Ephesians 1:15-23
Today is part two, and I’ve titled this message Three Prayers for a Healthy Church. We are spending the summer and fall three months studying Ephesians. It’s 13 Sundays, I believe. So I’ve broken the book up into 13 sections, which seem to make sense. And let me real quickly just give you a little overview and a little bit of repetition from last week just to set the stage. The theme of the book of Ephesians is a letter written to a church in Ephesus and believers in Ephesus. And the theme of that book, among many, is that the gospel of Jesus will radically transform every part of your life. So what that means, amen. Yeah, let’s give an amen there. Ready?
Amen. The gospel of Jesus, that is knowing the love of God, receiving the love of God, it will radically transform every part of your life. And we looked last week, the title of the message was The Blessed Return Blessing. And very simply, that means that we looked at it as a foundation, as a beginning of this letter. Paul starts and he just tells the church, these are all these incredible things that have been done to you as a son and daughter of God. And he says, blessed be God for doing all these things. We looked at 14 verses. And at the end of those 14 verses, he again says, praise be to God. So we just talked about that our walk in Christ, it starts in praise. It starts in receiving and then returning praise to God.
And I liken it to a baseball game. Knowing who you are in Christ does a lot for you. If you were playing baseball or softball and they just threw you out in the field and you didn’t know what position you were going to play, you probably, you guys wouldn’t do very well. But if you knew, hey, I’m supposed to be in third base or I’m supposed to be an outfielder, I’m the pitcher, you would know. And in the same way, if we know who we are, if we know our position, our standing in the eyes of God, and what does it mean to be a Christian, it really is a strong foundation that we can live on. So just real quick before we pray and read the passage for today, I want to give a little bit of background. And this is the last time I’m going to do this. I did it last week, and I want to do it again today, just in case you missed last week. But this letter, as I said, was written to a specific church in Ephesus and random believers also in Ephesus.
Ephesus, we have a map here. It was a Roman city 2,000 years ago where modern-day Turkey is. It was right on the coasts there of the Aegean Sea. So if you look there in the very center, and just for reference, you can see in the bottom right Jerusalem. So that gives you an idea. That’s where everything went down. Most of the stuff that went down in the Gospels was in that general southern eastern area on the map there of Jerusalem. But Ephesus is way up around the corner in Asia. And modern-day Turkey, as I said, and we have another map that just shows a reconstruction of the city based on archaeological ruins. And, you know, it’s really interesting to me because, like, it was right on a… These are small towns, by the way, like, way smaller than what we think of, like, as a town.
But on the left, you’ll see the sea there. So, you know, they had ports that would back right up to that. And then a mound and then a temple. We talked about the worship of Diana and Artemis and other Greek pagan gods. And Paul went there and spent several years in Acts chapter 19 and 20 planting, starting a church. And many wonderful things happened in Acts 19 and 20. The Spirit came very powerfully on a small group. Miracles began happening. There was preaching. Many were converted.
And many that were involved in just very evil demonic worship of other gods came and they repented and turned their lives to Jesus. And then they began to just burn all their paraphernalia from their past life and their past worship, which caused quite a stir because those guys were making the modern-day equivalent as millions of dollars off of selling these magic items, books, idols, and things. And so when these people renounced that and came to faith in Jesus, they said, we’re burning all this, and we’re not going to the idol store every Friday anymore. And it caused a ruckus because that was a big part of the economy, was to feed that idolatrous religion. So because of that, there was a huge riot, and Paul and his companions were manhandled, and all sorts of persecution came upon the church because they fought against this evil thing that was happening in this city.
Later on, Paul put Timothy in charge of the church of Ephesus. And interestingly, I just finished 1 Timothy in my quiet time, and those two books really are tangential in a sense to this book because Paul mentions Ephesus in the books of Timothy. So he actually mentions when he’s writing to Timothy about what’s happening in Ephesus and what we’re going to do for Ephesus. So just a lot of neat history there. And another interesting thing, I don’t know if I mentioned this last week, but tradition says, you might remember, who became Mary, the mother of Jesus? Do you remember who became her caretaker?
John, the disciple. And so tradition says that John and Mary together, once Joseph died, you know, Mary’s husband, moved to Ephesus and were part of that church. So we don’t know if that’s true, but tradition says that that’s where Mary was also. Wouldn’t that be neat to have Mary in your church? Gosh, like if I could have one person there, I think I’d have Mary the mother of Jesus. Go to Ephesus and meet Mary. Like that would get people there, right? I mean, wow. And John too, like the guy that laid his head on Jesus, you know, breast and, you know, was so close to him. And then later on, as we’ll talk about in a moment, Jesus does speak to John
specifically in the book of Revelation several decades later about the church of Ephesus, which we’re going to talk about in a moment. So Paul’s writing this letter from prison, and this morning we’re going to look at a short passage, verses 15 through 23, and I’ve titled it Three Prayers for a Healthy Church. And all that is happening in this passage is Paul says, Hey, church, I’m praying this for you. And then he tells them when he’s praying. And I would just say, if there is anything a church can pray to be in the will of God, filled with the Spirit under the kingdom of Jesus Christ, if there’s anything, wouldn’t it be great to know what the apostle that started that church felt inspired by the Spirit to pray?
And so we’re going to look at those prayers today. There’s three of them. And seek those things in faith is our prayer as well. So with that as a little bit of a long intro, let’s pray. We’re going to read the passage and look at those three prayers. You ready? All right, let’s pray. Father, we thank you for today. Spirit of God, we invite you to come and speak and teach us.
Lord, whatever you want to do in each of our lives, we welcome you to do it.
and we make space for you now.
I pray that you would draw us back
to the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
Guard us from losing our first love.
Father, may this not be an intellectual the next 30 minutes or so. We ask you to move in our hearts. We ask you to quicken and sober us to spiritual things.
And we ask that as we read and think about these prayers, that they would even become our prayers. And you would begin to work through the power of your spirit in this church and in each of our lives that these things would happen and they would bear fruit and we would be transformed more and more. That’s what we want, Lord. We’re just so attracted to your goodness and holiness. We love to sing to you and read and think about you.
So come and visit us this morning.
And I do pray as we sang about and as we’re about to read that you would open the eyes of our heart
and let us see.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. All right. Ephesians 1, 15 to 23. I’m going to read it. 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, don’t 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.
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing 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. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that’s named, not only in this age, but in the one that is to come, he put all things in subjection under his feet.
He gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So, I love just starting here, before we look at these three prayers, I love in verse 15, and you just have to kind of put yourself in this position, and maybe if you’ve been far away on a deployment with the military, or maybe if you’ve served jail or prison time, you can relate to these things. But in verse 15, again, he’s writing this letter from prison. It’s about 10 years after he started the church. So 10 years removed from his time with these people. And there’s just this little phrase here in verse 15. He says, I heard, having heard. And that’s just such a beautiful thing, again, as we think about this and just taking it out of the intellectual plane and just realizing these were real people that dearly loved each other, that went through horrible persecutions together. Now Paul is in prison for his work for Jesus, for his work for the church. The church is still there. It’s still thriving. There’s still things happening. And he’s writing them a letter from prison. And he says, I heard these things about you. I heard about what’s happening. And just to, again, just bring us into the realness of Paul hearing about it and then writing them a letter. And these are real people that loved each other. And then he goes into these things. And I would say these are really foundational things for our faith and for what church means. And three prayers, and I’m going to share them with you and then talk about each one in a little more detail.
And it’s a little scary here because he says, these are three things I’m praying for you. And a church can have these things. But here’s the thing, guys, a church can also not have these things, which is terrifying to me. So like, we’re looking at these and we’re like, yeah, I want number one. I want number two. I want number three. But the reality is he’s praying for it because there is the possibility that a church could exist without these things. And I just, I think that’s a horrible thing. And unfortunately, it is much of what happens and it’s the temptation for each of us. Prayer number one is that we would know God closely.
If that’s not in a church, can you imagine a church full of people that are unfamiliar with God?
Maybe that’s this church. Maybe it’s me and you. It’s a real thing to think about. See, a church can be full of people that don’t know God closely.
And it’s all fake. It’s all play and pretend. So that’s prayer number one is that we know God closely. Prayer number two is that we’d have spiritual awareness.
A church cannot have spiritual awareness. A church can be steeped only in what is natural and worldly. It’s very possible. And then his third prayer is that we’d be focused on the supremacy of Jesus Christ. And again, conversely, a church can be not focused. You know what a church can be focused on? Money, numbers, buildings, programs, and looking good. Religion. And that is not church. And Paul gives us these prayers.
He says, this is what I pray for you, that you would know God, that you’d have spiritual discernment, and that you’ll be focused absolutely on the greatness and the supremacy of Jesus.
I’m going to skip the pictures, the three pictures, for the sake of time. So let’s look closer at these three prayers. The first one is that we would know God closely. In verse 17, I’m going to read it to you again. That the God of our, well, in making mention of you in my prayers, verse 16, so he’s praying. He’s praying, this is verse 17, this is the first pray. That, I’m praying that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of the Lord, He will give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. So he’s saying, God, give Christy and give Zach and give Juan and give Vanessa. Give them wisdom and give them revelation that they would know God.
They would know God. Now, the Greek word here is a very interesting one. It’s a word, epigonosko. And it doesn’t just mean knowledge. If you look into the roots of it, and I’m not going to spend a lot of time for the sake of time, but it’s a fascinating word. What it literally means is to know upon a mark. In other words, to recognize. In other words, that there is a sense of I’m acquainted with this person, that there’s a sense of familiarity. It’s a deep knowing somebody, not knowing about them. So for example, there’s a lot of people in our lives that we know about, okay?
We know about a lot of people, but we don’t know that person. So I’ll use myself as an example. You guys, you know about me. You know I’m tall, I have a gray beard, I have blonde hair, I have a wife. But some of you don’t really know much more than that, and that’s okay because we just haven’t gotten to know each other yet. But here’s some questions. This is when it goes like, do you know Jeff? Like, do you know about Jeff or do you know Jeff? Do you know how many kids I have? Most people in this room probably know that I have a number of children.
But do you know how many? Do you know their names? Do you know their middle names? Do you know my favorite color?
Do you know my favorite superhero?
Do you know what I like to cook when I’m camping? Do you know where I was born? and when I was born. And these are all just ideas I’m sharing with you because some of you guys know those things about me and other you guys don’t. And it’s not a good or bad thing. It’s just all about recognition. It’s about familiarity. It’s about I know something. I could tell you some things about this person. And when we think about that, I want to just making this contrast here that you can know about somebody, but it doesn’t mean you know them. And now we’re talking about the knowledge of God. You can know about God, but it doesn’t mean you know God. And if the power of God could come at any moment in this message, Lord, I pray it would come right now and it would pierce through us like a two-edged sword that cuts right between the thoughts and intentions of the heart and goes right to our spirit man and woman. Because guys, the church is full of people, and this is my temptation and yours too. I don’t care how sweet worship was, and it was sweet, but we can be people that know a lot about God, but are unfamiliar with God himself. And do you remember Jesus warning the multitudes of this? And he said, many will come to me in that day, and they’ll say, Lord, I healed in your name, and I cast out demons in your name, and I went to church, and I figured out how to pay tithe on PayPal. And you remember what he says? It’s terrifying. Depart from me, because I never knew you. You knew about me, but you never knew me. And there are a lot of seasoned Christians that have replaced intimacy with God for service and obligation and routine.
Let me terrify you with a thought. 30 years or so after this letter was written that we just read, John the disciple is on the island of Patmos. Jesus appears to him. He says, write down what I’m sending you. I have a letter. I have a message for seven churches in Asia Minor. And he goes through Pergamum and Thyatira and Laodicea, and he comes to Ephesus. And here’s what he says about Ephesus. You guys have done a lot of good things, but you left your first love. Guys, all it took, it took one generation after this prayer for the church to completely lose what Paul was even asking for. And if that can happen to them, it can happen to you and me. It is so important that we are sober and aware of this thing, and we don’t play a game with it. It could happen to us too.
We can exchange knowing God for religious duty, rules, and service. And so knowing God is something that I just, before we move on to the next prayer, I want to encourage you. I often talk about quiet times. I’ve been advocating this for 35 years as a believer, that we seek the Lord. Because it’s like, yeah, I want to know God. I’m not going to know about God. That sounds great, Jeff. I’m going to know about God. Well, how are you going to do it? Well, there’s just one way, and you have to become familiar with God.
And the way to do that is spend time with him. So the cheesy Christian virtue I was taught in 1990, daily quiet time, is one of the most impactful, best, and nourishing things you can do for your spirit. And I want to just spend just a second talking about that. If you’re not doing it, I want to encourage you to make the daily practice. Do it in the morning, okay? If you don’t do it, just start with 15 minutes. Here’s my goals. Before I look at my phone, I want to tell God I love him. It’s kind of cheesy.
It’s what I do. It’s a great thing, too. I wake up, and before I start thinking about my phone, the weather, the emails, the texts, the plans, all the so important things, and I don’t even want to acknowledge God. It used to be that I would want to acknowledge God, but I’ve decided that’s a low goal. My goal used to be I’m going to acknowledge God before I acknowledge my phone. But I realized that’s bad. It’s just like when, you know, I get home and my cat runs to me because he wants me to pick him up and, like, you know, pet him. And, like, my kid runs to me because the Barbie’s broken. Or, you know, like, someone needs something, batteries, you know?
You know what I’m saying? Like, when did I become, you know, like a vending machine? And we treat God like a vending machine. So I’ve decided it’s a low goal that I’m just going to acknowledge God because I would just wake up and be like, oh, before I look at all my emails, Lord, come help me, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, man, you know what I really love? I love when my kid just runs up to me and before I get to put batteries in the Godzilla toy, my kid just jumps in my lap and says, Daddy, see, that’s better.
And you were not created to get batteries from God or fulfill a list of things. You’re created to love him and know him and be loved by him. So starting there, you know, a great goal if you’re new at this is take 15 minutes in the morning
and maybe just read a chapter of the Bible and take a pencil. I’m a big advocate of a physical Bible because you can take notes and you can write things. I know you can do that on your phone too, but I’m going to tell you, at least 10% of the time when you grab that phone with good intentions to find God, you’re going to end up on Twitter. Am I lying? Probably more like 20%, 30%, maybe higher. So that’s why I separate my phone and my electronics from my time with God. I pick up a book. I can write in it. You can see I have notes and highlighting. And I would just say that you can do that too. And it kind of becomes your prayer journal. 15 minutes or so. Because here’s the thing, guys. I heard this said recently, and it just was written on my heart. You have to spend your morning being defined by God’s love. Otherwise, you will spend the entire day looking for something to define you. Let me say that again. It’s the first thing you do in the morning. Spend that time being defined by God’s love, because if you don’t, you will spend the whole day asking the question, Am I loved? Am I okay? Do I matter? Am I doing good enough? Well enough? You know what I’m saying?
But if we start with being saturated in the presence of God, and you don’t have to be a pastor to do this. I did this for nine years before I was a pastor. And so you don’t have to be like a vocational Christian to do this. This is your, in fact, I would even, I’m going to tell you, be honest right now. It’s easier when you’re not a vocational clergy person because you don’t have to think about all the other stuff you have to do to serve people. It’s very different. And so, I’m so thankful that I, you know, made that a pattern before I became a Christian or before I became a minister. But spend the morning being defined by God’s love. And yeah, I’m just going to spend a little time, more time here and less on the other stuff just because I feel like it’s what’s important. Don’t worry, we’re going to get out for lunch. You know, I’m often asked what helps me with pastoral longevity because I’ve been a pastor now for 26 years. And I tell people the same thing all the time. I say 5% of it was my training. I went to a very, very good school.
5% of it is my training. About 45% of it is my, the experience I’ve logged over 26 years of doing this. It helps me figure out how to do this. So 5% training, 45% experience, easily 50% of what keeps me going as a pastor and Christian is my quiet times. Easily 50%. Probably 51 or more. So I would just say the biggest component of what helps me stay true to the Lord is not my training, it’s not seminary classes, it’s not 26 years that I’ve logged doing this. It is time alone, wasted on God. It’s not wasted, but we think it is. That’s why we don’t do it. We think, why would I spend 20 minutes when I can go be productive?
And I was sitting on my porch the other day with my guitar. It was hot. Y’all been outside lately? Holy moly. Yeah, I don’t know if it’s like, I don’t know why, but I go out there and I have this little fan. And I was just, I was singing, this was a couple weeks ago, and I was noticing the birds were singing so much. They were singing. They were singing so much. You ever listen to birds? They just sing. They keep on singing. And then I was like, I was like looking at these birds. I’m like, is he calling for a mate? Is he hungry? Is he just happy up there? He’d like fly over here. We have mockingbirds and bluebirds and cardinals, and we have some falcons that fly over. And I was just watching these birds, and then I go in and get a drink, and I come back out, and those birds are still singing. And I go in, and we take a walk, and we go on our back porch as the evening is setting at 7 or 7.30, and guess what? They’re still singing. And it just occurred to me that, like, we whistle while we work, right? But birds work while they whistle.
See, for the bird, the first thing a bird does is not work. It sings first, and it works second. The work just happens as it’s just going about its day singing. And I was thinking about this, and I was thinking about how Jesus tells us to consider the birds. They don’t worry.
Everything seems to be taking care of them. The Father feeds them. And I just was thinking, like, maybe there’s something in that Matthew 6 to us that, like, we were created to sing and love God first. and then work is the byproduct of that. And maybe there’s like a letting go that we could just, a freedom we could have as people and realize you weren’t made, guys. You weren’t made to do your job. Okay, you’re doing your job and he gave you that.
We’re gonna look at that next week. We are his craftsmanship and we’re created for good works in Christ. But that’s not who you are. Who you are is a person God loves and you’re created to know God. And so Paul’s prayer here is that we would know God, not serve him, not bear fruit for him. Those are all important things, but that we would know God.
And I think that’s an invitation to us. I’m going to move a little faster. Prayer number two, I mean, I could just talk about this the whole time, but I have a schedule. I think you get it.
Listen to the birds and think about it. Prayer two is that we would have spiritual awareness. In verse 18 and 19, he mentions opening the eyes of our heart. I’m going to read it to you again. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, the riches of his glory, of his inheritance of the saints, and the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe.
We’ll stop there. So this prayer is that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened. If you’re cool and young, you’d say, I got lit up, right? Like you can say that now. It’s good theology. I got lit up by the Spirit of God. He’s praying that we would be enlightened, implying that there is darkness, implying that there is darkness, implying that as you and I try to navigate the world, teenagers, you’re in school, you’re walking through the halls, you’re listening to the stories, you’re seeing the T-shirts, you’re hearing what they’re telling you.
You are just like us adults. You’re walking through this place that there’s a lot of hope and beauty there, and there’s a ton of darkness. Anytime we get on the Internet, we’re navigating just this murky black darkness. Like it’s there. It’s everywhere. It’s this present darkness. And Paul is praying for the church and for the Christian that our eyes would be open, that the eyes of our heart, not the eyes of our bodies, but the eyes of our heart, our spirit person would become aware of what’s in front of us and the supernatural at work in our lives, and then that we would choose.
Because here’s what happens, guys. We get so bogged down by how hard life is and all the distractions and all the wonderful foods all around us and all the things we can do. What happens is we just start living natural lives. And what Paul’s telling them is, I’m praying that your eyes would be open to these incredible things, the riches of his glory and the hope of his calling and his power. Guys, his power that can work you and you really can walk free from sin. Not always, and we’re sinners, but like you have the power, you have the capacity to be filled with the spirit and walk a different kind of life than you used to and everyone else in the world around you.
We’re called to be heavenly people. So his prayer is open their eyes, Lord. Open the eyes of the church. They can see they’re a city on a hill. They can see that with the power of God in us, we’re unstoppable. Like the devil can’t defeat you. He can’t defeat you if Jesus is in you, and if you’re accessing his power and calling on him. And so we have this tendency to be asleep instead, for our eyes to be closed. Keith Green, one of my all-time favorites, wrote this in his song, Asleep in the Light. Oh, bless me, Lord. Bless me, Lord. You know, it’s all I ever hear. No one aches, no one hurts, No one even sheds one tear.
But he cries, he weeps, he bleeds, and he cares for your needs. And you just lay back and keep soaking it in. The world is sleeping in the dark that the church just can’t fight because it’s asleep in the light. How can you be so dead when you’ve been so well fed? Jesus rose from the grave. You can’t even get out of bed.
And so Paul is praying that our eyes would be opened to the spiritual reality, that we would wake up, that we would sober up, and that these things available to us that I believe are always drawing us, we would open our eyes to. I’ve been reading some Nathaniel Hawthorne and a short little story about his life. He’s a famous writer. You might have read his most famous book. Does anyone remember it? Scarlett. Yeah, very good. and he went through a horrible bout of pneumonia. And just a short paragraph for you. For Nathaniel Hawthorne, this is talking about the waking up.
It took a serious illness and confrontation with death to blast him out of his ego. He says this, My fit of illness had been an avenue between two existences, the low-arched and darksome doorway through which I crept out of a life of old conventionalisms on my hands and knees, as it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that lay beyond. In this respect, it was like death, and so, with death too, it was good to have gone through. No otherwise could I have rid myself a thousand follies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and other such worldly dust as inevitably settles upon the crowd on the broad highway.
Powerful words. He went through an experience that caused him to face his own mortality, And in the process, he realized, I want to wake up to something else. I am covered with the dust on the broad highway, and I am called to be on something different, a narrow road. So this is, we were not made, and if this confronts you, let it. We were not made to wallow in sin.
Guys, we were not made to wallow in sin. You were not made to be a lazy, unproductive person. that is just full and satiated with the things of the world and the pleasures of the world. We were made with this appetite, spiritual appetite, that our eyes would be opened and we’d be drawn to the heavenly. You know, yesterday was so beautiful at the dry goods pantry. We were getting, you know, conversations with people. And at one point, there were some little kids around. And they were over by the library. So I went over.
There were little kids, like five years old. There was four of them. One grandma had brought them. And we went over, and they were kind of playing and looking at the books. And I said, would you guys like a book? And they’re like, yes. So I went and I found some kids’ books. And I picked out a book for each kid, and I gave each one a book. And they looked. I was like, you can take that home.
And then the grandma came over, and she walked up, and she said, could you pray for this little one? And it was this little beautiful girl with the best hair. And she had this little white dress on covered with strawberries.
And I guess she thought I was a spiritual person or something. Because she’s like, can you pray? She’s about to have her third heart surgery.
And what an honor it was to… Kelsey and I prayed and just laid hands on her and just prayed for healing and for power and wisdom. And the sincerity of that little family in that little 20-second moment, and here’s what they’re saying. They’re saying, we need hope and we need power beyond us. Would you, would you, this is a place where it seems we could get that. Would you help us? And it was so beautiful just to feel like we’re going from the natural, giving out soap. And now, like, we set the table for these people through April’s hard work. And now we get to bring the supernatural and lay it right on top of someone’s tragedy and be part of it. So opening our eyes.
Last in conclusion, the last prayer, he ends this passage with a focus on the supremacy of Jesus. A focus on the supremacy of Jesus. Let me read it to you again and then just a few comments. He seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. This is who we serve, guys. This is why we come to church. This is why we seek the Lord in the morning before work and before our phone. Because he’s far above all rule, all authority, all power, all dominion. He’s over every name that’s named. Not only those in this age, but in every age to come.
And he put everything, all things in subjection under his feet. And he gave him his head over everything to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. This focus on this drawing to the supremacy of Jesus.
And there’s just something final I want to say to us. And that is that I think Paul’s reminding them that the power available to them, and I’ll just say now in 2026, the power available to you and I in whatever your battle is, guys. Some of us in this room, you’re in a strong battle. with lust and pornography right now. Some of us right now are in a strong temptation into sexual sin and adultery. Some of us in this church are in a strong, strong addiction to some sort of substance. Maybe it’s alcohol or some sort of drug that you need to get you by.
Some of us in this room are, you’re just in a strong temptation to just eating
or just wanting things. You’re in a strong, like your temptation is materials. Some of us are in a super strong temptation to just idleness and laziness, just letting the things of the world just completely fill our lives. And I can relate to all those things. Every one of them I can relate to. And most of us in this room can too. And in the midst of that, guys, in the midst of that, Paul is, he’s telling the people, know God and open the eyes of your heart that you would see and have spiritual sermon and place Jesus Christ as the supremacy, Be all-powerful, untouchable, unstoppable, king of everything.
He is your resource. He’s your master and your lover and your friend, and he’s there. He’s right there. Jesus said in Matthew 28, I will never leave you. And if you would grope, as it says in Acts 17, if we would grope for him and long for him, he’s even in the breath we breathe. He’s so available to us. that power that raised Jesus from the dead, it’s available now. For those of us that will punch through the veil of the natural, through the veil of the worldly distractions and say, I want you more than anything.
I recognize I was made for this. I wasn’t made for all this other stuff. And I think God would even say to us, like, this is for you today.
Focus on the supremacy of Jesus. I was real depressed the other day. I was praying, and I felt like I was just praying about some hard things that are happening. And I was like, Lord, you know, it’s just… And I just felt like the whispering voice of the Lord, and I felt him say this to me. I felt him say, well, the love of many has grown cold. And that’s why it is the way it is. And for me, it just kind of reframed. I thought, that is why it’s so hard right now. I mean, Jesus said that in the last days, the love of many will grow cold. And then I was reminded of the Lord’s love.
Well, mine won’t.
My love endures through everything. It’s unstoppable. You can’t measure it. And it will never stop pursuing you.
And the Ephesian church had some giants to fight, guys.
I mean, these guys came out of worship. In the worship of Artemis, there’s so many awful things they did. I’ve been studying this. It’s terrifying. One of the things they do for their worship is they bring in animals and set them on fire alive and let them run around the temple.
And these people needed a refocus on the supremacy of Jesus to live on the narrow way in spite of their past. And I don’t think today we’re any different. I mean, we’re not burning animals and doing that, but we are fighting devils and demons. You’re fighting for your marriage. You’re fighting for your singleness. You’re fighting for your purity. You’re fighting for your sanity. You’re fighting not to cave into depression and misery and fear.
And we need Christ because we are fighting giants. And I just want to end and just focus us on the story of the giants in the Old Testament. I was really feeling this as I was praying through this passage. Do you guys remember the story of the 12 spies that Joshua sent into the land? Who can tell just randomly like a little bit about that story? There were 12 spies. Excellent. And they were going into the land. Mike?
Yeah.
Yeah, they went to spy out the land. 10 came back with a negative report. Two came back with a positive report. Now, let’s think about the 10. What you got, Catherine?
They weren’t negative. They didn’t. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, the 10 had no faith. Do you remember what they said? They said, compared to them, we are like grasshoppers.
And so, and then what about the two? You remember the two? Joshua and Caleb. And what was their description of the situation?
Courageous.
Yeah. Yeah. You know what they were focused on? They were focused on the supremacy of the Christ they hadn’t met yet. They were focused on the supremacy of the one here that puts all things under his feet. I got a couple pictures for you.
This is Goliath. They say he was about 10’4″. That’s kind of scary, isn’t it?
That’s terrifying. Like, I’m going to fight you. I love this next picture. This is like a modern rendition of what a 10-foot giant would look like to a 6-foot person. Isn’t that terrifying? Would you want to fight that guy?
No. All right, thanks. We can lose the picture. Well, let me end and say this. we today like the church of Ephesians we are fighting giants they are in the land and you do not have the resources in and of yourself if you look at yourself you will realize the truth is you are just a grasshopper before that but you have access you have free access to the king of the universe who is above all rule and all power.
And you don’t have to pay money to get to him, guys. He’s there for us right now. And all we have to do is, and this is Paul’s prayer for them, is that they would come before him, focus, ask, and receive.
I wrote here, One day you’ll die. In that moment, you’ll be translated into eternity and face Jesus. He will not be small, petty, or begging for your attention or worship. Instead, he will be grand and glorious. You won’t even be able to stand in his presence. You’ll fall down as your soul has no capacity to witness his power and beauty. And in that moment, nothing on earth or from earth will matter at all. All that will matter is your gratitude and awe for being able to be in his presence who lights up the place that has no need of a son.
may we capture that now. That’s what happened in worship today. We began to capture the beauty of the Lord and nothing else mattered. Let’s pray. Guys, stand with me.
So Paul prays three things for this church, that they would know God, that they would have discernment, their eyes or their hearts would be opened to spiritual realities, and they would focus on the supremacy of Christ.
Hey, let’s pray that now. Lord, we ask that we would know you.
We ask that we would have the eyes of our heart enlightened to spiritual realities.
We ask that we could see, focus, and be drawn into the greatness of Jesus that will destroy and defeat any giant in our way.
So we just ask for you, God, to do these things in us. We ask that your power would come to your church
and you would give us these three things.
