Three Blessings

Sermon Series: Ephesians

Sermon Title: Three Blessings

Pastor Chris O’Brien

This Is Paul’s Whole Prayer

This is Paul’s entire prayer in Ephesians 1. We’ve worked our way through about a third of it, and we’ll see if we finish it today.

“For this reason, because I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and 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, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 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. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

I hope you’re not looking at this as an academic exercise, or something to talk about at your next social event. What if it would become something that we wouldn’t just tell people about, but that we might over time, God might so impress upon us this prayer that we start praying this way?

One of the fellas in one of our Bible studies a week or two ago was talking about prayer, and he said, well, I don’t say a lot in prayer, I go back to the basics, the Lord’s Prayer, and I pray that. Now that is wonderful. If that’s all you ever do to the day you die, that’s cool. No harm, no foul. Jesus gave us that as a prayer guide and a prayer to pray.

We should desire — like Jesus in his Beatitudes, where he describes Christian character, he talks about hungering and thirsting for righteousness. He doesn’t talk about, well, once a week, once a month, maybe on Sunday I just want to get a little righteous. No, he says we should be those that hunger and thirst for it. Surely this is part of one of those feedings that we should feed upon. Chew upon.

There’s certain illustrations you learn as a pastor, or just a Christian, early in life, and they always stick with you. I heard somebody — he wasn’t a scientist, he wasn’t a veterinarian — say that a cow basically has four stomachs, or what amounts to four, so that when he chews the cud, it goes through these four different sections. And he said, that’s what we’re to be doing with the word of God. And I want to beg you as I say it to you — I promise you I’m looking in a mirror and pointing back at myself saying, man, you preach this over and over. When are you going to pray like this?

We Ought to Be Giving Thanks

Paul gives thanks for his fellow believers. Why? Because of their faith in Christ and their love for all the saints. As I look out here and look at y’all, most of you I know pretty well after two and a half years. I can’t write your life story, but I know your spiritual life. I know most of you in this room trust in Christ and Christ alone for your salvation. You’re not betting on your good works — you know that’s nonsense. You’re trusting in Christ, and you show it by the way you live.

Do we need to pray for our aches and pains? Yes, of course. My wife lives with chronic pain every day. Two or three of you in this room live with it every day. It never goes away. So yes, keep praying for those things. But brothers and sisters, don’t stop there. Give thanks to God. In a day and age where people are consumed with weirdness and silliness and goofiness in church, you are a part of God’s people that stick to the scriptures. You know Christ, and you’re following Christ, and you’re amongst a people who do the same. We ought to be giving thanks.

Praying for Illumination

Paul goes on to remind us that we need to be praying that God would illumine our minds — that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation. This was our focus last week. Paul is not praying here that everyone at Ephesus would be a prophet and get a special word from God. In this letter he speaks of the apostles and prophets as being a foundation to the church that is once for all laid. We’ve got the word of God preserved for us in the Bible. He has preserved it for well over 2,000 years to prove that he is God and there is no other.

What Paul’s praying for the Ephesians — what we ought to be praying for each other — is that this word that we read every Sunday, that you read at home, that very word of God, the same spirit that gave us those words, that preserves them now, will give you and I understanding into them. Paul’s not praying that they would come to understand the gospel, but that they would grow in a deeper knowledge of God. Paul says in Philippians his great desire is that he may know Jesus. Is that our longing — not academic knowledge, not theoretic knowledge, but the knowledge of one who loves another in relationship, deep friendship, that kind of knowledge?

The Hope of Our Calling

Now we deal with these three blessings. First, Paul prays that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. Second, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. And finally, what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. The hope of our calling, the glorious future riches, the present power.

In chapter four, Paul says you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. In Romans 8, Paul says those he predestined, those he foreknew — those he loved before time, he called. And those he called, he justified. And those he justified, he glorified. Paul gives us a lot of names in Scripture. He called us saints, and he calls us that again here — the riches of the glorious inheritance in the saints, the holy ones. Not holy in the sense that we are all perfectly holy, far be it from that, but we are set apart by God in Christ. Every one of us in this room that is resting in Christ, regardless of your denominational flavor, you’re a saint. You’re a holy one.

But he also calls us called ones. Who would invent such a name? The called ones of Fairfield. Paul coined that phrase because the gospel is the call to everyone to repent of your sins and believe the gospel. The gospel goes out to the world, and the called ones come. The Spirit of God convicts them and us, because it’s already happened to us who are in Christ, convicts us of our sin, and we flee to Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, God is faithful because he’s called us into fellowship.

So why does Paul say that you may know the hope to which you’re called? The hope is a certain expectation of the future. But I thought we are already in fellowship with God — oh, yes, we are. But what Paul is saying is that as you read the scriptures and think through the teaching of scripture, you might come to a deeper understanding that what we have now pales. We are going to be in fellowship with the triune God in the new heavens and the new earth, with our sanctified souls and our glorified bodies, with the rest of the church, without sin, without sickness, without anything. This is worth praying for. This is worth begging the Lord to help your brother or sister who’s going through trial, that they might have that hope nonetheless.

I watched an old movie the other day — Shawshank Redemption. It’s about a guy that breaks out of prison. He’s innocent; he didn’t do the crime. Twenty years he’s digging out with this little tiny — you can’t even call it a shovel. But the point is, he said to his other buddy that eventually got out legally, you gotta have hope. You gotta have hope. Now, what could have happened to that guy was, when he finally dug through the wall and got into the sewer system and went like half a mile out, it could have been there waiting for him. Well, a lot of good that hope did. But that’s not the Christian hope. The Christian hope is a certain expectation of the future. How do you know? How can you be certain? Because your Savior has risen from the dead. There is your confidence, my friend. It always goes back to the gospel.

The Riches of His Glorious Inheritance

What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? That is all the blessings that you and I are going to get in heaven. Paul doesn’t necessarily know all that’s involved there, but he says the riches of his glories — these glorious riches we just can’t imagine.

Now you see what Paul has done here. He’s praying that you and I, presently right now, no matter what difficulty you are going through — oh, that I would have applied this prayer 20 years ago. I was teaching junior high. It was my personal purgatory, and I’m not even Catholic anymore. It was the longest nine months of my life. I did have hope, even though this wasn’t the point, that I would get free, but it was really a hard time. Can I be honest and say this in front of my doctor? I asked my doctor for something that would help me get through the day, and it did. I don’t take it anymore, okay?

Oh, that I could in the midst of teaching those wonderful covenant children that had no desire to hear the Bible at all, oh, that I could just say, the day is coming. The day is coming when I’m in fellowship with Christ, and it’ll be so glorious. I hope those kids will be there, but if they’re not, I’ll be okay. Paul is looking to the future, praying that you and I would have that hope and it would strengthen us as we think about the future fellowship with Christ and all the blessings that go with it.

The Present Power to Live the Christian Life

But now the last one is about the present. What is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe? This is not about the future. The first two requests — the hope of the call, the future blessings — that’s clearly praying that God would impress upon us now what we receive in the future. That’s hope, that’s good. But now Paul says, I gotta give you something for today.

Paul is saying, you who believe, you are a Christian now, and you need God’s power. For what? Be a superhero, beat up the bad guys? No. To live the Christian life, to obey God from your heart and soul. That you and I would have the power to live the Christian life. Some Presbyterians would be afraid to use that phrase, because there are those of other traditions that would talk about God’s power leading to some kind of miraculous works. I think that was for the apostolic age, but that doesn’t minimize the need that you and I have for the power of God.

Think with me about that sin — that sin when you’re confronted with the temptation, it’s hard for you to get on your feet, your holy shoes, and do some holy running. You must run from this sin, but you wanna dilly dally. You wanna just, can I get close to the fire? It could be gossip at the water cooler. It could be some kind of sexual temptation. It could be taking the husband’s credit card and turning your coveting into a grand theft auto with his credit card. That frustrating co-worker that makes you curse — you never curse other times, except maybe in the car with traffic, but this guy makes you think about doing it. Whatever that sin is, you need and I need God’s power to turn away from it.

We have to strive — Paul says in Philippians 2, you must, I must, work out the implications of our salvation. We must live the Christian life. It’s a command, it’s a responsibility. But God is at work in us. We don’t do it in our own strength.

Look at how Paul describes that power: according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, above every name that is named, not only in this age but also the one to come. Think of what Paul could have said, and then think about what he did say. Why didn’t Paul think of creation? God, in a moment, spoke the creation into existence. Said let there be light, and there was light. He did all these things, he spoke them into existence. What incredible power. God could have inspired Paul to say it that way. But rather than creation, Paul appeals to the power of God the Father to raise God the Son. I think he chooses Christ’s resurrection for at least a couple reasons. It’s pretty incredible power, number one, and it’s saving power, number two.

Keep in mind, on Good Friday, Jesus suffered the wrath and judgment of God for our sins, for all his people from all the ages, in the space of a few hours. And now he voluntarily gives up his spirit. He sovereignly removes his soul from his body, and now his body lay lifeless on the cross. And Sunday morning, his lifeless body is not merely resuscitated. God the Father doesn’t bring medical equipment and do any kind of emergency care. Jesus has fully, completely paid for the sin of his people. That sin is to be paid for. It was paid for in the fullest when he physically died, but now the debt is over. The Father sovereignly, powerfully raises the Son to glory. He’s raised, and he ascends to heaven forty days later, and he sits in glory over everything.

Paul tells us in Romans 6, we’ve died to the ruling power of sin because we’re united to Christ. When Christ died on the cross, we died to sin’s ruling power. Then he goes on to say, when Christ was raised, he has newness of life. And you have that life. So it’s so appropriate, when Paul’s praying for the Ephesian church, for their present struggle with sin and following Christ and serving the Lord, to say, you need resurrection power.

Praying This Way

Brothers and sisters, I hope this is not just a one-time sermon. I hope that God would be pleased to transform your and my prayer life, so that we don’t simply think of our brothers and sisters and all their genuine physical hurts and emotional hurts, but we earnestly pray for the hope of their calling, their future fellowship with God — they’ve got a taste now, but it’ll be grander for all the blessings that will come to them when Christ returns. And presently, right now, that we would have God’s power to live the Christian life.

Three Blessings

Fairfield Church, PCA