I apologize that I failed to ask the right questions to get us to the heart of the matter in Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church yesterday. Paul has a very clear idea of what God has done for us and what He wants for us. You could almost look at Ephesians chapter one in those very terms; our first lesson was what God has done for us, our second lesson what He wants for us.
So what does He want? We can see the big ideas [the details come later in the book] in what Paul prays for them. He is asking God to reveal to the readers of the letter the very most important things that they need to know.
First, God wants us to know Him. Paul wants first and foremost for us to know God. 1:17 says "so that you might grow in your knowledge of God." At any point of our Christian life we can say we know God. What a blessing to know Him! But there is always more to know. Paul's first prayer for this church is that they will have the spiritual wisdom and insight to know Him more. In fact, that spiritual wisdom and insight, any revelation of who He is, is a gift from God so Paul is praying that God would give them the wisdom and understanding to know Him.
Verses 18 and 19 list three other important things for us to know, and Paul again asks God for insight and illumination in the people he's writing to, for the Spirit to reveal these things to them.
1) understanding of our hope for the future, and I would say two things about that. The hope is certain and the future begins now. The Christians hope, as Sharon said yesterday, is not like hoping I can get a new car. Christian hope is the most sure thing in the universe. Hebrews 6:18 and 19 say, "So God has given us both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to his promise with confidence. This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls."
2) realization of the richness of our inheritance. Remember we talked about this last week in 1:14, that the Holy Spirit in our lives is the pledge or guarantee of our inheritance. It's just a taste. The experience of the Holy Spirit in our lives now gives us a tiny glimpse of what living with Him for all eternity will be like. Kristen shared 1 Peter 1:4 with us yesterday. "For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It's kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay."
3) understanding the incredible greatness of His power, and not just that He is powerful, but that He makes that resurrection power available to us. Paul explains that power in great detail in the following verses.
Those are transformational truths. I hope you'll spend the time looking a these verses or at other verses that make our hope, our inheritance, and His power in us clear to you. It will change your life. Paul is going to ask us to grow and change in the rest of the book of Ephesians. He's going to ask us as people and he's going to ask us as churches. We will be able to change not because we are spiritual people, or good people or strong people; not because we will try very hard. We will be able to change as we understand and believe what God has done in us and what he is doing in the world. That's why Paul takes the entire first chapter of Ephesians to communicate these big truths. It's worth our time to make sure that we know them.
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