

Another parable?

Come on.

It's like you don't want us to understand.

And Jesus says, I'm going to go away and send you a helper, the Spirit, who will teach you righteousness.

He will teach you how to live.

This is the wisdom of God.

He enlightens your hearts.

And when that happens, when the light comes onto your heart, you know the hope that He's called you.

The riches of the saints.

Specifically these three things.

I'll give you this outline in a brief time remaining.

Paul's prayer is a prayer that believers would understand what God has already done in their life, know what we already have, and anticipate where we are already going.

Don't feel like you need to rush writing those down because we're going to go through them one at a time for the rest of this morning.

But he prays that believers would understand what God has already done, know what we already have, and anticipate where we are going.

First of all, he begins with understanding what God has already done.

And again, we'll go through this one at a time.

He's appreciating what and praying that you would understand what he has already done.

This goes back, as I said, to verses 3 through 14.

In eternity past, the Father predestined you before the foundation of time.

He crafted you in his mind.

Remember, he didn't look at a line up of people and choose one and not other.

It's not divine duck, duck, goose.

He designed you in his mind.

He predestined you from before the foundation of time to display his love for you through Jesus Christ.

That's already happened.

And so he's praying here that you would know that.

That's the verse 18, that you would know the hope to which he has called you.

And the calling here, the antecedent of calling, is in the first paragraph that he called you in eternity past.

He chose you, he set his affections on you.

Know that.

It's past tense in verse 18.

He's already called you.

Understand.

This produces hope in your life.

He's called you to a future hope.

Notice this completes the triad of faith, hope, and love.

He talked about faith earlier.

He says he is giving thanks for the faith that we have when he hears of our faith.

That's in verse 15.

I've heard of your faith.

That produces love in verse 15.

Your love towards all the saints.

Your faith you have in God produces love towards other believers, and ultimately it's going to produce hope as you recognize your faith comes from the Lord.

Faith, hope, and love.

Of course, when we see God face to face, the faith goes away.

The hope goes away when it becomes reality, but the love is what remains.

But notice it's the same three repeated here.

That's what he wants you to understand.

If you understand that your salvation is rooted in eternity past, you will have a more profound and secure hope.

Do you feel like some days are hopeless?

Do you feel like sometimes your hope wavers or waffles?

Don't look to present circumstances to anchor your hope because they change all the time.

Look into eternity past.

Anchor your hope there.

And that's what Paul's praying.

You want to grow up and be a mature Christian?

That's what Paul's praying.

Lord, let them anchor their hope in what you've already done for them.

Anchor your hope in the Father calling you before time.

Anchor your hope in the Son redeeming you on the cross before you were even born.

Anchor your hope on the Spirit, applying that salvation or redemption to your life in the moment you first believed.

Anchor your hope there.

Those are all in the rearview mirror, my friends.

Eternity past, 2,000 years ago, and however your age minus how long you've been a Christian.

That's where you're looking for for your hope.

Those things that have already happened.

Already happened.

Go there and you will find hope.

Secondly, to understand what you already have.

You have the mind of Christ.

Verse 18, not just the hope to which he's called you, past tense, but what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints?

The power, the immeasurable greatness he has in verse 19, is power towards us who believe.

That's what you already have.

You already have that power.

You already have the mind of Christ when he gives you the Bible.

Now, not everybody can understand the Bible.

For some people, they read it and it's like Charlie Brown's teacher talking to them.

But for those with the Holy Spirit, it opens your heart to receive the Word of God.

So you want to know what Jesus teaches about an issue, you look to the Bible.

The Bible doesn't have teaching on every specific situation, but it has teaching on every category of situation.

And to know which category to turn to, that is wisdom.

Wisdom comes from the Holy Spirit, who comes bringing faith in Jesus Christ, who is sent by the Father.

So do you see the even in that basic concept of how do you grow mature?

How do you know how to live in this life?

It is Trinitarian, it is salvific.

The Father sends the Son, the Son is the wisdom of God, the Spirit opens your heart to believe in the Son, to apply the wisdom.

You now can look at the Word of God and see how you're going to live in any situation in life based upon the wisdom of God given to you by the Spirit.

And there are those who don't want to turn to the Word of God for wisdom.

Who don't want to turn to the Word of God to anchor their hope, who want to turn to 10,000 other things, who put their hope in politics.

For example, to choose one.

Could you imagine how fragile you would be if your hope for your future was in politics?

You'd be hitting the refresh on the polling average every day.

Yikes, do I need to be nervous today?

Oh, don't live like that.

Don't live like that.

There will be other elections.

Elections come and go.

The word of the Lord stands forever.

Your career.

Is your hope fixed in your career?

Oh man, that would make you difficult to live with.

If everything rises and falls based upon how well you did at work that day.

Or your family.

Does everything rise and fall in your countenance based on how your family's treating you in a particular day?

I mean, this is a rocky roller coaster of a ride we're all on here together.

I mean, be anchored in something more secure than that.

There are those that fall even further off the horse of wisdom and chase after dreams and visions and prophecies.

There's all kinds of YouTube videos floating around right now of different prophets that have had dreams about the future and about coronavirus and about the election, and people have been sending these to me.

And you know, one of them, my favorite one, is this guy who says, I'm not a prophet, but the Lord has given me these dreams.

But then you look at his YouTube handle and he's called prophet so-and-so.

It's like okay.

You don't need to look to prophets to know the future.

You don't need to look to prophets to know how you should live or what you should do.

Oh, please don't.

The prophets, hey, they say they're believers, though.

They have scripture in their prophecy.

Yeah, they're stealing scriptural phrases from the Bible.

That's what they're doing.

They find a biblical phrase, they steal it, and said the Lord gave it to them in a dream, and they fill out the white space with other things that they thought of.

Well, they were sleeping.

I mean, come on.

That will lead to an immature, an immature spiritual life.

It will.

And I hope I'm not stepping on too many toes that hard.

But if you're chasing dreams and visions and prophecies about what you should do and how you should live, it will stunt your spiritual growth.

This is Jeremiah chapter 23.

Jeremiah 23 · chapter mention

Yahweh speaking to Jeremiah.

This is a great passage to go to.

Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, Yahweh says.

So you have a dream, you think the Lord gave you revelation in a dream?

Great.

Tell everyone, God says.

But the period doesn't come there.

Said it's a comma, where he says, But let the one who has my word speak my word with boldness.

What does straw have in common with wheat, says Yahweh?

My word is like fire, declares Yahweh.

It's like a hammer that breaks rocks into pieces.

So you want to tell your dream, God says?

Tell your dream.

But the person with the word of God will be a hammer to your dream and will shatter it.

The word of God is a fire.

It burns the so-called dreams of the prophets.

Therefore, verse 30, Jeremiah 23, I'm against the prophets, declares Yahweh.

They steal my words from me.

They steal my words from one another.

I'm against the prophets, declares Yahweh.

They use their tongues and declare, thus says Yahweh, I'm against those who prophesy their lying dreams, declares Yahweh, who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness.

I didn't send them.

See, you got your dream?

Tell your dream.

But the word of God will light it on fire.

Ouch.

Reminds me of 2 Peter.

Peter's taken up to the mountaintop in the in his life, in his ministry with Christ, and he sees Jesus transfigured in his resurrected glory with Moses and Elijah.

That's a pretty epic scene.

He sees the resurrected Lord.

I got all kinds of questions.

This is before the resurrection.

Where'd Moses and Elijah get their body?

Is it like they borrow one for the day?

I got all sorts of questions.

Peter sees that and hears the heavenly voice from heaven, the Father speaking about the Son, applied to his heart, to the Spirit.

You see the full Trinity unveiled before him.

That's what he saw on the mountaintop.

And he comes down.

And do you remember what he writes to Peter 1?

Verse 18, I heard this very voice from heaven.

We were with Jesus on that holy mountain.

And yet, verse 19, we have something more sure.

It's the prophetic word, which we do well to pay attention to as a lamp that shines in a dark place.

That just is amazing, isn't it?

Peter said, I come off the mountain having seen the glorified and transfigured Lord.

And my takeaway from it is that the Bible is true.

I should look to the Bible for direction.

I should invest my life to the Bible.

It's the lamp for my feet.

Peter doesn't say, so I believe in the resurrection of Jesus because of what I saw on the mountain.

Peter says, I saw that.

That's not why I believe, though.

I saw that, but I believe because of the word of God.

This is what Paul is praying for you.

Paul is praying for you that you would believe because of the Word of God.

That you would believe not because of what you've seen, not because of what you've experienced, but you would believe because the Word of God is a rock, it is a hammer, it is a fire, it is more certain than anything else.

You want to grow in wisdom?

Grow in your knowledge of the Word of God.

And through faith, sealed to your heart by the Holy Spirit, you will grow in wisdom through the Word of God.

And then thirdly, Paul prays that believers would understand what God has already done, know what they already have, and thirdly, anticipate where they are already going.

This is the hope of the calling we talked about earlier that you have a destination in mind.

He's bringing you towards the destination, he's reminding you.

Verse 20, that this power worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead, seated him at the right hand of the heavenly places.

That's where Jesus is now.

He's already graduated from this earth.

He went where you have yet to go.

He died, was buried, and resurrected.

You haven't done that yet, but you will.

I went to a high school that had about 2,000 students at it.

Our graduating class was about 250, I think.

So you can do the math on what the dropout rate of that high school was.

Something like, I don't know, you can do the math.

I barely graduated.

No, an insane dropout rate.

Insane dropout rate.

And so our school district had a rule for my middle school, all eighth graders had to go to a high school graduation.

It was something they made us all do.

The idea was that as eighth graders, we would watch other high school students graduate.

We would see, oh, this is possible.

And that would motivate you to then go do likewise.

I'm not sure how effective it was.

Like I said, me and 248 of my closest friends walked.

But that's the strategy here, Paul's telling you.

Think of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He's already seated in heaven.

He's walked your path.

He's already made it across the shore.

He's on the other side.

You're following him.

So anchor your hope in the future.

You have your hope in the past with what God has done to you before time, then in time of the cross, and then through the Holy Spirit your salvation.

You have your hope here and now anchored in the truth of God's word that you possess, but also push your hope into the future that you're going to heaven where Jesus reigns right now.

1 Peter 1, verse 4.

1 Peter 1:4

There's an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Jesus said, Store it for yourself treasure in heaven.

You're going to go fetch it.

You're going to go get it.

You have this inheritance there.

It's in the end of verse 18, described as the riches of his inglorious inheritance of the saints.

In a sense, you are the inheritance of Christ because he will have redeemed people from Jews and Gentiles in the church.

In a sense, you will receive inheritance as you receive the treasure that you have stored up in heaven.

But it's all future.

It's all future.

So you put your heart there.

That's why this prayer catapults Paul from thinking about the Ephesians back to eternity past through the Word of God and the application of the wisdom, the Spirit of Wisdom, all the way into eternity future where Jesus reigns over all.

That should give you hope.

Sometimes it's hard to see the glories and the beauties of Christ.

Sometimes I'm sure the clouds settled over even Babylon and you couldn't see the temple.

In our life, there's the clouds living in a fallen world.

There's the the way sin and suffering obscures our vision of glory.

But the eyes of faith can see through the clouds and to the beauty of God.

What a shame it would be to have this much beauty in your past, this much beauty in your present, and this much beauty in your future, and not see it.

And not see it.

Lord, please open their eyes to see the truth of your word.

Open their eyes to see the beauty of Christ crucified for our sin, resurrected from the grave, open every eye so that they see your beauty.

Lord, we're thankful that you are the Savior who loves us, the Spirit who saves us, and the Father who sends both to us.

Lord, I pray for the hearts here.

I pray that every heart would have their eyes opened to the truth of the gospel.

Every heart would believe that we would appreciate the riches we have in heaven.

I give you thanks for them in Jesus' name.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining Emmanuel Bible Church today through this resource.

It's my prayer that if you live in the DC area, I'll be able to meet you on some Sunday at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church, you can go to iBC.church.

Or for information on the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource helps you seek God through Jesus Christ, serve the Lord with joy, and share him with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.