As we pull back together, let's turn our attention to God's
Word. After a wonderful Holy Week, we
continue our series through Ephesians.
We're still in chapter 1 and it's a joy to continue working
through Paul's prayer. So our text this morning is
Ephesians 118 through 21. Paul continues to pray for the
Ephesians. He says, 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. This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Please be seated.
Father, we sense that these are wonderful things in Your Word,
and so we pray with the psalmist that You would open our eyes to
see and to know and to love these wonderful things in Your
Word. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. So at least one thing is clear
as we study Ephesians one Paul had rare spiritual vision into
who God is and what he has done. The Lord opened the eyes of
Paul's heart and what he saw changed everything.
Paul began to grasp all the privileges that we have in
Christ, what we've been talking about for a few months now.
And so Paul had this burden for believers and ultimately non
believers to understand all that we have in Christ or all that we
could have if we were in Christ. So for the last few months we've
been like divers and Ephesians one has been our ocean.
So each week we dive beneath the surface and come up with a new
treasure to take a look at and examine and figure out what to
do with. But these are not random
trinkets for us to sell on a secondary market.
These are precious things that God wants us to keep and to
treasure for ourselves. He wants to enrich our lives
with a deep knowledge of all that we have in Him.
The problem is we don't realize all that we have in him and what
it means for us. I said this a few weeks ago,
that Christians can be like a child of a billionaire living on
the streets. And what's interesting, there's
a real relationship. We're adopted children of our
heavenly Father, and there's real treasure.
We've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
But there's also a real problem. We live like we don't know it or
like we don't have it. We're disconnected from our true
identity and our story. So as Paul prays that we would
have the spirit of wisdom and revelation to know God better,
he focuses here on three things that he particularly wants us to
see and to know. It's the hope to which he's
called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the
Saints, and the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us
who believe. So let's start by considering
the hope to which he's called us.
So what is hope? If you look in the dictionary,
you'll read hope is the longing or desire for something
accompanied by the belief in the possibility of its occurrence.
So we want something, and we have a reasonable expectation
that that might happen. So in the world, hope often
seems like wishful thinking. So we hope to find a good job,
or make it into a good school, or get married, see our team win
a championship. We think our hopes depend on
luck or chance or our ability to make it happen.
But in the Bible, hope is a little different.
It's this deep confidence in God's faithfulness to keep his
promises. When we know God, he transforms
our hopes. Our deepest longings and desires
become more centered in Him. And he also teaches us not to
trust in chance or trust in ourselves, but to trust in Him.
So what does hope look like in the Scriptures?
There could be so many examples. But think about Abraham.
He hoped that God would give him a child in his old age.
Or Moses who hoped to enter the promised land.
Or Peter who hoped that his failures when Jesus was arrested
and tried would not be the end of the story.
Now these men's hopes were fulfilled, but not as they
imagined or when they expected. Abraham had to wait till he was
100 years old to hold his child, Moses had to wait until he stood
on the Mount of Transfiguration in the Gospels with Jesus and
Elijah come into the promising, and Peter had to wait for an
encounter with the risen Christ on the shore.
So when we hope in God, he's faithful to his promises, even
when life goes differently than we expect.
But no matter what we believe, we all live by hope.
I don't know if you know the name Viktor Frankel.
He was a Jewish man who survived multiple Nazi concentration
camps during World War 2. It's really an amazing story.
Viktor survived, but along the way in camps, he lost his
parents, he lost his brother, and he lost his wife.
After the war, he had this long career as a professor and an
author. And in one of his books, Man's
Search for Meaning, he talks about what he learned in the
camps. So one thing that stuck with me
because I read this book a long time ago is a word he shares
about hope. Frankel writes those who have a
why to live can bear with almost any how.
Imagine being in a concentration camp, how easy it would be to
lose hope, to forget why you should hang in and hang on in
the face of so much suffering. So Frankel noticed that those
who lost their why would struggle and often not make it.
But those who held on to hope and had a why had perspective to
keep going. Which begs the question for us,
what's your hope? What gets you up in the morning?
What gets you through the day? Do you have a why that can help
you bear almost any how? Now, as I've reflected this
week, I believe there are two kinds of hope.
They're the hopes to which we cling.
And there's a hope to which we're called.
So what are the hopes to which we cling?
Years ago, Jim Carrey was a presenter at the Golden Globe
Awards. And as you probably know, Jim's
a talented, funny actor, but rarely serious.
And that night, his speech from the podium was sort of like a
sneak attack because all the actors were there hoping to win
an award. And of course, they thought Jim
was trying to be funny. But I think he was actually
showing them that they were clinging to the wrong hope.
Listen to what he said and I'll not try to be Jim Carrey.
He said thank you. I'm two time Golden Globe winner
Jim Carrey and when I go to sleep at night, I'm not just a
guy going to sleep. I'm two time Golden Globe winner
Jim Carrey. Going to get some much needed
shut eye. And they're laughing.
And when I dream, I don't just dream any old dream, no Sir.
I dream about being three time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey
because then I would be enough. It would finally be true.
And you feel the laughter starting to turn to discomfort.
And I could stop this terrible search for what I know won't
ultimately fulfill me. And then pregnant pause.
And he says, but these are important, these awards.
Jim got a lot of laughs along the way, but by the end, they
became awkward laughs because we don't like it when people poke
holes in our hopes. But friends, this is what the
Bible does. Imagine if you were making a
speech like Jim Carrey. What hope would you unmask?
Are we hoping for some kind of belonging with friends, at
church, in marriage, with family, at a Country Club?
Are we hoping for some kind of success in school or work or
sports or a hobby? Are we hoping for some kind of
possession or wealth or comfort or pleasure?
Entertainment? We cling to all kinds of hopes,
thinking like Jim Carrey said, if I could just get that, then I
would be enough. It would finally be true and I
could stop this terrible search for what I know won't ultimately
fulfill me. The problem is, usually we hope
for good things. They don't seem bad.
But left to ourselves, we don't hope for God.
We cling to hopes that are too small for these hearts that were
made for God. So we look for significance and
security and satisfaction in these things that we cling to.
But sooner or later, if we're honest, we have to say this
isn't as significant as I thought.
This isn't as secure as I thought.
This isn't as satisfying as I thought.
And the most profound stories are the ones of the people who
get what they hope for. And you see so much frustration
and disappointment. And that's why Paul prays that
the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened to see not the hopes
we cling to, but the hope to which God has called us.
When the Bible talks about the Father adopting us as his
children, what's the implication that he initiated that He shows
us that he called us and that before he adopted us, we were
like orphans. In Ephesians 212, Paul describes
our life before we knew Christ. He says that we were without
hope and without God. So it makes sense because
orphans don't have hope. They can't imagine glorious
horizons for their life. But being called into a new
family means being called into a New Hope.
In Colossians 127, Paul boils the hope down to 3 words.
Christ in you, he says. Christ in you the hope of glory.
Remember Ephesians 113 through 14 just a few weeks ago.
In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of
your salvation and believed in Him, were sealed with the
promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
Jesus Christ living in US, bringing home to us all the
glorious riches that we have in Christ now and forever.
So we already enjoy the first waves of this hope.
But this mighty ocean is coming. The Lord has called us to a hope
that is glorious and perfect. So let your imagination run wild
in glory. What will our relationship with
God be like? What will our relationships with
one another be like? What kind of satisfaction will
we experience? What will this world be like
when it's the new heavens and the new earth?
That's the hope to which we've been called, and it's ours in
Christ. In every dimension, the Lord has
called us to this hope that's beyond our wildest dreams.
And in all of these dimensions, the Lord will bring our hopes to
a glorious, perfect fulfillment. But it all started with a
calling. And a calling implies what?
A caller knowing this hope isn't ultimately about something we
did or decision we made. It's ultimately about his
calling, calling our name, calling us out of darkness and
into his glorious light. So friends in Christ we have the
greatest hope. Jesus becomes the center of our
lives now and forever. And that's why Paul can say in
Philippians 121 For to me, to live is what Christ, and to die
is gain. Why?
Because we get to go be with the one who is our hope.
So friends, we will always have temporal disappointments, but we
will never lose our eternal hope if we have the right hope.
So do we know this? And if so, why keep clinging to
these lesser hopes? May the Lord open our eyes to
see the hope to which He's called us.
And Paul also prays that we would know the riches of his
glorious inheritance. He says, what are the riches of
his glorious inheritance in the Saints?
So let's talk about inheritances for a minute.
Why do we ever receive an inheritance in the world?
Well, because we have a relationship with someone,
usually a family member, because they make plans to pass their
valuable possessions to us, and usually because they die.
Now imagine that our parents have vast resources.
What might we say about our inheritance?
I can't believe all that is coming to me now.
What do we see in the Scriptures?
God's Word talks about inheritance is really in two
ways. On the one hand, we learned that
we have an inheritance in Christ.
This is easier for us to understand.
Why? Because God is the Father.
He's the one with all the possessions.
Paul says in Romans 8 that if we're children of God, that
means we're heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ.
It's this mind blowing idea that He wants to share everything He
has with us. Simply put, He is our
inheritance. But that's not the predominant
note in our passage if you look closely.
If that were the case, Paul would say the riches of our
glorious inheritance in Christ, but instead he says the riches
of his glorious inheritance in the Saints.
This is the more shocking idea that we are his inheritance, we
are what's coming to God, and he sees us as a glorious
inheritance. As strange as that sounds, it's
not a new thought in Scripture we see in the Old Testament.
This is just one example of many.
Deuteronomy 14. Two, For you are a people holy
to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a
people for his treasured possession out of all the
peoples who are on the face of the earth.
So we see it way back, but we also see it in the New
Testament. We see it here in Paul, but we
also see it in Peter. Both these apostles take this
ancient concept and apply it now to the church first.
Peter 29 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy
nation, a people for his own possession.
So if we compare an earthly inheritance to our heavenly
inheritance, how is it similar? Well, by faith in Christ, we
have a relationship with God the Father.
We are part of his family. Christ is our brother.
He's made a plan to bless us with an incredible inheritance,
and there's been a death. Christ died in order that it
might come to us. The difference is Jesus didn't
stay dead. Amen.
He rose again to win us for himself, but also to give
himself to us. We're united with Christ.
We're one with Him. The Bible pictures that as the
ultimate marriage. So we can truly say the Lord is
our inheritance. He is what's coming to us.
And the Lord can truly say that we are his inheritance, we are
what's coming to Him. What a glorious thought.
Remember Hebrews 12 for the joy set before him, the joy of a
treasured people. Jesus endured the cross.
So do we know this? Do we realize that we are His
treasure? Is he ours?
May the Lord open the eyes of our hearts to know the glorious
riches of His inheritance. Finally, Paul here prays that we
would know the immeasurable greatness of his power.
So let's talk power. We have a complicated
relationship with power, don't we?
We want to be powerful, but we often feel powerless.
We're drawn to those who have power in the world, but we're
also suspicious. We know the maxim power
corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Andy Crouch wrote a book about power called Playing God, and in
the book he argues despite all the abuses, power is actually a
great gift. Why is power a gift?
Crouch asks. Because power is for
flourishing. When power is used well, people
and the whole cosmos come more alive to what they were meant to
be. So God's infinite power is a
priceless gift because he has used it for our flourishing, to
renew us and the whole created world.
So Paul talks about the immeasurable greatness of his
power toward us who believe. Of course, God has acted for his
own glory. How could he not do that?
But he has also acted for our good.
Unlike so many rulers in the world, God has leveraged his
power and authority to bless others.
And Paul says we see his power on full display.
Where in Christ's resurrection and exaltation.
So do we know the power of God and the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Ever since Genesis 3, we felt
the power of sin and death. Sin has wreaked havoc in the
life of every person not named Jesus of Nazareth.
It holds us back, it drags us down.
It separates us from God and his will for our lives.
And the wages of sin, Paul says, is death the just payment for
our sinful work, if you will? Is death being cut off from life
in God and life in this world? Sin and death bring misery into
even the most admirable lives that we see.
But something happened around 2000 years ago when Jesus Christ
died on the cross and rose from the grave three days later.
In his days on earth, Jesus lived the perfect life.
He never sinned in his thoughts, words, affections, or actions.
He went to the cross as the perfect, spotless sacrifice.
He alone did not deserve death, but he tasted death for his
people who do. And the Father vindicated his
Son's sacrifice on Sunday morning when he raised him from
the dead. Satan thought he had won on
Friday. Imagine a surprise on Sunday
morning when the stone was rolled away.
So Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together to defeat sin and
death and Satan. So Paul reaches for everything
he can to paint this picture of this power.
In Greek, he actually uses 4 different power words in rapid
succession. The first is the root of our
word dynamite, it's raw power. The second is the root of our
word energy. It refers to that internal force
that drives or activates something.
The third is related to our word for autocrat.
It refers to the ability to conquer.
And the fourth word refers to strength or physical force.
So Paul grabs every word he can find to tell us what the great
powers that torment us are no match for the immeasurable
greatness of his power. And this power that we see in
the resurrection of Jesus Christ is in you.
If you are in Christ. Think about it.
It took nothing less than the immeasurable power of God to
save you, and he did that. It takes nothing less than his
immeasurable power to sanctify you, and he's doing that.
So if you feel weak, stuck, powerless to change, think about
the power that is in you. And if you do not know Jesus
Christ this morning, and you feel weighed down by the power
of sin and death. Do you know that he has the
power to bring you to life and change you bring your weakness
to Jesus and rest in his resurrection power.
Christ's resurrection is obviously a decisive moment in
the story of God's power. But Paul doesn't stop there.
He goes on to talk about the power of God and the exaltation
of Jesus Christ. Paul says that the Father look
at the end of verse 20 and then into 21.
The Father 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.
So how did Jesus go from being raised to being seated at the
Father's right hand? It's through His ascension that
we read about in Acts One. In the presence of His
disciples, our Lord was bodily taken up to return to the
Father. We don't talk much about the
ascension, but it's wonderfully significant.
Let me show you just a few things about the ascension.
The ascension completes our Lord's incarnation journey.
He said himself that He came from the Father and He was
returning to the Father. So he left heaven, He came to
earth, He took on flesh, He died on the cross, He rose from the
grave, and now through the ascension he has returned to
heaven. Do you ever think about this,
that our Lord is in heaven with a body like ours?
The ascension begins a new phase of Christ's ministry to his
people. So Jesus came to earth to be the
high priest who would not just pray or offer sacrifices, but
offer himself as the sacrifice for his people.
He made that final sacrifice, but that doesn't mean like we
often think that his ministry is over.
Even now as I speak, Jesus lives, the Bible says to
intercede for his people. How often do you think about
that, That our Lord Jesus, it's praying for us.
The ascension is also the precursor to the sending of the
Holy Spirit. Jesus told his disciples, it's
better for me to go away because when I go away, send the Holy
Spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate to be with you.
And that's exactly what he did at Pentecost with Christ at the
right hand of the Father. Now the Spirit was poured out on
the church and we transitioned from a few decades of Christ's
physical presence with us to this wonderful age of His
spiritual presence with us. The Spirit empowers the church
for its mission to make disciples of all nations.
And you can literally say we would not be here this morning
without the ascension of Christ and the sending of His Spirit.
The ascension is ultimately the coronation of Jesus as King of
Kings and Lord of Lords. What has been all over our
liturgy and in our singing. He's exalted, Paul says, far
above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every
name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to
come. Just like with power.
Don't you see how Paul is reaching for every word he can
find to try to describe this exaltation, cosmic power and
glory, and yet he wants it to hit us at this deeply personal
level. Remember Jesus prayer in John
1724. Father, I desire that they also
whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my
glory that you've given me because you loved me before.
The foundation of the world. Jesus deep desire is for us to
be with Him where He is through his resurrection and ascension.
He has gone before us, but he will not remain there alone.
One day he will return and we will reign with Him forever.
Do you know the immeasurably great power that he has toward
us? So I read a fascinating story in
a commentary this week and I want to share it with you.
To close, it's a about a town called Atasca, Texas.
Has anyone been there a few? OK, cool. 50 miles South of Fort
Worth, there's I guess evidence that's a real place.
Before World War 2A fire hit the school there, it took the lives
of over 250 children. So you can imagine the whole
town was rocked by this tragedy. And the town was unable to
rebuild the school in the midst of the war.
But after the war, they rebuilt the school and they put in a
state-of-the-art sprinkler system, as you can imagine.
And they were proud of what they created and confident that that
kind of tragedy would not strike again.
And it didn't. And so I'll just let you know
that they offered tours for people to come and see the
school and this wonderful sprinkler system.
Now, the town continued to grow. And after World War 2, just a
few years later, they needed to expand the school again.
And so they added a new wing to the school.
And as they were constructing and expanding, they made a
shocking discovery. Their amazing sprinkler system
had never been connected. They had all the hope, all the
riches, all the power of this state-of-the-art sprinkler
system. And it wasn't plugged in.
And it's such a wonderful illustration because it's a
picture of how we struggle in the Christian life.
We have all the hope, all the riches, all the power in Christ,
but it's like our lives haven't been connected to it.
So what a gift to have all these privileges in Christ.
Friends, have we connected our lives to them?
Let's pray, Father, for those who know you this morning.
May the eyes of their hearts be enlightened.
May they know deeply the hope, the riches, and the power that
they have in Christ. Or it helped them to believe
that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in them
and with them. May they experience more and
more of the resurrection life. And Father, for those who don't
know you, open the eyes of their hearts today.
Help them to feel that the hopes they cling to are fragile.
Help them to know the hope of Christ, the glory of being your
beloved child, and the greatness of Your power to save them and
to change them. Oh Lord, as we come to this
table, we look to you as we eat the bread and drink the cup.
Make the reality of all that we have in Christ more real to us,
for we long to know You in a way that changes everything.
And your great name, the name above all names we pray.
Amen.