Illuminating Hope: Unveiling the Riches of God's Glory

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Good morning. It is our privilege and joy here at Dillingham Moravian Church

to be able to lead you in the study of God's Word.

My name is Pastor Simon, and here at Dillingham Moravian Church,

our mission is to make disciples of Christ as we shine the light of God's Word

throughout Bristol Bay, southwest Alaska, and beyond.

One of my favorite walks in the wintertime is to walk around the Snag Point

seawall here in Dillingham, especially when the sun is just coming up on the

horizon during mid-morning.

The contrast of the orange-red fireball in the sky illuminating the darkness is spectacular.

Suddenly, I was able to start seeing the pack ice flow in the Nishkeg Bay,

possibly seeing belugas hunting in the water, and the landscape brightened as

the nuclear fireball rose in the sky.

As awe-inspiring a scene as this is, it is not even close to the effect that

the Lord God Almighty has on the darkness.

And it is God's all-powerful and magnificent light that shines in the darkness

of our minds and hearts to show us the truth of his ways.

Let's pray. Father, we hear our soul.

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To shine the truth of you and your Son in our hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit.

Speak to us today. Use us, Lord.

Illuminate the deepest recesses of our hearts and mind by your word so that

we may understand you and may follow you according to your ways.

We ask these things in your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ.

By the power of the Spirit, we pray. Amen.

Here at Dillingham Raven Church, after about a month's break,

we are continuing in our preaching series in Paul's letter to the Ephesians,

which teaches about the unifying love of God in the Trinity,

and God's church, and how God's church can live out the unity of God.

So far in Ephesians, we have learned that because of Christ's redeeming and

forgiving work on the cross, the Ephesian congregation were saved through faith

in Christ and sealed with the Holy Spirit as they heard the word of truth.

There was such amazing evidence of the Ephesian salvation because of their faith

and love that Paul, Silas, and Timothy

did not stop thanking God for that congregation and praying for them.

We also learn that Paul and his ministry team prayed for the Ephesians,

that the Father of glory would give them as believers in Christ,

the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.

And this morning we're going to continue on in our study in Ephesians 1, verse 18-19.

Ephesians 1:18–19

Where Paul prayed, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened,

so that you will know what is the hope of his calling,

what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

and what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe.

There are three important truths about prayer that I believe that God through

Paul wants us to know in Ephesians 1, verse 18 and 19.

Ephesians 1:18

The first crucial truth that I want to bring to your attention is that we as

Christians are to pray for hearts to be enlightened by God so that they may

know the hope of God's purpose.

Paul began his prayer for the Ephesian congregation in Ephesians 1, verse 18.

Ephesians 1:18

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know

what is the hope of his calling.

I want you to see that Paul sets up his prayer in verses 18 to 19,

that the three prayers coming after it would be hung upon the plea that the

eyes of the Ephesians' hearts may be enlightened.

I want you to see three words that will help us grasp what Paul was praying for.

The first word that I want you to see is the word for eye or understanding,

which meant understanding denoted by an eye as the faculty of perception,

transferred to perception of the mind.

The second word that I want to bring to your attention is the word heart,

which meant the locus of a person's thoughts, their mind, volition,

or will, emotions, the knowledge of right and wrong.

Conscience, understood as the heart.

The word that Paul used for being illuminated meant to be or become understanding,

conceived as having light cast upon oneself.

Paul was praying for the Ephesians that they would have light cast upon their

whole inner beings, their minds, their wills, emotions, and their consciences,

so that they would have right understanding.

Now, we must ask the question, where does this light come from?

To answer this question, we need to go back and read in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 17,

Ephesians 1:17

where Paul prayed for the Ephesian congregation, that the God of our Lord Jesus

Christ, the Father of glory, may

give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.

Meaning that the Father who is Yahweh, the great I am, the Lord of all the universe,

is the source of where all glory comes from.

Now, and this is where I'm going with this, glory meant the condition of being

bright or shining, brightness, splendor, radiance.

God's glory is his absolute radiant brightness in the darkness of this world.

And Paul asked God to give the Ephesian Christians the right insight into the

true nature of life and reveal who God really was through intimately knowing God.

I'm reminding you all of this because when the Apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesians

to be enlightened or to cause light to be shed upon their understanding,

that light came from the source of all light, Yahweh God.

And that light of God is accessed through knowing God himself.

Paul went on to pray that the Ephesian congregations will know what is the hope

or the object of his calling.

I want you to see that Paul did not write that the Ephesians would know the

hope of their calling, but that they would know the hope or the object or expectation

of his calling, referring to the calling of God.

What did Paul mean by the calling of God? The word calling meant a hope to which God calls.

Now, it's important that we understand

that Paul was not referring to our individual callings from God.

No, Paul was praying for the Ephesians to receive by the light of God,

God's understanding so that they may truly know the hope of God.

And what is this hope of God?

Peter in 1 Peter 1, verse 2 through 5,

1 Peter 1:2–5

boldly proclaimed, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Who

according to his great mercy Has caused us to be born again And here it is To

a living hope Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Verse 4, here's the hope To obtain an inheritance.

Incorruptible and undefiled and unfading Having been kept in heaven for you

Who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to

be revealed in the last time.

Paul in Colossians chapter 1 verse 4 through 5 also taught, since we have heard

Colossians 1:4–5

of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints,

here's what I'm getting at, verse 5,

because the hope laid up for you in heaven of which you previously heard in the word of Christ.

The hope of God that Paul was referring to here is our salvation and inheritance

that has been laid up for us in heaven through Jesus' death and resurrection.

And thus Paul was praying for the Ephesian congregation to truly know and understand

that they have been saved and that they have the future hope of an inheritance

in Christ waiting for them in heaven.

Well, what can we as Christ believers learn from this verse?

There are two truths that we can apply to us as Christians.

The first application I want you to see is that we must trust and believe the

truth that we are saved in Christ.

And because of that salvation, we have a wondrous future inheritance to look forward to.

This is essential because as we go through trials and challenges,

having the foundation of a relationship with Christ, and the future hope of

looking forward to an even greater experience of that relationship with Christ.

This hope will keep us anchored throughout all

of life's storms. The second

way we can apply this truth is that we have

this wondrous hope in Christ to share that the Lord has shone upon us in His

mighty Son Jesus Christ. We, you and I, are called by God to be lights in this

world and we are to let our light shine brightly in the darkness around us and

how we shine Christ’s light through us,

is by first trusting that Christ is living and dwelling in us as believers,

and then going out and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with our family members,

friends, community members who are not yet saved in Christ.

The third truth I think is relevant to us as Christians is that we must be praying

for other Christians and non-Christians,

that God in his glorious radiance will shine his wondrous light upon their inner

beings so that they may know the hope of Jesus Christ.

All of us have family that are not yet believers in Christ, or we have friends

or community members that we know that do not have the eternal hope in Jesus Christ.

May each of us take the first steps in making disciples by praying for those

that we need to make disciples for, or make disciples of Christ, or for Christ rather,

and then boldly, with great love, take that step of faith and share about what

Christ has done on the cross and in his resurrection.

So far, we have learned that Paul was praying for the Ephesian congregation,

that the Lord would shine the light of his truth upon their whole inner beings

so that they would live in the intimate knowledge of the hope that they have

in Jesus Christ. And thus, as Christians.

We are to pray for the hearts of saints to be enlightened by God so that they

may know the riches of the glory of Christ's inheritance.

In an article on strange inheritances, one author wrote, What could be more

random than having your name chosen out of a phone book?

Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral de Camara, a Portuguese aristocrat,

selected random people from a Lisbon telephone directory to be his heirs.

He picked them in the presence of two witnesses 13 years before his death.

The aristocrat was a childless bachelor at the time of his demise, at the age of 42.

Some of his beneficiaries were so shocked at their good fortune that they initially

believed that they were being scammed, the BBC reported.

And as much as many people believe that salvation and eternal life is a scam, it is not.

The inheritance that we receive as saints in Christ is a treasure beyond our imagining.

Paul in Ephesians 1, verse 18-19 prayed, I pray that the eyes of your heart

Ephesians 1:18–19

may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling.

Here's where we are now. what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.

There are two ways of understanding this concept of the riches of the glory

of his inheritance in the saints.

The first view of this verse is that it is referring to the abundance of the

inheritance that we as Christians will receive in heaven from Christ.

A passage to back this up can be found in Acts chapter 26, verse 15 to 18.

Acts 26:15–18

Where Paul was talking to King Agrippa and was telling about how Jesus blinded

him, meaning Paul, on the road to Damascus and spoke to him.

And here's what happened.

Verse 15, And I said, Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus,

whom you are persecuting.

But get up and stand on your feet. For this purpose I have appeared to you,

to appoint you a minister and a witness, not only the things which you have

seen, but also the things on which I will appear.

Rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you,

to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the

dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins,

and here it is, an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in me.

In Acts chapter 26, Jesus sent Paul to the Gentiles, or non-Jews,

Acts 26 · chapter mention

to preach so that the Gentiles who have been set apart and made holy by God

through faith in Christ,

they may receive forgiveness of sins and receive an inheritance from the Lord.

Now, the second view of this concept in Ephesians 1, verse 18,

Ephesians 1:18

is that the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints was not referring

to the future blessing of God's saints or holy ones.

Rather, Paul was writing about God's inheritance.

And what is God's inheritance in Christ?

Us, God's people, saved by grace through faith and made sons and heirs of the living God.

I personally am leaning more towards this second understanding because Paul

wrote His meaning God's inheritance and not the inheritance of the saints.

Let's look at what Paul wrote in Romans chapter 9 verse 22 to 26.

Romans 9:22–26

What if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power

known, endured with much patient vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

And he did so to make known, [and please pay attention to this!]

the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory.

[And here it is, verse 24] even us whom

he also called not from

among the Jews only but also from among Gentiles as

he says also in Hosea I will call those who are not my people my people and

her who is not beloved beloved and it shall be that in the place where it said

to them you are not my people there they should be called [What?]

Sons of the living God. The riches of God's glory of his inheritance is us, his saints.

Paul wrote the riches of the glory of his inheritance. In who?

The saints. Who are the saints?

The saints are those of us who have been set apart for God and made holy,

consecrated for God's purposes alone.

Paul was praying for the Ephesians for them to grasp by the light of God's understanding.

That they would truly know throughout their entire beings that they belong to

Christ as His inheritance,

His people of God.

God, through Paul, wanted the Ephesians to know who they really belonged to,

that they did not belong to themselves, but rather to Almighty God in Jesus Christ.

As the people of God, we, you and I, really need to understand and trust this

truth that we are Christ's inheritance.

We are his people. We, you and I, belong to Jesus, body, mind, and soul.

Jesus bought us with his precious blood, and we are now his for eternity.

The challenge with believing and trusting this truth is that we have been born

selfish in our sin, and we have been raised by and in a selfish culture.

Everything that Satan has been trying to accomplish throughout all cultures

from the beginning of time is to make it seem that life is all about us.

But the truth is, is that life has never been about us. Life has always been

about God and Jesus Christ.

In men's Bible study this week, we were studying Paul's words in Colossians

chapter three, where he wrote that “Christ is your life.”

And my question for all of you, including myself, is that do we honestly view

ourselves as belonging wholly and completely to Christ?

So often we pray for people and for ourselves by asking for healing and provision and help.

And yet, God’s model for prayer, through Paul, is to pray for believers to be

enlightened by God so that they understand just how much abundant wealth they

have in being Christ's inherited people!!

As Christians, do we really believe that our rich treasure is in belonging to Jesus as his people?

The more we believe that true wealth is not in our possessions or our status

or in anything else, but in our position as being inherited sons of God,

the more we will lose our self-focus and the more we will be committed to the purposes of God.

Paul went on in his prayer for the Ephesians to pray for the hearts of saints

to be enlightened by God so that they may know the power of God towards believers.

According to National Geographic, solar cells convert sunlight directly into electricity.

The amount of power generated by each cell is very low.

Therefore, large numbers of cells must be grouped together, like the panels

mounted on the roof of a house to generate enough power.

The first solar cell was constructed in the 1880s.

The earliest major application was on the American satellite vanguard, first launched in 1958.

A radio transmitter powered by solar cells operated for about seven years.

One using conventional batteries lasted only 20 days.

Since then, solar cells have become the established power source for satellites,

including those used in the telecommunication industry.

On Earth, solar cells are used for everything from calculators and watches to

homes, commercial buildings and even stadiums.

The World Stadium in Taiwan, completed in 2009 to host the World Games,

has more than 8,800 solar panels on its roof.

Charles Lin, director of Taiwan's Bureau of Public Works, says that the stadium's

solar energy panels will make the venue self-sufficient in electricity needs.

And when the stadium is not in use, it can power 80% of the surrounding neighborhood.

I'm sharing these statistics with you because similar to the sun powering our

planet with energy and power for our equipment, God, in an exponentially greater

way, spiritually powers Christians as we live by faith in God.

Let us read again Ephesians chapter 1 verse 18 to 19.

Ephesians 1:18–19

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know

what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance

in the saints. [And let's continue to verse 19.]

And what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe?

To understand verse 19 properly, I want to draw your attention to two words that Paul used.

The first word I want to show you is magnitude or great, which meant the property

of extreme greatness of size or extent.

The word power meant power or strength. This word is where we get the English word dynamo.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a dynamo is a machine by which

mechanical energy is changed into electrical energy.

Paul was praying that God would enlighten the Ephesians' inner beings so that

they would know the surpassing magnitude of God's energy-producing power towards

those who live a life of faith in Christ.

Paul taught about this same concept in Ephesians 3, verse 20 to 21. and.

Ephesians 3:20–21

Now to him who is able to do far

more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power,

meaning energy producing power that works within us, to him be the glory in

the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

I want you to understand that to access God's energy producing power that surpasses

everything in the universe, we, you and I, must live our lives at every moment by faith in Christ.

Paul in Galatians 2, verse 20 proclaimed, I have been crucified with Christ,

Galatians 2:20

and is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live, how?

By faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

I see two ways that we can apply Ephesians 1, verse 19 to us as Christ believers.

Ephesians 1:19

The first application I want to bring to your attention is that we,

you and I, are called to continually pray that God would enlighten other believers

that they would truly understand and know the surpassing greatness of God's

energy-producing power.

We are also to pray for believers that in knowing the surpassing greatness of

God's energy-producing power, that they allow God's power to work through by trusting Christ.

Secondly, to access God's all-powerful energy-producing power.

We, you and I as Christians, must live our lives by trusting in Jesus,

the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself up for us.

It is essential that we understand that life is not about us.

It is about Jesus working and living through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.

For those of you who are faithfully ministering in your churches,

preparing and teaching children the Bible, or greeting people,

preparing food for snacks or potluck or bringing

out the communion dishes leading music for

your church's time of worship or

any other type of ministry I want to encourage you that you can do all those

things in the surpassing greatness of God's energy producing power if you're

a stay at home mom taking care of babies, changing diapers up at all hours trying

to get your children to sleep doing housework teaching your children,

you can do all those things in the magnificent magnitude of God's energy-producing power.

As you work in your workplace, no matter what your occupation is,

God has given you the ability to access His energy-producing power so that you

can live for Him and be a witness for Him in everything you do for your employers and for your workmates!!

If you're going to school, you can study, memorize, learn your work,

and even do tests in the power of God!!

If you and your spouse are working full-time in parenting, you too can have

the energy-producing power of our Almighty God working in and through you!!

In every one of these areas and in every area of our lives,

how we access the unlimited power that

produces more power of the infinite God of the universe is simply by believing

in Jesus Christ as our only Lord and trust in his control over every situation

that we are in and surrender over control of everything that we do to Christ!

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What has God been teaching us in our passage today? We have learned that we

are to pray that the Lord would shine the light of his truth upon Christians in three ways.

First off, that believers would live in the intimate knowledge of the hope that

they have in Jesus Christ.

Secondly, that believers in Christ would know completely that they belong entirely

to Almighty God as the inheritance of Jesus Christ.

Lastly, that Christ followers would truly understand and know the surpassing

greatness of God's energy-producing power in their lives as they live by faith in Christ.

As we pray for others in the body of Christ in these ways, we can also pray

for these truths to be made reality in our own lives as well.

I want to encourage you today that God is asking us, you and I,

to reorder our way of thinking in regards to prayer.

Prayer is not about us or others getting needs met.

And although God will provide and take care of us, prayer is about transforming

our lives to be conformed with the will of God for the glory of God.

And the will of God is that all people would know the surpassing greatness of Christ,

And abide together in Him. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your wonderful

truth that you have taught us.

May you take your word and grow us more and more into your image.

I pray, Lord, for all those who have been listening, for those who maybe

haven't trusted in you yet. Maybe they haven't fully committed their lives to you.

Lord, we pray, Lord, that they would sincerely and genuinely put their trust

in you as their only Lord and surrender their life to you.

We also pray for those who are believers who are listening to this message.

Lord, we pray, Lord, that you would grow their faith in you,

that they would live by faith in you, and that they would pray as you have given

us a model for in Your Word.

Thank you, Father. Use us for your glory and honor. We praise you.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, and the power of the Spirit we pray. Amen.

Let me leave you with this blessing from Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20 to 21.

Ephesians 3:20–21

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,

according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and

in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen. Have a wonderful Sunday.

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