There is a story about a baby eagle who fell out of his nest and into a chicken coop. As the little eagle grew up, he began to cluck like a chicken, strut like a chicken, think like a chicken. But every day he noticed the eagles soaring high in the sky, always sensing that he was meant for something more than the chicken coop, but never realizing who he really was. The difference between the eagles that soared and the one living in the chicken coop was his understanding of who he really was. I think the Christian can go through life in the same way.
I said at the beginning of our series in Ephesians that Paul’s epistle answers two questions for us: 1) What does it mean to be a Christian, and 2) what does it mean to be the Church. When it comes to your identity as a Christian, some of you may be living like you belong in the chicken coop.
Think about what it means to be a Christian according to Ephesians 1:3-14. You, Christian, have all the spiritual blessings listed throughout Paul’s magnificent sentence of more than 200 words! You, Christian, have been chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless (v. 4). You, Christian, have been predestined to be the adopted son/daughter of the living God through the redemption of Jesus Christ (vv. 5-7). You, Christian, have been completely pardoned of past, present, and future sins only because of the grace of God that has been lavished upon you as a result of the Father’s wrath that was lavished upon the Son for all of our wrongdoings (Eph. 1:8; 2:1-4). You, Christian, have an inheritance that will not fade with time, cannot be destroyed, and will never be stained by sin (v. 11). You, Christian, have been sealed by God’s Spirit as His guarantee of salvation that will be completed and the full experience of all God’s blessings that you will receive (vv. 13-14). You, Christian, are loved by the God of Isaiah 46:9-11, and you are the beneficiary of all His good pleasure.
Christian, you were saved not for the sake of being saved, not for the forgiveness of your sins, not for a pain-free eternity in heaven, not for loved ones who preceded you in death, or for any other reason but for the purpose of knowing Christ, and by knowing Christ, you can know God. I can say this because of the first three words in Ephesians 1:15-23, which state the reason for why Paul prays, what Paul prays, and how Paul can pray for the Christians in Ephesus, and those three words are: “For this reason…”
Now, I know that these verses teach us something about how we can structure our prayers. I believe that the way Paul expressed his thanksgiving for the Ephesian Christians and why and how he prayed for them can serve as a model for how we can structure our prayers for one another, but that is not how I want to use our time this morning. What I want to do with our time together is glean what we learn from these verses.
Why Paul Prays for the Christians (vv. 15-17)
How do you follow one of the most majestic statements about the salvation of lost humanity found in Ephesians 1:1-14? You do it with Ephesians 1:15-23. The apostle Paul begins, “For this reason…”. For what reason, Paul? For the reason contained in the over 200 words that make up Ephesians 1:1-14. For the reason that the Christian has been chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless (v. 4). For the reason that the Christian has been predestined to be the adopted child of God the Father through the redemption of Jesus the Son (vv. 5-7). For the reason that the Christian has been fully pardoned of past, present, and future sins because of Jesus (Eph. 1:8; 2:1-4). For the reason that the Christian has an inheritance that will not fade with time, cannot be destroyed, and will never be stained by sin (v. 11). For the reason that the Christian has been sealed by the Holy Spirit as God’s guarantee of salvation and redemption that will one day be fully complete (vv. 13-14). For all of these reasons is the reason the apostle wrote of the Ephesian Christians that he did, “not cease to give thanks for them, while making mention of them in his prayers” (v. 16).
Notice what the apostle says about these Christians against the backdrop of the first fourteen verses: “having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints” (v. 15). What did Paul hear about these Christians? He heard about their faith in Jesus and their love for one another while in prison. In other words, the reality of who these Christians were was expressed through the way they lived. Paul specifically and intentionally notes that the faith of these Christians was in more than facts they agreed with, but “in the Lord Jesus” and the evidence of their faith was seen in the way they treated each other.
Because Paul heard of the faith and love of these Christians, he prayed for them, and what He prayed also teaches us something about what it means to be a Christian. Paul’s prayer for these Christians is simple: “That 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” (v. 17). Notice what it is that Paul does not pray for; he does not pray for more power, or success, or easy living, or any other thing but that God would give them, “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.”
The wisdom and revelation Paul prayed for can only be given to them by God; this is why many theologians believe that the word, “spirit” is a reference to the Holy Spirit. Others believe that the word “spirit” is not a reference to the Holy Spirit but the spiritual part of us that lives on after the physical death of our bodies. Regardless of whose “spirit” Paul is referring to here, what is clear in light of the sealing of the Holy Spirit and His work in the life of the Christian (vv. 13-14), is that it is the Holy Spirit who enables our growth through the authority of the Word of God (revelation) when it is applied to the way we live our lives (wisdom).
What does the Word of God (revelation), and its application (wisdom) to our lives, produce? It produces the kind of knowledge of God that Paul longed for in his own life as he expressed in Philippians 3:10-11, “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” The same word Paul used in Philippians 3 for “know” (ginōskō), he also used in Ephesians 1:17. The Christian was saved by the grace of God to have a relationship with God and Paul’s prayer is that the relationship would only deepen through a faith rooted in Jesus as Lord of their lives.
What Paul Prays for the Christians (vv. 18-19a)
In verses 15-17, Paul lists four character traits of those who have been saved and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; those character traits mark the person who has truly been born again, and they are as follows:
- A faith that is IN Jesus.
- A loyalty to the LORDSHIP of Jesus.
- A LOVE for those who belong to Jesus.
- A pursuit to KNOW Jesus.
It is because of these character traits that Paul prays for a deepening knowledge of God that is intellectual, experiential, and emotional - because it is a knowledge that involves the mind, the will, and the heart. In verses 18-19, Paul unpacks what specifically he is praying for. His prayer is that the eyes of their hearts will be enlightened. What Paul is praying for is that the hearts of these Christians would see and understand what God has done for them. The word Paul uses for heart is kardia; he could have used a word for mind as he did in Philippians 2:5, “Have this mind [proneō] in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus…”. Or Paul could have used a different word for mind that Luke used in his gospel to describe the way Jesus opened the minds of two disciples who were confused over the death and news of his resurrection: “Then He opened their minds [nous] to understand the Scriptures…” (Luke 24:45).
However, Paul used the word kardia (heart), and he put an eye on it. What are eyes on a heart good for? They are good for seeing what God has done for you so that you can see the heavenly blessings listed in Ephesians 1:1-14, which are yours, and that you will know that they are yours not only with your mind but with your heart. Permit me to put it in a way you may understand more clearly. At the beginning of this series in Ephesians, I listed several truths that are rooted in the identity of the Christian. I said that if you are a Christian and your faith is in the Lord Jesus, then the following is true of you:
- You are saved by the will of God.
- You have the grace and peace of God.
- You have the blessing of God.
- You are redeemed to be holy and blameless before God.
- You are a son/daughter of God.
- You are favored by God.
- You are forgiven by God.
- You are rich in the grace of God. You now know God.
- You have a future with God.
- You are secure because of God.
- You are treasured by God.
Listen, if you are a Christian, the reason why Paul does not pray for your adoption as a son/daughter, or for more salvation, or more purpose, or more of the inheritance, or more resurrection power, or more of the Holy Spirit is because they are already yours in Christ. What Paul prays for is the thing that we need, and what we need is to know (ginōskō) that they are ours in Christ (v. 17), and to know that they are ours is that they are ours; as you know it is the word used for when Abraham knew Sarah, but maybe what you have not considered is to have known her was to experienced her fully with a mind, a heart, and will that was bound to her as his wife. Paul uses uses a different word for “know” in verse 18 (oida) that also is the type of knowing that is tied to a person’s experience: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know [oida]…”. I will say more about this next week, but for now, I want to show you what specifically we are to know as Christians. Paul lists three blessings that he wants his Christian readers to know: 1) What is the hope of His calling, 2) what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance, and 3) what is the boundless greatness of His power. I will revisit these three “what’s” that Paul mentions next week, but I will briefly mention what they mean for you now as a way to whet your appetite to come back next Sunday:
- The hope of His calling: The calling is the kind of thing Paul described in Ephesians 1:3-6 and 2:1-4. You were not looking for God because not only did you not know God, but you were also dead and unresponsive to God spiritually, and then He called you in the same way Jesus called Lazarus to come out of the tomb even though he had been dead for four days (see John 11:1-46). If you are a Christian, you are only a Christian because God called you by breaking into the tomb of your unbelief to give you life. God called you out of His great mercy to make you alive in Christ!
- The riches of His inheritance: Oh, this is so good, and I can’t wait to unpack this with you next week, but for now, what I want you to know is that the inheritance is you Christian! I know this grammatically, but also because of what we read in verses 13-14, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is a first installment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.” We are sealed by the Holy Spirit as, “God’s own possession” and because of what He has done to secure the salvation of wretched sinners through His own Son, we are now His inheritance! If you are a Christian, you are now God’s treasured child and because you are redeemed in Christ, what God sees is not a wretched sinner, but a treasure. The riches of His inheritance are that you are loved and given all the rights that come with being his treasured child.
- The knowledge of the boundless greatness of His power: The power is what we already have as those who have been called by God and belong to Him as His inheritance. What sort of power is it that we have? It is the power of the risen Christ. Paul tells us that this is the power that is ours in the rest of these verses: “These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead…” (vv. 19b-20). Think about it, who can avoid the power of death? No one can, for death is coming for us all! Yet, there is One who conquered death, and the same power that conquered the grave is at work in you Christian! What Paul wants us to know with all our being is that because of our faith in Jesus as Lord, we are progressively moving from death to life.
Because you are called by God and because you are His inheritance, the power of God is at work in and through you just as Paul described in Romans 8:11, “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” As one person wrote of this amazing promise that is for the Christian: “This power is ours to witness, to overcome sin, to pursue holiness, to fight against the schemes of the Devil, and to have great faith for mission.”[1]
There is a magnet on my filing cabinet in my office with one of my favorite quotes from Jonathan Edwards that says, “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” The one who made your salvation possible is the One you were made to know through and in Jesus. If you really know that it is He who called you, that it is you who are now His inheritance and treasure, and that the power that raised Jesus to life is the same resurrection power at work in and through your life… then don’t you know that you will be with Christ with a resurrected body on a resurrected earth one day and while with Him, with 10 billion years behind us, we will still know only a joy that will increase with every moment we are with Him. Paul prays that we will live our lives in light of a knowledge that not only acknowledges and understands that truth; but with a knowledge that encounters that truth with the eyes of our hearts.
