If any of you were here over winter break, you may remember that I made a lot of references to my shirt in my last sermon. I want to assure you that I will not be making any references to it this week- although, like the last one, this is an awesome shirt.
For the past few weeks Robert has been walking us through the first half of the first chapter of Ephesians. We dedicated the first three weeks of the semester talking about the first 14 verses of the text. Because I am not the lead pastor, however, I don’t have that privilege, so I will have to talk about the rest of the chapter in only 1 sermon. Also, because of the time constraints, I can’t give the 4 hour sermon I planned, so we are just going to have to move relatively quickly through this section.
If we remember the first few verses of Ephesians, Paul was telling the church some important truths about who they were- about their identity. Paul tells us that if we are Christians we have been chosen by God, in love, that he has adopted us, that we are holy and blameless before God, that we have an inheritance in Gods kingdom.
We were told last week that if we faithed in God we would be privy to an inheritance, and not only this, but that once we did take that step of faith, we were sealed with the Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of this inheritance. You may remember the analogy that Robert used last week of a trust fund. We can’t get all that we are inheriting now, but it is there. We get to have a little bit now and again, and part of this is the Holy Spirit.
This is where we pick up the text today. In light of the past 14 verses, the past three weeks sermons Paul writes:
15For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 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, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
The first thing Paul does here is thank God for these people. He says I do not cease to give thanks for you. And the reason for this is because he has heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love toward all the saints. Paul hasn’t really met most of these converts in Ephesus. Yes he planted a church there, but then he left. Now he hears of all these new Christians, and thanks God for them. Why God? Simply because of what we have been talking about. Repeatedly throughout Scripture, Paul is praising God for Christians. He is praising Jesus for calling us to himself. He is thanking God that there were people that God not only called to himself, but then responded to the call and faithed in Jesus. He is not excited about the good works they have done, or how well they follow tradition, he is excited because of their faith, and that is all.
Not only does Paul give thanks for them, he remembers them in his prayers. Paul is telling the church here that he cares for them. It ii one thing to be thankful for something, it is quite another to sacrifice time and energy over it. He doesn’t just see this church and think, well a church, that’s nice. He is proactive in his love for them. He takes time out o his day to pray for them.
What Paul is praying is very specific though. Lets look back at our programs and re read this prayer of Paul’s. It says:
17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 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, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe
We are going to stop and camp out here for a while. What Paul writes is very dense, so lets unpack it. The first thing that Paul prays for these people is that they would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation of the knowledge of God. This is the foundation for everything else. They have faithed in God, and now Paul prays that they would get to know God more. It is from this knowledge that the other part of Paul’s prayer flow.
At the simplest level, this is also how our faith can grow. I would guess that most of us knew very little for God when we first became Christians. I am not necessarily talking about head knowledge. May of us may have had a firm grasp theologically about God before we got wet, but we didn’t know God. He wasn’t our friend yet, and as such, we had no part in him. Just as we were taught last week that you can know about parachutes, yet you do not know a parachute until you have used one, so can we know abut God, but not truly begin to know him until we faith in him.
And this is part of what Paul is talking about. But from the next few verses, we can also infer that Paul is talking about straight knowledge in part as well, about knowing some facts. In fact, as we read on, what we will se is that Paul is talking about taking some facts that he is going to tell us, and making them a deeper knowledge.
Paul continues in his prayer that their hearts would be enlightened. Now today we think of the heart as being the center for emotions and feelings, right. We would never say use your heart to figure out that math problem, or just follow your heart when it comes to chemistry. We use our head for that. We follow our heart when it comes to love, but not for rational thought. This is not how an ancient would have thought about the heart. When we are told in the Old Testament, and by Jesus to love our Lord with all our heart and soul, we are not told to just love God emotionally. We are to love God with all we are. The heart, to the culture of the time, was both the rational and emotional. It was the epicenter of everything.
This is the context into which Paul asks that their hearts would be enlightened. He is praying that they would know truly and deeply, both on an intellectual level, on faith level, and on an emotional level. He is praying that their whole being would hold to the truths he is about to speak.
And what is this revelation that Paul prays the church at Ephesus would know? It is the fllowing:
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, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might
This revelation is the knowledge of the hope to which we have been called, the knowledge of the riches of our inheritance, and the knowledge that we are able to gain immeasurable power through the hand of God, through the working of his might.
Before we go any further, I want to just point out a minor detail that is in fact very important. Notice in the previous statements who is the object, and who is the subject. It is God’s hope to which we have been called. It is God’s inheritance, into which we have been adopted. It is God’s power being given to us, and it is God working out his great might. Paul is not teaching some prosperity message. He is not spouting some name it and claim it message. This power is not in fact ours, it is God’s, and by his miraculous grace, we are able to share in it if we have faith.
This faith is not some mystical belief that is we just believe enough we can over come anything. It is not this idea that if we loved God enough, had enough faith, we wouldn’t get sick or have struggles. Like I said before, this is not a prosperity gospel message. This faith is the faith that Paul has been talking about all along. It is the faithing in God. It is, again, the idea of a knowing how a parachute works, and jumping out of the plane.
All that being said, Paul is telling the church a truth that I believe we here at MERCYhouse need to hear. We have been called to a hope that is Gods. We have an inheritance that is so right, we could not possibly imagine it, and we have immeasurable power being poured out on all of us who believe in Jesus.
Often we as Christians have decided to live a defeated life. I imagine that some of those at Ephesus also were living as if they were defeated as well, so Paul reminds them of what them have. In the earlier sections we read that we have an inheritance, and what we get now is the Holy Spirit. What Paul is telling us in this section is that even though we don’t get the entire trust fund now, what we have is so much more that we could ever use. God doesn’t just give us enough to get by, he gives us riches in the here and now.
So often I hear Christians talking about their addictions and struggles, and the general tone of the conversation is that they can not over come it. I here people say that if we are all sinners, what is the point of trying not to? If we all struggle, what is the point of fighting? They hear stories of other Christians who are struggling to over come some problem and wonder if it is worth it. They try and they try to stop what ever they are doing that is wrong, and they can’t, and they wonder is it worth it.
But listen to what Paul is saying. We have an inheritance right now! We have Power right now! We have a hope right now! This call of Paul’s is not for some future life. We have access to the trust fund God has set up. God is pouring out his riches upon us right now.
I know what some of you are thinking, “Well that’s great, but how do I get it? It is wonderful to talk about all this power and inheritance, but how does it look in an actual life?” Well, as you may have guessed, I am going to tell us.
I want to first just say that I don’t have a magic formula. There is not necessarily some list of things we need to do, and then we get to cash in our weekly check form Jesus. That is called legalism, and id a-biblical. What I do have to offer is a bunch of examples of how I was living less that godly in word and deed, and was able to over come the sin that had he in its grip and live more of the redeemed life that God has called me to live.
My first example is always my first example. The reason is that it is so dramatic. I used to be an alcoholic. I say used to because I know longer even think about alcohol. It has lost its grip on me. However 6 years ago, it was a much different story. All I could do was drink. I drank when I was happy, I drank when I was sad, I drank when I was angry, I drank when I was lonely, I drank when I was surrounded by people, I drank… well you can see where this is going. I was also a Christian at the time, but I was hopeless. I saw no was out of my alcoholism. I knew I was redeemed, but my heart was not enlightened. I had forgotten the hope to which I was called. I had forgotten the Power of God that was given to me, if I would only accept it.
I tried everything to not drink. I tried not drinking hard alcohol. That didn’t work. I tried only having a few beers… that didn’t work. I tried not drinking… that definitely didn’t work. I tried everything I could, and nothing worked. So eventually, like so many Christians before me and today, I resigned my self to sin.
And then I hit a bottom and surrendered my drinking to Jesus. I finally admitted that I could not control it, and asked God to take over. And he did. The moment I asked him to, he showed up and freed me from the bondage of my sin. What I did differently as realize that it was God and not me that could fight my battles.
Remember earlier I said that it was a minor point but very important who the subject and object of Paul’s writing was. This is why. It is God’s power, not ours, God’s inheritance, not ours, God’s hope, not ours. What we need to do is to have our hearts enlighten to this fact, and allow God to work his power in our lives.
Now my drinking story id very dramatic, but it was also very long ago, and it was ruing my life to the outside world as well. I was so far in debt because I spent all my money on booze that I hadn’t paid rent in 6 or 7 months. I was never in class, and would shake in the mornings. So it was easier to turn to God, in some ways. I know many of us struggle with hidden things, or things that are not ruining our lives, so let me give a few more examples of how God has worked in my life to call me to his inheritance.
As many of you know I am married. As many of you also know I have a kid. What many of you may not know is that a few months before Kiera was born, Sarah had a missed miscarriage. What this means is that the baby died, but Sarah’s body didn’t recognize it as dead, so held on to the baby. This time was the toughest few months Sarah and I have had to go through. Because her body didn’t miscarry we kept having hope that maybe the doctors were wrong and the baby was ok. It wasn’t. Eventually Sarah had to have surgery to remove the baby before cancer and other complications took effect.
When we were told that the baby was dead, Sarah and I hade been married less than a year. We had never had to do the grief thing together, and I had not had time to learn how to be a good husband. What happened was, instead of running to God, we both ran to other things. I turned to work and began staying very late at my job at the time, working 80 hours a week because it was easier than going home and dealing with reality. Sarah and I drifted apart to the point that we were just two people living in the same house that got to see each other naked sometimes. And it seemed hopeless.
We ha forgotten the hope that we were called to. I had forgotten the riches that God promises. So instead of praying and fellowshipping and loving my wife, I worked, and worked, and worked. I had my job my functional savior, and found my hope in promotions and money.
However, I still had the Holy Spirit, and just like my drinking, he doesn’t let us live unconvicted forever. This time, though, instead of resigning my self to the sin, I had known God better. He had brought me out of dark places before, and so this time I could turn to him as well. I could give over my grief and sin and reclaim the hope he had for me.
And yet again he was faithful. He brought me and Sarah back together, and allowed us to have a marriage again. He then went on to give us the cutest kid you have ever seen.
After Sarah got pregnant with Kiera, it also became apparent that I needed to quit smoking. I don’t know how much you know about smoking, but it is awesome. I never wanted to quit, and there are still days that I wish I smoked. I struggled day after day with quitting. Trying everything on the market. And nothing was working. But then I began to pray about it, have others pray for me, confess to friends when I relapsed and bought a pack. I cried out to god for the riches he has for me, and was able to quit.
I had struggles with lust and pornography, with anger, with control, with feelings of inferiority or superiority. And God has worked in me throughout to call me to a higher life.
I know what you are thinking, you don’t struggle with what I struggle with. Your addictions are no where near as bad as mine. I am such a worse sinner than you. I am in such a dark place that I could never have victory over my sins. And on some level you are right. YOU can’t have victory over your sin. That is not what Paul is saying. What he is saying is that Christ can have victory over your sin. He says we can have all this in the strength of God.
One of the reasons that earlier I said I can not give you a formula to follow to gain power over your sin, is that you are not the one who is gaining the power, but rather God is. It is God’s power, God’s strength, God’s inheritance, God’s hope.
And this Power is mighty indeed. Here is how Paul describes it:
20that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Now I don’t know about you, but I know some relatively powerful people, and have seen some amazingly powerful things, but I have never seen a power that can raise from the dead.
I used to do research for some professors at Umass, and one of my projects was in the astronomy department. My job was to take the largest Radio Telescope and remotely control it to look at the center of galaxies and collect data from it. This was the world most powerful radio telescope. More that this, I was looking at regions of our Universe that are so powerful light itself can not escape. Regions of space so full of energy the very atoms we are made of would be ripped apart. But I never saw a power that could reverse natural law and raise the dead.
I have also met a lot of famous and powerful people. I drove around Scott Wylan, the lead singer of STP and Velvet Revolver, had dinner with Slash, and even got to wear his hat. There is a family friend who I so wealthy he gave Umass their hall of fame and buys any John Adams and JQA memorabilia to give back to the town of Quincy where he believes it belongs. I have rubbed shoulders with politicians, televisions personalities, and rock stars. But I have never met anyone whose name is above all others. I have never met anyone far above all rule and authority. Even our presidents and top officials have to answer to someone.
This is the power that Paul is calling us to accept. This is the person we have working in us and for us.
The power we have access to now is the same power that raised Christ form the dead and seated him above all names and rule and authority.
\Paul is reminding us again what our identity is. Earlier he reminded us of where identity is found, and now he tells us what that means. It means that we have an inheritance right now that we can tap into. The Spirit of God dwells inside of us at every moment.
If you are here and are defeated Christian, here this anew. Let your heart be enlightened. Because of our faith in God you have access to power beyond compare. YOU can have victory over your sin. Right now.
Yu no longer need to look at internet sites you shouldn’t be looking at. You no longer need to lust in your heart or sleep with someone who you are not married to. You no longer need to hold onto anger an resentments. You no longer need to let alcohol or drugs control you. You no longer need to live in depression and despair. You no longer need to live two lives, one that appear holy, and then the real you. The real you can be holy, right now.
You no longer need to lie or cheat or steal. You can be free. You no longer need to listen to the in that has held us captive for so long. You have been called to something so much more. To a hope that doesn’t disappoint. To a life abundant.
Through the power that raised Christ from the dead, you can say no to sin. You can be righteous right now. I am not saying that this is easy. In fact sometimes it is very hard. It is hard for a few reasons, first we don’t truly believe it, which is why Paul is praying for the Ephesians hearts to be enlightened, second, we either like to sin, or don’t know any other way- we are addicted, and third to live this way is a death.
We are told throughout Scripture that we need to die to live. That we need to loose our life to find it. This is painful. We are told to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. The terms were chosen carefully. It is painful. TO say no to what ever sin we are living in kills us. But this is how we can beat it. By not fighting our selves, but dying and letting Jesus fight for us we can have this life he is calling us to. The power is God’s not ours, and we need to stop relying on ourselves and our strength to have any of the riches God is holding for us. We need to die to ourselves and accept the new life offered us. And sometimes we need to die over and over. When I quit smoking it was a death. The me I had known, the smoker had to die. When I quit drinking I had to die. When I had to be a husband, I had to die.
The other reason it is hard is that we like to sin, or we are addicted. The difference between the two is that the addict has a love hate relationship with his sin, while the rest of us just like sin. Take me for example, I loved to drink, but hated it. I knew it was ruining my life, but couldn’t imagine another life. I couldn’t see a way out. Most of us, however, see a way out, the sin hasn’t fully taken over our lives, we just chose to sin anyway. We know we shouldn’t have friends with benefits, but it feels good so we do it anyway.
Here is the thing though, God has called you to so much more. If you can’t see a way out of your sin, I tell you Jesus is it. Yes you will have to die, and your life will look completely different, but in the power that raised Christ from the dead, you can live a redeemed life know. The trust fund is there, just waiting for you to tap into it.
The same can be said to those of us who just like to sin. It is a death to not do it. I used to struggle with lust, and it was a death to not look at dirty websites. It felt good to do it. I was choosing sin. But once I died, and I have to die over and over, and still have to die daily, Christ was able to live in me. What once seemed impossible is now just life, because I know the hope to which I was call, I am daily given riches beyond compare, and the power that raised Jesus is alive in me calling me to a life anew.
Maybe you’re sitting here thinking, well I am pretty good. I don’t have any addictions, I am pretty moral, I’ve never been an alcoholic, a pervert, etc. Praise God for that. And I mean it. You should be on your knees daily thanking God that he has rescued you from the terrible life of addictions. If your not thanking God, because you feel you are the one who has done it, then your sin is pride, and you will have to die to that as well to be given the life that God has for you. Paul clearly tells us that it is God’s power, God’s inheritance, God’s hope, not ours. If we are looking anywhere else bu to God we are idolaters and breaking the second commandment.
Here is the thing though, Jesus will still be there. It is still in his plans to give you an inheritance beyond your wildest dreams. He still is setting forth his hope, just waiting for your heart to be enlightened. The same God who predestined you before the foundation of the world is the one who is offering you knew life. The Lord of the Universe, who has been by your side every step of the way, is still right there next to you, but more than that, in inside of you. The God whose power raised Jesus from the dead is offering you the exact same supernatural might. If oyu would only accept it.
If you are here and you are not a Christian, know that the sin that you are living with, that you feel as a slave to can be conquered by Jesus. He is not just a savior for the future; he is a savior for now. God is calling you into relationship with him; he is offering you his son, his treasure, his might. He is stronger than whatever is controlling you right now, and he wants to make you his son or daughter. He has been waiting for you since he created you, since before he created you, since eternity.
If you are a Christian, stop living a defeated life. The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. The very same Spirit! Not some cheap imitation knock off, not some beta version, not some trimmed down version. The full Spirit! The Spirit of God! All you need to do is die. Admit defeat. You are not strong enough to stay off sin. You will loose the battle in your own strength every time. God will win though. In his power and his might, he will give you the life he has always meant for you to live.
If you are here today and you are struggling with something, tell God. He cares. He wants to help. I know I used to think that I was dirty after I sinned and couldn’t approach God, Or if I didn’t tell him, it didn’t count. Well, he already knows what you are struggling with, and it is not like this last sin made you any more filthy in the eyes of God, or your good deeds make you any more good. He calls you because of who he is. He loves you because of who he is. He is here to help you in your weakness because of who he is.
So I invite you today to come before God and ask for the life that he has for you. Ask for your inheritance, live in his might, rest in his power. He is offering you a new life, a free life, and abundant life.
Before me is the Lords Supper. It is a tradition that Christians have kept for thousands of years. It was instituted by Jesus as a way for his followers to remember him. In a minute we are going to take communion, but before we do I invite you to confess your sins to God. Ask him for this life that he has. Ask him for his strength. As you come to this table, lay down your sword and shield, and stop fighting in your own strength. Turn to God and ask him to be your champion, and fight he battle he has already won for you. As you come to this table, lay down all that is weighing you down, all the junk you can’t carry, and ask Jesus to instead carry you. As you come to this table, lay down your life to God who laid down his as a sacrifice for you. As you come to this table die to yourself and accept the life that Jesus has for you.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread and he broke it an said, ”This is my body, broken for you. DO this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
