Let me begin by stating some truths about what it means to be a Christian that most of you already know: because you are in Christ, you are a son/daughter of the almighty God (v. 5), you are forgiven (v. 7), you are a new creation (vv. 9-10), and you have a glorious inheritance waiting for you that will never fade with time, can never be destroyed, and will forever be untouched by sin (v. 11; see also 1 Pet. 1:3-5). If you are a Christian, your reality and identity include all things made new (Rev. 21:1-5), all things for your good (Rom. 8:28-30), and all things for God’s glory! If you are a Christian, the God of Isaiah 46:9-11 is for you and not against you, for He has declared: “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My plan will be established, and will accomplish all My good pleasure…”. When it comes to your struggle(s) in living out the Christian faith, it has more to do with a lack of knowledge of who you are in Christ or an ignored knowledge of who you are in Christ.
All of what we have read and studied in Ephesians 1:1-14 can only be true of you if verses 15-17 are true of you: “For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; 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.” The four character traits Paul lists in these verses are true of those who have been saved and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ:
- 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.
Two Types of Knowing for the Christian
Now, I want to show you something that I did not have the time to show you last week, but you need to give me a little space to geek out a bit over two different words that Paul uses in the original language (Greek) that you cannot see in your English Bible; all that you see in your Bible is the word, “knowledge” (v. 17), and “know” (v. 18). The word for knowledge in verse 17 is ginōskō, and I made a big deal over that word for good reason. The “knowledge” of Jesus that Paul refers to in verse 17 is the kind of discovery that involves more than your mind, for it includes the experience of your whole person and is the kind of knowledge that is relational.
The second Greek word for “know” is used in verse 18, and that word is oida. This kind of knowing can be experiential, but it is also a cognitive awareness of something or someone with certainty; it is the same word Paul used for “know” in 2 Timothy 1:12, “For this reason I also suffer these things; but I am not ashamed, for I know [oida] whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to protect what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” In the case of Ephesians 1:18 and 2 Timothy 1:12, you cannot have oida unless you have a relationship (ginōskō) with Jesus. Let me say what I just said differently for clarity: The kind of knowing Paul is praying for in verses 18-19 by way of the enlightened eyes of your heart cannot be experienced unless you ginōskō (know) Jesus (v. 17). In other words, there is no life-giving calling from God (vv. 3-6), no belonging to God (vv. 7-12), and no resurrection power from God apart from knowing Jesus.
Illustrations tend to fall short when it comes to explaining who God is or the dynamics of what it means to know Him. However, when it comes to what Paul means by “the eyes of your heart” the best illustration I can think of for what he wanted these Christians to discover is the experience Roimaw and I had when we decided to have children. There was a difference between “knowing” Nathan with the first store-bought pregnancy test that was positive, and the first images we saw of him on the ultrasound. With every test and ultrasound image measuring Nathan’s development, Roimaw’s knowledge as a mother and my knowledge as a father grew, and what began as an understanding that we would soon be parents grew into something much, much more. While he was unseen in his mother’s womb, we prayed for him, we read to him, and we loved him. But I got to tell you… after Nathan was born and we held him for the first time, both Roimaw and I saw him with the eyes of our heart! We saw him with the eyes of our heart in such a way that neither she nor I could ever imagine life without him.
There are three blessings Paul lists in verses 18-19 that he wants Christians everywhere to see with the eyes of their hearts, and it is to these blessings we turn our attention now. I want you to wrap your arms around the hope of His calling, the riches of His inheritance, and the greatness of His power towards all who believe.
What is the Hope of His Calling
It is Paul’s prayer that these Christians will have the eyes of their hearts opened in such a way that they know what is, “the hope of His calling.” Notice that Paul did not say: “the hope of your calling.” What is the hope of God’s calling upon your life Christian? Well, we already know something of that calling from what we read in Ephesians 1:3-6; God knew you before the foundation of the world, saw all the rotten fruit of your spiritual deadness, and chose you anyway. To be chosen is to be called, and it is the calling of God that Paul wants the eyes of our hearts to see so that we can know just what that means practically.
If your salvation and faith are rooted in the call of God that predates earth itself, then don’t you think that God is doing something in your life that is much bigger than anything that you may suffer on this side of eternity? Paul elaborates on this very point in Romans 8:28-30,
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
What is the hope of His calling? Listen to Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who is against us?” God called you therefore He is for you! What does that mean practically? Well, Jesus said this to his disciples: “But you will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, other relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death, and you will be hated by all people because of My name. And yet not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:16–18). In other words, man may do his worst to you, but the worst he can do is kill you; what he cannot do is destroy you because of the One who called you! The hope of God’s calling is this: “He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (v. 5).
Listen, the hope is yours because the calling was His. This is good news because your love is fragile, but His love is infinite! The hope of His calling is rooted in this reality: God’s infinite love for you, Christian, is as great as His infinite sovereignty.
What are the Riches of His Inheritance in the Saints
Just as your hope is rooted in His calling, the inheritance Paul prays that the eyes of our hearts will see so that we will know belongs to God. What inheritance belongs to God? God’s inheritance is all those whom He called, all those He predestined to adopt as His children, and all those who have been redeemed by the blood of His Son. I will say it another way: The Christian is counted as God’s inheritance. Yes, the Bible indeed teaches that God is our inheritance, the apostle Peter even said as much in his epistle: “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all time, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God…” (1 Pet. 3:18). However, we are God’s inheritance, and that is good news!
In what ways are we God’s inheritance? For starters we are told in the first fourteen verses that God chose us as a Father (v. 4), to redeem us through His Son (v. 7), to seal us through His Spirit (v. 13) to make us His holy and blameless (v. 4) adopted children (v. 6) with all the rights that come with being His children (v. 11)! In Ephesians 1:14, we are told that the Holy Spirit, “is a first installment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of God’s possession.” In 1 Peter 2:9, we read: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a Holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that the reason why it matters what we do with our bodies is that we belong to God: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
It is one thing to understand that we are God’s possession, but Paul explicitly prays that the eyes of the hearts of his readers would be enlightened to know, “…what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance.” Yes, it is true that Jesus died for our sins so that we could be reconciled to God, and yes, it is true that we are God’s treasured possession, but to be put into the category that we, who are the redeemed, are God’s inheritance is staggering! How is this staggering you may be asking? Well, if we are God’s inheritance, He will get what belongs to Him and no one… absolutely no one—no demon, no power, no authority, no government, not Satan, and not even death will keep God from receiving His inheritance! Now against the backdrop of that reality, wrap your arms around Jesus’ promises to His people: “My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:27–29). If you belong to Jesus, then it is the Father who sings over you as His inheritance: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will rejoice over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy” (Zeph. 3:17).
Listen, the reality that you are God’s inheritance is rooted in God’s infinite love that is equal to His infinite power, and that love has been, is being, and will forever be lavished upon you! Mark my words, the One who, “declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My plan will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure…” (Isa. 46:9-10), will receive His inheritance!
What is the Boundless Greatness of His Power Toward Us Who Believe
The third and final thing Paul prayed for was that the eyes of the hearts of the Church would be enlightened to know the, “…boundless greatness of His power toward us who believe. 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 and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (vv. 19-20). Listen to how the NIV translates these verses from the Greek: “That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms…” (Ephesians 1:19–20, NIV). Bryan Chapell, in his commentary on Ephesians, said of these verses, “The promise of God’s affection is not our only hope; Paul also prays for the Spirit to give eyes to see God’s “incomparably great power for us who believe” (Eph. 1:19a). The promise is not only of an inheritance to come, but of power, great power for us.[1]
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 raised Jesus from the grave is at work in you Christian! This power would be beyond our reach apart from knowing Jesus; but now that you have been called by God, and are the inheritance of God because of the redeeming work of the Lamb of God, this power is now ours. Jesus is our groom and we are His bride; He has declared, “I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it" (Matt. 16:18b). Hell nor the grave have any power over Jesus’ Church, and you dear Christian are the Church!
You have been given the Holy Spirit as a Helper by Jesus, and sealed by the Holy Spirit through Jesus to empower you to live your life for Jesus for the glory of God and the good of all those who are merely hanging by a thread over Hell and the only hope of escape and salvation is the hope that is now ours in Christ! We are a walking testament to the power of God to change lives through the good news of the gospel and can claim with the apostle: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 1:16). It is the same power that rescued us that now keeps us, and we can know with confidence the same thing the saints of old experienced as the Church:
For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.” (2 Corinthians 4:6–10)
This power that is ours in Jesus, is the power of the risen Christ to fight against sin, doubt, worry, and any other adversary that threatens to undo those who have been called by God, are the inheritance of God, and have been raised to new life by God. Our strength is His strength, and because of that truth, which is now our truth, we can celebrate with the apostle Paul: “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work among you will complete it by the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).
Amen.
