Using Our Riches

God wants us to grasp, to understand, to really know that what all he has done for us and given us is true. When Paul talks in Ephesians chapter 1 about being forgiven, it's real. It's real. And if that gentleman were really to turn to Christ, turn away from his sin and turn to Jesus as Savior, God would wipe the slate clean. It is real. Forgiveness is complete and real. And quite often we don't grasp that. We don't understand that. God wants us to understand that what we really have in Christ is really there. It's real. It's true. Back before World War II in the town called Etasca Texas, there was a fire in a school that claimed 263 children. Almost every family in Etasca Texas was affected by that horrible tragedy. And throughout World War II, this town just went without a school. But after World War II with the boom in that town, like many towns in America, they needed to build another school. And they did. This time they built a school that had what was called at that time, a state of the art sprinkler system. A sprinkler system that was unlike any other, that was the best in the world it was proclaimed to be. Civic pride just swelled the town. Honour students were requested to take people who came to see this on tours of the school. And the thing they wanted to show off more than anything else was this new state of the art sprinkler system and it was the best available. Never again would Etasca Texas succumb to such a horrible tragedy. The town continued to grow and seven years later there was an addition needed to the school. And when they put on that addition, they discovered that that sprinkler system had never been hooked up to the water supply. Now that's hard to imagine that something like that would happen. But I believe it's happening every day of our lives as Christians. I believe that many, if not most Christians, do not understand what we have in Christ. There are tremendous resources that we never hook into, we never tap into. There are tremendous riches that we never use. There's a great storehouse, a bank full of treasures that we never write checks on, that we never apply and never use. Things that God has said are ours, that we have in Christ. Blessings that He promised us, but we live our day by day lives without ever thinking about drawing on those resources and claiming by faith what God has told us we have in Christ. We're living that way. Most of our lives as believers in Christ are lived that way. Now Paul has described for us in Ephesians chapter 1, we've seen in the last couple of weeks. Some of the blessings that we have in Christ, things like election and adoption and grace and redemption and forgiveness and understanding and sealing and inheritance, all of those. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more below the surface that He's promised to us and He's given to us in Christ that He's not taking the time to describe here. But now in verses 15 to 23, Paul is praying for the Ephesian church that they will now understand and grasp and apply to their lives all of those things that are theirs already in Christ. And that prayer is not only for the Ephesians, it's for us. It's for us today. And so I want us this morning to look at Paul's prayer for the Ephesians to see what he has for us. Paul begins his prayer for the Ephesians with some praise. In verses 15 and 16, he praises God for two things about the Ephesians. Look at verse 15. If you have your Bible open to Ephesians chapter 1, verse 15 says, for this reason ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Two things he says, he thanked God for. First was their faith. He said, I thank God for your faith in the Lord Jesus. Now I believe he's talking about saving faith there. I think he's talking about the faith that brings us into the family of God that makes us a child of God. You see faith is the channel through which we receive God's gracious gift of salvation. It is through faith and it's through faith the Bible says in the Lord Jesus. The Bible makes it very clear that what Jesus Christ did for us is what was required to earn our salvation. When Jesus came as the spotless, sinless Son of God and gave his life for us on the cross, when he died in our place and became our substitute, the Bible says that's what God required as just payment for our sin. And it's the only payment that was adequate for our sin was what Jesus did for us on the cross. And all we are required to do, all God asks of us, is that we simply trust, put all of our confidence and hope and dependence upon Jesus' death on the cross for our salvation and the forgiveness of our sins. Faith is simply the channel, the conduit, if you will, through which we receive the gracious gift of God's salvation. And the Bible makes it plain that it's through faith alone that we are saved. Romans chapter 4, verses 4 and 5, Paul says it this way, now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. In other words, if you were going to work your way to heaven, God would be obligated to save you. You'd be in charge, God would be your in debt to you. That can't work. I mean, not with the God of the universe, it never can work that way. So Paul goes on to say in verse 5, however, to the man who does not work, but trusts God who justifies or declares righteous the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. Do one way to be saved and that's through what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross. You simply need to trust that, work on the cross and place your faith in Jesus Christ to be your savior. I want to make it very clear this morning, salvation is not by faith in Christ plus your baptism. It is not by faith in Christ plus your observance of the mass or communion. It is not by faith in Christ plus your good deeds. Anything you add to the work of God cancels it out. There's only one way to be saved that's through faith in the Lord Jesus and the Ephesians had recognized that and they'd come to Christ in faith and Paul thanks the Lord for their faith. Secondly, he thanks the Lord for their love. And notice, he says, I am thankful for your love for all the saints. This is not a pick and choose kind of love. This is not love who I like, love who I get along with, love who's compatible with me, love who likes me. This is not that kind of love. You see, when we get in the family of God, we give away to him all of our prejudices, all of our critical spirit toward other people in the family of God. There is so much shooting of one another that goes on in churches today and between churches who may not agree with each other on every little point of doctrine and every little practice of ministry, churches just shoot away at one another. The Bible says we need to love all the saints, all believers, and by the way, even those who are critical of us, we need to love them back. Not be critical back to them. Not call them names. We need to love them as Jesus would. You see, we're to have love for all the saints. And so Paul thanks God for the love and the faith of the Ephesians. But then he goes on to jump into this prayer. Having thanked God for them, this wonderful, glorious prayer is given to us. By the way, just as a sideline here, a great study for you sometimes would be to study the prayers of the Apostle Paul and his epistles, especially the prison prayers. There are four of them, two of them in Ephesians, one in Philippians, one in Colossians. And they are rich prayers. They are much deeper far beyond the kinds of things we usually pray about. You're going to get an example of that right now. Here are the things that Paul prayed the Ephesians would grasp and understand. Four things he prays for them for. First of all, he prays that they might know him better. By the way, this is for us too. It's not just for the Ephesians. He's praying for us to know him better. Look at verse 17. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation. Boy, there's a lot in those words right there. What is he praying? He's asking God to give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation. I think he's talking about the Holy Spirit here. We have the Holy Spirit. He already indwells us if we know Jesus as our Savior, but he's asking that same spirit of God that we have will give to us understanding and wisdom, knowledge and wisdom, the ability to understand all that God's given us and then the ability to put that into practice in our daily life. That's wisdom. So, he's praying that God will give us the spirit to understand and to apply all that we have in Jesus. The first one of those things is this. He says that you may know him better. That you may know him better. You know, to know God, to know Christ is one of the ways the Bible describes our salvation. Jesus said it this way in John chapter 17 and verse 13. Now this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So, knowing Christ is one of the ways the Bible talks about our salvation. To have eternal life means to know Christ. Now, this is not just some kind of head knowledge. This is not just some kind of knowledge that we know about Jesus. We've heard about Him from the Bible. We've heard preachers tell about Him or Sunday school teachers tell about Him. And we know some facts about Christ. It's much more than that. What we're talking about here is a personal knowledge, a personal relationship with Christ. This is not religion where you've heard about Christ. You've kind of tapped around the edges of what it means to be a Christian. This is not religion. This is a relationship with Jesus that you actually know Him. That you have come to a point in your life where you understood that you were a sinner. You were born that way. You've made choices that reflect that nature. And you understand that you're a sinner and that you can't get to heaven by yourself. What Jesus did for you on the cross was sufficient to pay for your sins. And so you've trusted His work on the cross to save you. And you have become a part of His family where God is now your father. And like Hebrews 2.11 says, Jesus Christ Himself is not ashamed to call us brothers. We're in His family. And so we are now personally related to Him. We know Him personally, personal knowledge of Christ, to know the forgiveness of sins, to know Him as your Savior. But Paul's actually going a step beyond that. He says, what I'm really praying is that the Holy Spirit will help you to know what you have in Christ so that you will know Him better, not just know Him, but know Him better. So this is talking about once you do get saved and enter the family of God, you begin a lifelong process of knowing Him better. Hey, what we're talking about here is not just knowing Jesus personally, but getting to know Him better so that you begin to understand how He thinks, how He responds to certain situations. Now the only way, my friend, you can understand that is if you get into this book enough to understand what He's revealed about who He is. To get into the Word of God enough to where you begin to understand, okay, this is how God thinks. This is what He thinks about certain issues. And this is how Jesus Christ would respond if He were in this situation that I'm facing tomorrow at work. This is how Jesus would respond. So that's how I need to respond with His grace and strength. That's getting to know Him better. And that's what Paul's asking that we get to know. We get to know Christ better. I had the great privilege last night, along with my mom and dad and Bob and Jan, my sister, and our three families were able to be at a family reunion. This was not your average, you know, get together once a year with a picnic basket out in the park type deal. This was a real family reunion. They were unveiling the family genealogy, the Holland's worth book. And I had the great opportunity to be able to speak at that event. And they unveiled this family tree book. It goes way, way back. I think almost to the flood. Not quite, but it seemed that way watching the slides, didn't it, Bob and Jan? I mean, way, way back. And the Holland's worth, my mother's family tree, it was amazing to see all the people we were related to. There were people from all over the country from Spokane, Washington, and St. Louis, Missouri, and Durham, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and just all over the place. It was incredible. Most of those people I had never met. I was sitting at the table with people that I had never met. They're in my family, somewhere on that tree. They're in the family, but I'd never met them. I don't know them, didn't know their names. I got to know a few of them last night. Some of them I didn't even get to meet last night. Some of them I got to make a casual acquaintance with. And then there was Bob and Jan, and mom and dad were there. I know them pretty well. There were some cousins there that I hadn't seen. A couple of them I hadn't seen in years. And some uncles and aunts, and we see them occasionally. Know them fairly well. Know mom and dad and Bob and Jan pretty well to know enough about what they would think and feel about lots of situations. But sitting by my side was Jeannie. Jeannie and I have been husband and wife for 34 years. And I know her very well. I can tell you what she's thinking just by watching her. She doesn't have to say a word. I can tell you what she's thinking. And I can tell you how she'll respond to situations. You see, I know I've lived with her long enough to know what she's thinking, what's going on inside that mind and how she would respond. And that is what Paul wants us to experience with Jesus. That we get to know him so well through his word. And personal interaction with his word and through prayer and walking with him day by day, that we begin to think like he would think. And we begin to respond like he would respond to get to know him better. That's Paul's prayer for us. His second prayer for us is to focus on our hope in verse 18. Look at verse 18. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you. Stop right there for now. That's an interesting expression there. The eyes of your heart may be enlightened. When we think of the heart, we think of emotions. That's the way we think of heart. I mean, we may think of the blood ticker, pumper in our chest that has valves and veins, but eyes, eyes of your heart, we think of that. Or when we think of heart metaphorically, we may think of emotions. I love you with all my heart. All my emotion is in this. But that's not how the Bible uses the word heart. When the Bible uses the word heart, it's talking about the inner person, the real you, and specifically your mind and your will, the way you think and choose. The real you, the person that thinks inside and makes decisions and carries out a course of action, the real you coming through, that's your heart. Now what he's saying is I want the eyes of your heart to be enlightened. In other words, your mind, a light turned on in your mind and your decision making capacity. I want the lights turned on so that you really grasp something. And what is it he wants us to grasp in our heart? It's our hope that we've been called to, he says, the hope to which he's called you. Now we talked a little bit about this hope in the last couple of weeks. It has to do with the inheritance of everything we enjoy in Christ now, all the spiritual blessings we have in him, and everything we will get in full when we get to heaven. Hope. Now that's a greatly misunderstood concept. When we think of hope, we think of a child waiting for Christmas. We think of a child hoping that they'll get that special bicycle or that special door or that special video game. They're hoping. They're not sure. They're kind of thinking they might, but they're not real sure, but they're hoping they'll get that special gift. That's not what this word means at all. This word in the Bible, hope, means the assurance of what you know to be true in the future. We know from God's word what our future holds. We know at least enough about heaven to know that it's going to be glorious and great and beyond all of our expectations. We know that we'll receive fully all the blessings we have in Christ there. We know some of those things. Faith is the ability to understand that in grasp, but hope is looking forward to that. And living in light of it. That's what biblical hope is. One person who wrote on the book of Ephesians has said that hope is faith on tiptoe. I like that expression. Faith on tiptoe. You know what it's like when you are standing on the street side watching a parade, maybe Christmas parade or something like that? And you can see very well what's right in front of you, what's just going by you. You know, fire truck or a funny car or whatever it is. Right there in front of you. But you can hear the music of a band that's coming towards you. You can't see them yet, but you can hear the music. There's indisputable evidence that a band is coming. And you don't know if it's the high school band or the middle school band or some other school from around here that may have a band in the parade. And so what do you do? You kind of lean forward and look down the street. On your tiptoes kind of looking down to see what's coming, what band that is. Hope in the Bible. It's faith on tiptoe. It's understanding what the Bible says awaits us in the future, believing that indisputable evidence, knowing it's coming, but you're just so anxious for it. You're just on tiptoe watching for it to come. And that changes the way we live, by the way, when we have that kind of hope. And Paul says, I want you to grasp that. I want you to understand the hope you have in Christ. The third thing he wants us to grasp is to understand our worth, verse 18, to understand our worth. By the way, I didn't miss, didn't say that wrongly. I meant it exactly as I said it. Look at what verse 18 says, that you may know the hope to which he has called, you know, the end of the verse, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. He's not talking about our inheritance here. He's talking about his inheritance. You see, we've already talked a bit about our inheritance. What we will receive, especially when we get to heaven in full, our inheritance, which Peter says is reserved in heaven for us. But what does God get out of this? What does Christ get out of this? He has inheritance too. And believe it or not, his inheritance is us. We are his treasure. Now you think about this for a few moments and it will just absolutely blow your mind. God's treasure is us. Now God has all the universe, all of it is his. He made it all, it's all his. Everything in this world is his. Everything in this whole universe is his. But God considers us of more value, his people, of more value than anything in the universe. We are his treasure. We are his inheritance. The inheritance that he has in the saints. Now if it does nothing else for you, it ought to help you to see how much God treasures you, how valuable you are, how much worth you are in his eyes. It's not that he needs us, it's that he loves us and wants us that much as his bride, his people, his treasure is us. As much as that's so hard to believe, we who are sinners, we who have, as we saw earlier, so often messed up and turned our back on him and lived the exact opposite of the way he tells us to live. We are still his treasure and he loves us and wants us, longs for us to be with him someday in heaven. So Paul wants us to understand that, to understand our worth to him. It's not what we're worth in ourselves. It's what we are in his eyes. We are his treasure. We are his inheritance. What a blessing. What grace it is that God would see us that way through his son. But there's a fourth thing that Paul wants us to understand and grasp and that is to experience his power. And Paul uses the richest of expressions to explain God's power and what it means to us in verses 19 through 23. We've just got time to briefly touch on it. Let me describe for you the description of this power in verse 19. He gives us its description by stacking four terms on top of each other to describe this power. Notice it in verse 19. This is something else he wants us to know and his incomparably great power for us who believe that power, different word in the original language, with a little different slant of meaning, actually means authority or dominion. And the first word means an inner dynamic. He says that power is like the working, that's the word we get our word energy from, inner ga'a, energy, the inner strength is like the working of his mighty strength. An entirely different, a fourth different word is koo'a, which means ability. So four different words to describe the concept of power. Why is he doing that? Not because he wants to show off his vocabulary, but because he wants us to see, think of any word you can for power and that's the kind of power I'm talking about. This is under utterly indescribable as he says it there in verse 19, incomparably great power. That's the kind of power we're talking about. Secondly I want you to see its demonstration in verse 20. It's demonstrated in the greatest act of power ever in human history. Verse 20, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. The greatest demonstration of God's power is at the resurrection and the ascension and exaltation of Christ when he seated on his throne. Greatest demonstration of his love is at the cross. Greatest demonstration of his power is at the resurrection. No other kind of power in the universe could pull that off. Only God's incomparably great power can do that. So this is the greatest demonstration of his power. By the way, it goes beyond the resurrection. It goes to the ascension. This is something we don't talk about enough. The ascension and enthronement of Jesus Christ, exaltation which is being talked about here, is when Jesus went back to heaven after his death and resurrection and he was enthroned and exalted in heaven. Can you imagine chapter 4 of Ephesians describes it like a victory parade. If you can just imagine the biggest ticker tape parade they've ever had in New York City for the greatest hero this country has ever known and magnified by a million, you get some idea, just an inkling of an idea of what it was like in heaven when Jesus went back after the resurrection. Can you imagine the music exploding in heaven? Can you imagine millions of angels singing his praises? Can you imagine the starbursts of color if there are fireworks in heaven, they all went off on that day? Can you imagine the music that Jesus wrote in the history of Ephesians 4 or Jesus actually is walking like a conquering general wood down the main street of heaven with all of this glory and adulation being heaped on him from the angels and then at the end of that street as his throne and the father seats him on that throne on his right hand, a place of power, that is tremendous power like we know nothing of in this world. Bible says that power is kind of power God wants us to understand. But then its extent is described further in verses 21 to 23 by the fact that Jesus in this exalted position is far above three things he says. Number one far above verse 21 far above all rule and authority power and dominion in every title that can be given not only in the present age but also in the one to come that's talking about all spiritual powers, angels, demons whatever kind of spiritual power you might think of and if you miss anything there any other title that could be given he says he's above all of that. This position of power is so great he's above all other spiritual beings. Secondly he's above everything in the universe verse 22 God placed all things under his feet appointed him to be head over everything for the church. So he's over all things in the universe all that he created is now under his feet he's in authority and power over it and then he's in power and authority over the church verse 22 for everything for the church which is his body the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. What a tremendous expression that is in verse 23 the church crisis ahead over the church and the church is the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. That means that the church literally fills up Christ who fills everything in the universe. How can that be? Well it's the head and the body picture that's what it is. The head is completed by the body and by the way every other word picture the Bible uses is that way the vine is completed by the branches the sheep is complete or the shepherd is completed by the sheep all of those word pictures the Bible uses of Jesus indicate to us that in his eyes in some way that we can't fully understand or explain in his eyes he is incomplete without us. Be careful with that it's not because he needs us but because he wants us and loves us that much. There is a sense in which we fill him up like the body completes the head that is unutterably glorious and rich when you think about it but wait a second what's the purpose of all this power this great power that Paul has been waxing long about this tremendous power that he uses four words to describe and that he gives the greatest demonstrations ever been given of in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ the same power that puts Jesus over everything in the universe what's the purpose of this power back in verse 19 it's for us. Look at it verse 19 is incomparably great power for us who believe. You know in comparison to Paul's prayers our prayers are mighty puny sometimes Lord give me strength for today we already have the strength for today my friend you already have the power you have all the power that raised Jesus from the dead you already have that this is not some health and wealth kind of deal here listen to me carefully you already have the power that you need in Christ all you have to do is trust him for it and claim it by faith the power that you need for any situation in your life Lord give me grace for this day that's an inappropriate prayer Lord help me to understand the grace which you have already said is sufficient for me help me to understand that grace and apply it to the situation I find myself in today that's the way we ought to be praying that's the way Paul was praying in Ephesians 1 Lord give me light on this we don't need light we're already got light it's right here Lord help me to get into your book and understand the light you've already given me an apply it to life situations you see what I'm saying we have riches in Christ that we have not even begun to get hooked up to that we've not even begun to tap into Warren Wiersby tells the story of William Randolph Hearst who in the early 1900s was the greatest newspaper publisher and media guy in the country probably in the world back out in San Francisco he owned about everything out there and much the other media outlets in in the country William Randolph Hearst invested much of his fortune in collecting art treasures from around the world and he read one day about some some artwork that he just really wanted to have in his collection and so he sent one of his agents to look to find it and they weren't sure where it was this guy traveled all over the world to find it several months invested in looking for it and finally he came back to Mr. Hearst and he said Mr. Hearst we have finally discovered where this artwork is it's in one of your warehouses you already own it so William Randolph Hearst spent all kinds of time and energy and money frantically searching for something he already owned if he had just looked in his logbook of art treasures he would have seen that he would have known that and that's exactly what Paul is telling us in Ephesians 1 here's all you have in Christ all of the spiritual blessings that he's given you they're in the logbook they're to record it right here for us let's get into this and understand what they are and Paul is praying that the Holy Spirit will give us the ability to grasp and understand them and to apply them to have the wisdom to live them out in our daily lives my friend that's what Paul wants for us today so that we will be spared from frantically searching what is already hours that we will simply rest in the provision Christ is made for us and trust him every day to enable us to live as he wants us to drawing freely from the resources that he's already given us Peter was not mistaken when he said all that we have for life and godliness all we need for life and godliness is ours because we are in Christ would you pray with me please Father thank you for the riches that we have in Christ Father we confess our lack of faith and rest confidence and trust in you to take advantage of all of the things you've already given us in Christ how often we act like poor beggars when in reality we have all the riches that we could have ever have in Christ Lord we thank you that those spiritual riches those spiritual blessings are enough to see us through any of life's challenges or problems or heartaches or physical needs or financial needs Father even though sometimes you do not see fit to take those things away from us you give us through your riches your grace and strength to go through them victoriously would help us to draw from those resources every day we ask in Jesus name amen