“15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. 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, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and His incomparably great power for us who believe.”
This morning I want you to think about what could be. What could be for this church? That’s a natural question to ask with a new pastor. That’s a natural question to ask as a new pastor. What could be?
I don’t want to think in terms of what I can do. Whatever I bring to the table will be insufficient for God’s goals.
I don’t want to think in terms of what you can do because in the end that will be insufficient too. If our hope and excitement in this new relationship is about you and about me, that won’t be enough. Your hope must be in what God can do. My hope must be in what God can do.
That’s a compelling vision to put before our eyes this morning—what could God do? What could be for this church?
This morning I am going to answer that question with Paul’s words. What did he say could happen? What could be for the church in Ephesus? What could be for this church in Inwood?
What could be is more than we can ask or imagine. That’s the claim of this sermon: what could be is more than we could ask or imagine.
We see this in four points. First: signs of life. Second: knowing God better. Third: having hope. Fourth: witnessing power. We see signs of church life in verses 15-16. We see that you can know God better in verse 17. We see that you can have hope in verse 18. We see that you can witness power in verse 19.
First: let’s see signs of life. What could be for this church is more than we can ask or imagine but first we need to ask, ‘who is the church? Who is this church?’ We identify the church by signs of life.
The church is the people of life. The rest of the world is dead in sin. The church has life. We see this life in verse 15, “ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints.”
Those are two signs of life—faith in Jesus and love for all the saints. If you want to take the pulse of a church, you don’t focus on demographics, you don’t focus on the personality of the pastor, you focus on the people—do they have demonstrable faith in Jesus? Do they show love for all the saints?
Faith in the Lord Jesus is a sign of life. Do you believe Jesus is the Christ sent by God the Father to save your soiled self back from wrath? Do you believe that Jesus is who he says he is? Do you believe what Jesus says about you, what Jesus says about the world, what Jesus says about his Father, what Jesus says about the future? Do you believe in the Son of God? If so that’s a sign of life.
Paul’s second test of spiritual life was love for the saints. Do you love the brothers and sisters in this church? Do you have a sense of that family connection? Do you want to be patient with them, kind with them, to keep no records of wrong with them, to rejoice when they rejoice, to mourn when they mourn? Do you love these people around you? Some of them require patience but so do you and so do I. Do you seek the good of these people and work for their good?
If so, if you have faith in Jesus and if you love the church, then you are ready to consider what could be for this church. If not, you are not ready to consider what could be for this church. You can’t imagine what the life of this church could look like because you don’t have life yourself yet.
Ask the Father for life. Tell the Father what He already knows—you don’t have life; you haven’t been born from above. Tell Him that when you try to live like Christ, you try under your own power and you wind up in moralism or in lawlessness. He knows. Tell Him that you know too and that you are sorry and that you want life. You want to be born again. Then you can consider what could be for this church.
What could be for this church is…we could know God better. That’s our second point: knowing God better.
Paul prayed that these men, women, and children who were alive to God, who had faith in Jesus, who loved the church, Paul prayed that these Christians would know God better. 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, so that you may know Him better.”
The Ephesians knew God, but Paul prayed that they would know Him better. Knowing God better is the deepest need of any church. Find any church in Inwood or Rock Valley or Sioux Falls and their deepest need is not finances, it is not momentum, it is not leadership ability. Their deepest need is to know God better.
This isn’t a plea for mere information about God—‘well, let me tell you for the eighty-third time that God is exists.’ This is a plea for increased intimacy with God.
If you are married, do you want to know your spouse in a deeper way? Do you long for closer intimacy? Or what about your best friend? Do you want to know and be known? That’s the base-line of what we are talking about with knowing God.
People too often settle for knowledge about God rather than knowing God. Blaise Pascal had settled for knowledge about God. Pascal was a mathematical genius who lived in the 17thcentury. By the age of 19, he invented his own calculator. The man invented a calculator in the 1600’s and he was also a philosophical genius. He knew truths about God and so he thought he knew God.
Then God met him on November 23, 1654. Late that night, Pascal was getting ready for bed and God met him. Pascal wasn’t met by an idea. He was met by a Person. For two hours, Pascal was overcome by the Spirit of God and for the first time He knew God. He experienced what Paul prayed for the Ephesians, I pray that He “may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.”
As soon as it was finished, at half past midnight, Pascal wrote down all the thoughts that were echoing in his head. He wrote, “Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the learned. Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.” Philosophers could only demonstrate that God exists. They didn’t know Him like Pascal now knew Him. The learned just knew about Him. They didn’t know Him with, “certitude, feeling, joy, and peace.” I wonder, do you know Him that way?
Pascal continued, “God of Jesus Christ. My God and your God. Your God will be my God. Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God. He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel. Grandeur of the human soul. Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. I have departed from him: ‘They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.’ My God, will you leave me? Let me not be separated from him forever. This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified. Let me never be separated from him. He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospels. Renunciation, total and sweet. Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director. Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on the earth. May I not forget your words. Amen.”
Pascal wrote those words on a piece of paper and then sewed that piece of paper into the inside of his jacket which he wore until his death. He knew God and he wanted to know God better.
If you don’t want that, if you don’t want to know God better, I’m sorry but you don’t have life. You are not born again. If you do know Him, you want to know Him better.
That’s my prayer for you, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.”
Do you want to know God better? Do you read His word? That’s where He speaks to you. Do you pray? That’s where you speak to Him. Do you meet Him here in worship or do you wish all this could be over quicker so that you can leave and get on with your real life? Do you come here just to leave?
What could be for Inwood CRC if the chief ambition of every man here, every woman here, every child here was to know God better? There is nothing keeping us from doing that other than sin. You could know God better.
And there could be even more. We see that in our third point: having hope. Paul’s prayer continued in 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.”
If you consider yourself a Christian, are you hope-filled? Do you have certainty about what will occur? Biblical hope is no wish. Biblical hope is a certainty of what will occur. Paul was praying that these men, women, and children, set apart from the world for Christ, would anchor their souls to future certainties revealed by God.
People without God have no certainties for the future and their best guesses of what lies ahead are usually pretty grim. Subscribers of the American dream have little reason for hope; they have little reason to believe that their children will, in fact, enjoy a better standard living than they enjoy. The man of the world has no reason to assume that he will have health or wealth twenty years from now. In fact, he has only one certainty for the future and he rarely considers it. He will die. He might be enjoying a relaxing time in his hammock this afternoon but that doesn’t change the fact that he is going to die one day. If he considered this certainty, he couldn’t enjoy that time in the hammock today and so he doesn’t consider the fact he will die. He crowds it out of his mind. He hides from the one thing he knows will happen. He is, as Paul tells the Ephesians, “without hope and without God in the world.”
The Christian has hope. She has certainty for the future. She knows that her future consists of new creation. No matter what happens in this life, she will enjoy something better than Eden in the next life. She doesn’t need to avoid thinking about death. For her, even death has become a gateway to eternal life, as the Catechism puts it.
The Christian knows that her deepest problems will soon be dwelt with by someone far more capable than herself. She will be utterly transformed. The world wonders if genuine change is possible. The Christian knows it is possible. She has tasted transformation and she is certain that her transformation will soon be complete. She will never again sin. She will never again dishonor her God and so dishonor herself. She will forever love others with the love God has shown her. She has the certainty that until she reaches the new creation, goodness and mercy will follow her every day of her life. She has the certainty that until she meets God face to face, nothing will separate her from the love of Christ.
Her hope continues in the rest of verse 18. The Christian also has the hope of knowing that who she is will be made clear. She, along with all God’s people, will be revealed as God’s inheritance. Look at verse 18, “the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.” This isn’t about our inheritance in God. This is about God’s inheritance in us.
The church is God’s inheritance, God’s treasured possession. We are the apple of His eye as Scripture makes clear. “Keep me as the apple of your eye,” prayed David. “Whoever touches you touches the apple of God’s eye,” said Zechariah. We are God’s prize possession. We are His inheritance. We are cherished.
In this life, the world, the flesh, and the devil are quite skilled at convincing you that you most certainly are not cherished. Your flesh will puff you up with pride and then will pop you so that you feel like the biggest failure ever. The world will seduce you with flattering words until it enslaves you and then you will find out what it really thinks about you. Satan loves to tell you how hopeless you are.
The man stuck between the world, the flesh, and the devil has no reason for hope. He has an eternity of feeling bad about himself ahead of him. The Christian has hope. He has every reason to believe he is the apple of God’s eye. He is God’s inheritance. He is God’s treasured possession.
If you are a Christian, my guess is that you forget that you are God’s inheritance. That’s my guess because I know my heart and I regularly forget. I often think of myself not in terms of God’s word but in terms set by the world, the flesh, and the devil. One day I won’t. One day I will be so very certain that I am God’s inheritance, that I am the apple of God’s eye. One day thinking of myself as anything less will be utterly laughable, like imagining myself as a duckbilled platypus.
Now imagine if every member of this church was more convinced of this a year from now than we are today. ‘I am part of God’s inheritance. I am treasured.’ Imagine this was more a part of what rattles around in our heads. Imagine how much more attractive our lives would be in this community where so many people think of themselves in the categories of the world, the flesh, and the devil—failures, disappointments, hopeless.
Imagine if everyone of us was filled not with anxiety but with certainty for the future, that goodness and mercy would follow us all the days of our lives and that we would dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Imagine how very confident, not self-confident, but confident in God, we would be.
I pray that for you. I pray that for us. “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.”
And there could be even more. We see that in our final point: witnessing power. Paul prayed that the Ephesians’ eyes might be opened so they might know God’s, “incomparably great power for us who believe.”
Christianity without power is a weak, sickly thing. It becomes a tradition that we must keep alive. It becomes a mere lifestyle that we have chosen to live. It becomes just a way of seeing the world that we grew up with and feel obliged to continue. Christianity without power can’t evangelize because it isn’t attractive and it isn’t powerful. It’s can do anything for anyone.
That’s not genuine Christianity. Christianity has power. “For the kingdom of God,” said Paul, “is not a matter of talk but of power.”
The power of the Spirit came upon twelve men at the Pentecost feast and that day 3,000 were added to the church. A short time later, the Spirit worked again and 2,000 more believed. From 12 to 5,000 in maybe a week or two. In the course of decades, the Roman empire felt threatened enough to persecute the church. In the course of a couple centuries, the Roman empire surrendered to the church and the church had never fired a shot. “I pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened so you may know… His incomparably great power for us who believe.”
If you think church is weak, if you think church is sickly, if you think this is lame, I pray that you are given eyes to see. What could be is more than we can ask or imagine.
If you think very small thoughts of God, I pray that you are given eyes to see. I pray that You are given eyes to see “His incomparably great power for us who believe.” If your thoughts about this church are determined by what I can do, or what the elders can do, or what our music can do, or our finances can do, you are thinking too small. You aren’t considering “His incomparably great power for us who believe.”
Some churches spend so much energy and effort trying to do it themselves. ‘How can we manufacture enough great experiences to keep our young people?’ What we can do is too small. Young people need Jesus. They need to encounter the power of the Spirit. They must be part of “His incomparably great power for us who believe.” Is that what you young people want?
Some churches are unwilling to confront sin because they don’t believe the Spirit can convict sin and bring about repentance. They think too small. They look the other way at the sins that occur in the church, in their own families, and start casting stones at sins out there. They don’t own up to the sexual immortality in their own midst. They condemn what they consider more extreme until it makes its way into their families and then they look the other way. Some even condemn anyone who calls their child, their spouse, or their self to repentance. A church that will not confront sin knowing that the Spirit can convict and give life to the sinner does not trust in, “His incomparably great power for us who believe.”
This power is the power to transform. That power is more than we can ask or imagine. “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” This power transforms us and people with problems like ours.
The Spirit’s incomparably great power isn’t on display to satisfy our desire to be impressed. This power comes to transform. That’s the power on display in the rest of this letter to the Ephesians. That’s the power that enables these Ephesians from diverse backgrounds who would never unify around anything to be lockstep in Christ. That’s the power that enables husbands to lay down their lives for their wives and for wives to honor and follow the lead of their husbands. That’s the power that enables you children to obey dad and mom. That’s the power that you put on as the armor of God to stand against the schemes of the devil.
That’s the power we need as a church. That’s the power we need as families. That’s the power we need as Christians.
Do you want to witness that power at work in this church? If so, our next step as a church is clear. It is right in this passage. How did Paul think this could happen for the Ephesians? What was his plan? How was he going to make this knowing God better, living hope, and immeasurable power happen? What did Paul do in hopes that the Ephesians would know God better, have hope, and witness power? What did Paul do? I’m going to give you time to look at the text. What did Paul do? Paul prayed. “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit.”
What could be for this church, for this community of disciples in Inwood, is more than you can ask or imagine, but without prayer, the future of this church is the future of any church without prayer, without knowing Him better, without hope, without power and that future is decay and death.
Pray. Pray that you would know Him better, that you would have certain hope for the future, that you would witness the power of transformation. Pray that for your children. Pray that for your elders. Elders, pray that for your household of faith. Pray that as we begin together. Pray that this week. Open this passage, read and pray for us.
Pray that God would act because unless He acts, we are really doing nothing together. Christ was clear, “without me you can do nothing.” I have no interest in doing nothing and I hope that’s true for you too. I want immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine. Do you? Pray.
“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”