Praying for Hope
April 16, 2023 • Tyler Burns • Ephesians 1:15–23
Audio Transcript:
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Good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens or youth and hospitality director here at Mosaic Boston. And whenever I get the chance to be up here, it is truly my honor and privilege to be able to deliver God's word to all of us today. So this week we're kind of in between series, and so the pastors gave me the opportunity to preach something that is on my heart and it's a message about hope. I'm calling it, Praying for Hope.
We're going to be spending most of our time in the text in Ephesians. And my wife and I recently had just gone through Ephesians, and so this is something I've been thinking about, been meditating on. But even before then, this idea that we're going to see and expound upon in this text is something that God has been working in my own heart, challenging me, growing me in, and I think it's something that will benefit the church as a whole. So we're going to see what does God mean? What does God call us to pray for? But what does it mean to pray for hope in our lives and in the church in general?
So before we get started, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. We are so thankful that we get to be here today to hear your word, to learn from you, to know you more. So Lord, we ask that in this time that you speak to us through your word, that you use me to proclaim the truth of your word for all of us. And you challenge us, you soften our hearts to see the reality of who you are and how you are working in our lives. So Lord, we thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Alrighty, we will be in Ephesians 1:15-23. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If not, you could follow along on the screens behind me, but I'll read the whole thing and then we'll get started.
So Ephesians 1:15 says this, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all."
This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, authoritative, infallible word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We're going to be spending our time in kind of three points today. The three points are actually one sentence and the third point of that sentence has three subpoints. So just to throw some chaos and difficulty into things. But the one sentence that I want you guys to take away from this is the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. And the reason why the church should do that is to have hope, to recognize riches, and to perceive power.
So that's what we're going to be spending our time in today. And so if you're like, "Wow, Tyler normally goes a long time with three points, and now He has three and three subpoints," I want to encourage you points one and two are on one page. So we'll get through those real quick. We'll spend most of the time on point number three. But point number one, the church, this is verse 15. Verse 15 says, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints..." Who is Paul addressing here? He is addressing the church.
Well, he's clarifying how he knows it's the church that he's speaking to. It's the people that have faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints. This is the very basics, the very fundamental definition of the church. It's those, it's the people who have faith in the Lord Jesus and love towards all the saints.
Now, a couple clarifying things. I love that it says, Lord Jesus, because I think oftentimes in my mind I focus on savior Jesus, which is good. Jesus is savior. I have faith in Jesus as my savior. Which is what we talked about last week with Easter, and we talk about every week at Mosaic, that Jesus came and died to save us from our sins and raised to life three days later to prove that He had the power to do it, to save us from our sins. We have faith in that.
But He's not just savior, He's also Lord. Lord is ruler. He is Lord. He has power. He has authority over our lives today and we trust in Him as our king. We have faith in Him as our Lord and Savior. That's a Christian. And naturally, when you do that, you love the saints. So let's clarify saints. If you're like me, I grew up in a Catholic Church, and so a saint is someone who did some really incredible work and then died, and so you get to be a saint.
But that's not what the word means. The word just means holy or set apart. Paul is talking about Christians. He's talking about the church. And so when we have faith in Jesus, naturally, we should love each other, we should care for each other. And so Paul is just being very clear at the start, he is addressing the church. He is talking to the church. And so everything that we're going to talk about now, he is addressing to Christians.
And so if you're here today, and you're not a Christian and you're like, "Well, why am I here?" Praise God that you're here. We're very thankful that you're here. We want you to be able to see a glimpse into what we talk about when we talk about church. We're not talking about a meeting on Sundays. We're not talking about a place that we go to do the thing we're supposed to do and get on. We're talking about a faith and love of Jesus Christ and a love for each other.
And what I would just ask you, humbly, in this time, if you are able to just pray and ask God, "If this is true, if you are real, if you are here, open my eyes to see you." Ask God that, "If this is true and what we are speaking about is true," ask Him to reveal himself to you. Because what we are going to see in this text is that God works powerfully in His church to help, to give hope, and to save His people.
Forgot to mention real quick, we have a motto, love Jesus simple, right? That's what this text is all about. That's why we have that motto, love Jesus simple. We love God, we love His people, and we love those who do not yet recognize that they're His people. We love the church. We have love for the saints. We love God and Jesus. Specifically Jesus, not just God in general, but we love Jesus Himself. So we have faith in Jesus. We love the saints. Simple, that's all we need. That's the foundation. That's the point. That's the root of all of that. We do. End of point one, nice job, nice and easy.
Point number two, the church should pray. And this is verses 16 and the beginning of 17. It says this, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory..." And we're going to pause there and leave you on a little bit of a cliffhanger.
But Paul starts saying, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers..." First thing, we cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. When we pray, thanksgiving needs to be a part of it. Whatever you are thankful for in this life, whenever something happens or you receive something or whatever, you're just reminded of something that you're thankful for, praise God for that thing. Literally, go to Him in prayer and praise Him. Thank Him for it. We cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer.
But specifically what Paul is thankful for is for the church, is for other believers, brothers and sisters in Christ. Christians, we are called to be thankful for each other, so thank you. I mean that very sincerely. You don't know how much this church has been an encouragement to me, been an encouragement to the staff, been an encouragement to the pastors, to each other, been able to support and help each other throughout the many years that this church has been here.
Thank you. I praise God and thank Him for you and your faithfulness to Him. And I mean that sincerely. Now, when we look at each other, do we sincerely feel that way? Let's feel that way. Let's be thankful for each other that God has blessed us with the ability to have these relationships with each other.
The next thing I want to point out is that Paul is very specific in who he is praying to and why he is praying to Him. This is the beginning of verse 17, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory...." So he's specific. Paul's not just talking to air. He's not just throwing out prayers to someone in general. He is praying to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's specific.
And then he throws it in and follows up with the Father of glory. Is this just some fancy phrasing that really religious people like to do so they sound nice when they pray in the letters read out loud to the church? No. What Paul is doing here is he's clarifying why He's praying and trusts this God that he's praying to. He's not just any God. He's not just any person. He's the Father of glory.
I was reading a commentary on this text and it was written by a guy named Francis Foulkes, who he didn't write many commentaries, but he did on Ephesians. But most of his works were about prayer. Most of the things he wrote was like how to pray. Why do we pray? What does it look like to pray? Things like that. And I thought that he would be a very helpful person to study in these texts.
And this is what he says about Paul's address of God. He says, "He is the Father to whom all glory belongs; for all the power and majesty revealed in creation, providence and redemption are His, and He the source. Such a thought of who God is gives to prayer a sense of awe and strengthens the faith in those who pray." Christians, we should strengthen our faith when we pray. It actually matters how we address God when we pray.
It doesn't mean that we have to say, "The Father of glory," that's not the point. For me personally, when I prayed, I said, "Heavenly Father," that's what I usually say. You don't have to say that either. But I say that, because I'm reminding myself, yeah, I'm praying to God who is in heaven. He is above all things. He rules. He reigns. That's who He is. But He's not just in heaven. He's a father. He's relational. He knows us. He cares for us. We can have relationship with Him.
And so I start, when I pray that way because I'm reminding myself, I'm speaking to the God who has a relationship with me, and He has power to do things. He has power to hear me. I trust He will hear me. I trust that He can act on what I'm asking of Him. I trust and grow in my awe and faith of Him. And so this isn't to say that's how we all need to pray, but what we all need to do is go to God in awe and reverence. Go to Him and prepare our hearts when we pray to say, yeah, I am speaking to the one true all powerful God. That matters. That makes a difference.
And so when we are in times of questioning, times of doubt, times of weakness still go to God in strength, not our own strength, but we can go to Him saying, "God, I know I'm weak, but you're strong. God, I'm weak, but I'm reminding myself of who you are. I'm reminding myself of how you've been faithful to me." And so that regardless of our season in life, we can pray in strength, because it's God's strength, not our own that we pray in.
And then from this point on in our text, Paul is going to launch into specifics that he prays over the church. So he's writing this letter to remind them and encourage them. He is praying for them and he's going to tell them specifically what He's praying about. And as we continue through these texts, we're going to see what are those specific things, and we're going to stop and we're going to pray for those things for this church.
Why? Because Paul thought it was important to pray over the church in Ephesus. And if God thought it was important enough to canonize in scripture, I think it's something good that we should pray for ourselves as well. Plus, I know that it is something good for us to pray for ourselves as well.
But real quick before we continue with that, I want to point something out, and this is something that I learned only a couple years ago and was never explicitly taught to me. And I was like, "Wow, why was this never explicitly taught? This is really important." When anyone, myself or a pastor or someone else is up here preaching and praying, or if you're in a small group and one person is praying and you're just there listening, we're all praying.
And what I mean by that is it's not a time to just sit and listen and think, "Okay, do I like what he's saying?" Or, "That sounds good or nice? I like that wording." That's not the point. But it's the time of Christians to be led by one person to pray to God together about the same things. That's why the word amen matters. If you don't know the word, amen means truly. You're saying that you agree with everything that was said and you're praying it.
So we've all done this, I'm guilty of this as well, but if you've ever been in a prayer group and someone's praying and it's late and you're tired and your mind starts drifting and you don't really hear anything that they're saying, and then the end comes and everyone's like, "Amen," you're like, "Amen. Amen." You just lied and you're guilty of lying. So what I'm saying is that as we talk about these things, I'm asking that we as a church pray together for God to bless His church with these things. It's not about me standing up here praying these things. It's about us as the body of Christ praying together in unity and seeking God for His help.
So with that, that's the end of point two, on to point three. Wow, we're flying through this. Point three, the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. This is verses 17 through the end. I'm just going to read the first part of it for us. But "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." We'll stop there for now.
So Paul's first request to God in prayer for the church is for us, for that church, but applicable to us as well, to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Everything else that we're going to talk about, all of the rest of the requests of Paul are summarized in this point. He gets more specific as to why it matters as he goes along, but this is the heart of it. What Paul really wants for the church is to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of God.
So what does that mean? What is the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God? Well, wisdom is knowledge applied, right? Wisdom is about how we act based on information that we have. So you can classify it as a spirit to know God's will. The ability to know what God wants for us, for His people, for His church, for us to do. And then what is the spirit of a revelation in the knowledge of him? This is a spirit to know God, to see God. Well, Paul, you're writing to Christians, don't they already know God? Why are you asking for a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him? Because we all can know God deeper, better, and more personal.
Again, Francis Foulkes in His commentary on this section says this, "Such wisdom and revelation, moreover, come, not simply as such higher intelligence is given from God, but by the knowledge of Him, the personal knowledge of God Himself, which in the Bible always connotes the experience of life in union and fellowship with Him. Paul put the prayer for wisdom first, because to him the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible for people to see the glory of it unless they were taught by God, and also because he knew that the knowledge of God was life itself."
So when put that way, does it make sense to pray for a spirit, to pray for more revelation of God so that we can have greater unity with Him in this life, that we can have greater fellowship with Him in life? Yes, of course, it does. Well, how does that happen? How do we receive the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation and the knowledge of him? It's the next verse that says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know," right?
It's not that God is suddenly going to be someone more of Himself than He was so you could recognize it. He's always there. He's always there. We need to recognize Him there. We need to see how He is working. See who He is. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened.
What does that phrase mean, eyes of our hearts? Our hearts don't have eyes, that just doesn't make sense. Well, the only way you think of your heart is as a beating organ, you're probably the first person in all of history. Because every single culture talks about the heart, not just as a beating organ, but also as more than that, as part of who you are about emotions and desires. But what Paul is saying with the eyes of your heart, it's saying, "Let all of who you are, the truest part of you, your soul, everything that you are, have that open, your eyes open to see who God is, to see who He is, and how He is working His will and His revelation in your life."
And we need to have our eyes opened, because we can't do it ourselves, right? We all know this experientially that we can see things and not actually understand what they are, or we can hear things and not understand what you're supposed to take away from it. During first service, it came to me that there's a really good example of this in art for me. I can look at art, I could see there's painting and brushes and whatever, and I just don't get it. It's art. Cool, that's nice.
But I understand that there is beauty in it and that some people do get it. And so I need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened. There's a painting or a picture in our office space that Raquel, God bless, who God has used powerfully in this church and has blessed her, but Raquel loves this painting and I look at it, I'm like, "I don't get it." It makes me angry that I don't... Anyway, but she gets it. So I just need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened to the truth of the beauty of that painting.
But anyway, I bring that up to say we all know what it means to see something and not get it. And what Paul is praying for the church is that we're not that way with God, that we can see Him and we can get Him, and we can see the fullness of Him and grow in our relationship with Him. And we need God to do that for us. We see this idea also in Isaiah 6:9-10, it says, "'Keep on hearing but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." It's a very difficult text, but what it's saying is that God is the one who has the power to open people's eyes.
And so if we need our eyes open to the reality of God, let's go to Him. Let's ask him. Let's ask Him to reveal Himself to us. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, this is what I urge you, ask God, open your eyes. Ask God to reveal himself to you, to show you to reveal His love, His grace, His mercy, and His power through the work of Christ for you.
And he ends this part by saying, "that you may know..." And then he continues with what He's praying for. We need the eyes of our hearts opened and enlightened, not so that we could have an idea about what God is like, so that we can know Him, that we can know the hope that He gives us, that we can know what the inheritance is, that we can have confidence in Him. It's not a wishy-washy thing, but we could have confidence in Him. That's what God wants for us, and we need Him to open our eyes to it.
So as the first thing that Paul is praying for the church, let's now spend some time praying for us, this body, this church here to receive wisdom, a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We need more of you, and we need to see you. Open the eyes of our hearts to wherever we are blind to you and who you are and the way you are working in our lives. Give us eyes to see you. Lord, wherever we are blind, wherever we are stubborn, where wherever we are hardhearted, soften us and open our eyes to know you more. Grow our relationship with you. Lord, we know you desire the deepest relationship with us. Give us hearts that desire the deepest relationship with you to know you personally, to love you personally. Bless this body of believers, your church here with the deepest growth in relationship and love for you. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.
So now He's going to get into three subpoints for why we should have a spirit of wisdom and revelation of God. So the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God, subpoint number one, to have hope. To have hope. And each of the subpoints is going to get a little bit more specific, but they're all relating back to this idea of hope. And they're going to be ways that Paul shows that we as the body, we as Christians, can have hope.
So this is in verse 18 where it says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you..." Have you ever thought about hope that way, as you're calling? Christians, you are called to have hope. We are not called to despair. We are not called to anxiety. We are called to hope. And not just any kind of hope, a living hope.
Pastor Shane referenced this in his prayer as he started the service. But 1 Peter 1:3 says this, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Christians, we are called to have hope because we have a living hope. Christ did not stay dead. This is what we celebrated last week at Easter, that Christ raised from the dead. He is alive. We have a living hope, and it is practical to us in day-to-day life. It's not just a hope that we can have one day in the future. It's a hope we can have now.
And I want to pause here for a second and recognize that life's not always easy. It's not always easy to have hope. I recognize that there are many brothers and sisters in this church who have gone through struggles and difficulty and are in the middle of that even right now. I know people in this body that have suffered from illness, have been diagnosed with cancer or disease. I know people in this church that have suffered from mental illness or anxiety or eating disorders. I know people in this church who have this desire for God to answer their prayers, and they've been waiting and waiting for an answer.
I know people who have lost their jobs and are wondering when they're going to be able to pay the bills. I know people who are looking for housing, and like, "Don't know where I'm going to live, but I'm going to do something, I guess. I don't know." I know people who are suffering and I know many of you are. And what I am saying is God is calling us to have hope, even in that. It's not a call to suck it up and get tough. That's not what I'm saying. It's a call to recognize that we are weak and that in those moments we need help, and that God is the one who can provide it. And that God is the one who can give us hope, even when we don't see the reasons for hope.
Because we are called to it through the life of Christ. We can look at Christ. We could look at what He willingly suffered for us. We could look at the way He lived for us, died for us, rose for us, and say, "You know what? Regardless of my circumstances, I could look to Christ and have hope." And as I mentioned, we're going to see in the further points of Paul's prayer, more specifically, more powerfully the thrust of why we can have hope. But Paul starts generally, we are called to it. We are called to have hope.
So with that, let's pray for this church to have hope. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We live in a fallen, broken world where we see the effects of sin, and where we see the pain and suffering and bitterness that comes from our own sin and from the sin in the world around us, and just from the brokenness of creation apart from Christ. Give us eyes to see the hope in those situations that only you provide. Give us eyes to see that you are with us. You love us, you are there. You have endured and suffered for us. And you are our reason for hope. Our hope is not in the solving of all the problems. Our hope is in you alone. Give us hope. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name.
Subpoint number two, why the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God is to recognize riches. This is the rest of verse 18. I'll just read the first part to remind us, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," to what? "To what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints..." This made me pause and think, what is the inheritance that he is talking about here? The inheritance that Christians have is the kingdom of God. Yes, we can see it fully in eternity in heaven with eternal life with God in His presence, in His kingdom forever. That is the inheritance that Paul is talking about here.
And he clarifies what he means, actually, earlier, he had already talked about, it in verses 11 through 14 of this chapter. He says this, "In him," in Christ, "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the council of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who was the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise and glory of God."
We are not in heaven right now. We have not acquired possession of the kingdom of God, of this inheritance that we are given yet. But in verse 11, he says that we have obtained it. How have we obtained it if we haven't taken possession of it? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of it. But how have we obtained it? Three small words at the end of verse 18 of our text, "in the saints." In the saints, right?
There's this idea with the kingdom of God, it's a idea that we talk about as an already and not yet. And the day that Jesus was raised from the dead, He already conquered sin and death. He did it, definitively, done. He already ushered in the kingdom of God here on earth. Done. But we don't see the fullness of it yet. We're waiting. We're looking forward to that day. But as we wait, what do we look for the hope and to recognize what that inheritance is? We look to each other. We look to His church, His people, the saints.
Because when we look at the way the body of Christ, the church, is supposed to interact with each other, the way they love each other, support each other, pray for each other, build each other up, use their gifts for each other's good for the upbuilding of the church, we just get a little taste, get a little glimpse of what the kingdom of heaven is like. And I want to be clear. The word glimpse is my word. That's not what Paul uses. What does Paul say?
Paul says, "What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints." What Paul is saying, "Don't downplay the power that the body of believers have to be able to reveal the love of God, the kingdom of God to each other." I said glimpse because I recognize the ultimate, infinite glory of the kingdom of God in heaven whenever we get there. But Paul is saying, "The church here now is still rich and glorious. It's still able to fully reveal the kingdom of God to those who are in it and who see it."
So Christians, does this describe us? Are we the riches of His glorious inheritance to each other? The way I think about it is what do we want most or long for most when we get to heaven? The right Sunday school answer, which is true and good, is that we desire the presence of God. That that's what we want when we get to heaven, is just to be in the presence of God. Good, praise God. We need that. Do we bring the presence of God with us where we go? Do we bring the characteristics, the love, the nature, who He is to each other when we interact with each other? Or are we more of our own sinful self than Christ?
But if we're honest with ourselves, maybe it's a little bit more specific than just the presence of God. Maybe it's the peace of God that we're longing for in heaven. Now, there's so much uncertainty in the world around us, so much going on that we don't have peace. We're not settled here. We just can't wait for the day that we have peace in heaven. Well, if that's the case, are we bringing peace wherever we go? And when you need peace and you're struggling to see that, do you look to the other believers, the brothers and sisters in the church, who you see, you've been walking with, you know are faithful, and say, "You know what? I need peace. I don't have it. Can you help me? Can you encourage me? Can you strengthen me?"
Can we be the church for each other? Maybe it's hope. Maybe you're like, "There's so much that I have going on that's suffering, that's hard, it's difficult. I can't even imagine how to have hope for the next season. And in heaven one day we won't have to worry about any of that, so I'm belonging for that." Well, do we bring hope to each other? If what you need is hope, do you have the ability to share hope with other people? And if not, do you have the humility to ask for help? Do you have the humility to go to members of your community group, to go to brothers and sisters in Christ, and say, "I'm struggling. I need hope. Can you help me?" And are we willing to help when that happens?
What Paul is saying is that we need to have the eyes of our hearts open to see how great it is to be the church. It is a blessing. It is an honor, and that we can reveal all of who God is through the church. And we need to be that for each other. So with that, let's pray that we could have the eyes of our hearts opened to see the riches of God's inheritance here and now through His church, and that we can be that for each other.
Heavenly Father, we need you. This is what this all comes down to, Lord, is that we need you. Open the eyes of our hearts to see how you are working in our brothers and sisters here in this church. Strengthen us, convict us on how we are called to live to exemplify the fullness of the inheritance of your kingdom in heaven while we are here on earth. Let us to live joyfully and fully in that reality that we are in your kingdom even now. Give us that hope.
Give us that boldness to live that way, to be your church here and now. Open our eyes to see that, to rejoice in the riches, the fullness of it, to not look at it as something light and not view it as merely a glimpse. And then just hope for that day when we get to be with you, even though we do. Help us to see the blessing, the richness of the blessing that is your church, even here at Mosaic. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name.
And the last subpoint that we have is that the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God to perceive power. This is verses 19 through the rest of the chapter. I'll read just verse 19 first. It says, verse 18, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," why? Verse 19, "to what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His great might..." I love this verse. I love this verse.
Paul is using as much human language as possible in this text to try and give us a sense of God's power, even though he knows no human words can ever describe the power of God. But he uses these phrases, immeasurable greatness, power, working great might in this verse to try and stoke in us an understanding of how great the power of God is.
The word for immeasurable is huperballo, which is where we get the word hyperbolic from. And what it's saying is use all the hyperbolic language you want. Think as lofty and as high as you could think of anyone, any type of power, and it's not even accurate enough to describe God's power. That's not how, it's not even close to how great He is. It's immeasurable His power.
But it's His greatness as well. And the word for greatness is exceeding a standard of excellence. So God is a standard of excellence, so much greater than we could ever imagine. That is who He is. That is His nature, His character. He is more excellent than we could ever measure or imagine.
Then he uses the word power to describe God's working. And this word is what I characterize as gym strength, or you could think of it as potential energy. For those of you who are smarter than me and like science, it's potential energy. It's that God has the power, the ability to do, He has the ability to get things done. That's gym strength through me, right? You're not physically doing the thing, but you're preparing to be able to do whatever you need to do. You're lifting weights so that way you're prepared to do something with it whenever you need to. I'm not trying to dis gym strength. I need more gym strength myself. Pray for me for that. It's a good thing, but it's about being prepared to do something.
Church, do we recognize the immeasurable excellence of God's ability to work to who? It says, "towards us who believe." God wants to work for His church, He wants to use His power to benefit Christians, to use His church to usher in the kingdom here. So when we look at the immeasurable, ultimate excellence of God's power, do we ask Him for help in times of need and recognize that He has the power to do it and that He wants to do it? And that that's the reason why He is using this power is for the benefit of those who believe in Him.
But He doesn't just want to do it, He does it, that's the word working. This is kinetic energy. This is, it's happening. It's active. I call this manual labor strength. The strongest people I've ever known in my life never went to the gym. My friend Ty Harris, praise God for him. Love him. You look at him, you wouldn't think He's strong. He loves musicals. He loves singing and dancing. Great guy. I love him. He had to help someone move and lifted a pool table by himself.
Now, for those of you who don't know, pool tables are solid stone. They weigh almost a ton. No, not quite a... They weigh a lot. I'm not using ton literally. They weigh a lot. It usually takes four or five people to install them. And if you have to move them up or downstairs, you usually you need to use machinery. He's just like, "Okay, go lift it up, and help people move." He has working strength. Never once in the gym, working strength.
My friend Rich, his father, also Rich, Stovakin, had all of the brute ruggedness of German and Russian heritage combined. So think of the toughest German and the toughest Russian, put them together, that's him. He's like 6'7. And Rich and I would work out in his basement in high school, and we were like there curling our 20 pounds, feeling good about ourselves. And then he comes in, and is like, "what are you guys doing?" "Oh, we're lifting. Well, how much can you do?" And He's like, "I don't work out, but I'll do whatever I need to." And he starts curling a 100 pounds just for reps, just like, "I'm good." What he did for a living, he lifted bales of paper and just moved it and did it. And He was faithful in his job and he just worked for his job.
God has working power. He doesn't just sit and say, "I have the ability to, I could do it if you want me to. We'll see if I do." No, He works. He does. He uses His power to help His church, His people bring His kingdom here.
And the last one in the sentence is great might. The word for great is just focusing on the intensity, the magnitude of the might, of God's might. But the word for might is focusing on the ability to execute something. So God doesn't just have power to work, and then He keeps working and working and working. If you've done home projects yourself, you probably know what this is like. It takes a lot longer than you thought. And you just feel like I'm just working and working and it's never going to end.
No, God executes. He completes. He does what He sets out to do. He finishes it. He finishes the work He promises to do it. He has promised to save His people. He has given us that assurance. He has promised to protect His church. He has given us that assurance. So we can trust that He will do and complete what He says.
And Paul says, "You know what? Maybe you still don't understand the power of God." So He goes on to try and even more hyperbolically, explain the power of God. And we're just going to fly through verses 20 through 23. I'm just going to read the snippets of it real quick. But the next thing he says is that... Well, sorry, this is the most important thing in verse 20, "that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places..."
When we look at Easter, when we look at the power that God used to raise Christ from the dead, that's the power He uses for His church. When we're talking about working power, when we're talking about Him completing and His ability, He shows us that He does it. He doesn't just tell you He's going to do it and hope that... He proves it through the resurrection of Christ. And now He's going to point out all the power of Christ to again stoke in us a desire and understanding of the ultimate supreme power of God, because Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne in heaven.
The right hand is the hand of power. Whoever sits at the right hand of the king has all the power, all the authority of the king himself. So what it's saying is that Jesus Christ has the full power, full authority of our heavenly Father. Is that not enough power? Well, it's far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. I think we, like I do often, clump these together and just run through them and it's like it's a bunch of things that are powerful. God's more powerful than that.
But Paul is calling out specific things here, and he clarifies what He means by them in Ephesians 6:12. He says, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." So rule and authority are specific positions that are being addressed, there are rules of people who rule and have authority, but then power and dominion is the force, is the power behind them. But Paul's saying, "We're not talking about flesh and blood here. We're not talking about physical earthly kings and rulers and authorities. What we can summarize all of this by is the kingdom of Satan," is what Paul is addressing here.
Whether it's those who are working for the kingdom of Satan and the force behind them, whether it's demons or Satan himself. The sin and brokenness we see in this world, you compile all of that power together, and it's nothing compared to Jesus Christ. I think we often fall into thinking Satan is just the equal opposite of Christ, and that is so far from the truth. He is nothing compared to Christ.
Jesus Himself alone is even more powerful than all of the kingdom of Satan could throw at Him, so much so, He's so far above and beyond that. In terms of power looking at it, He can barely even see the power of Satan, because He has none in comparison to Christ. Not only that, that not enough power for us, Jesus has the name that is above every name. The name of Satan has no power. He's not Lord Voldemort, or he who shall not be named. No, his name has no power. The name of Christ does have power. We see that in the New Testament, that the name of Christ has power to cast out demons. It has real, tangible power for those who believe. This is all in the context of those who believe.
Don't want to say like you could just throw out Jesus' name and everything's going to go your way. That's not what it's about. It's about for those who believe and for the will of God. We see in the New Testament that the disciples see these people running around casting demons out in the name of Christ. And they go to Jesus and they're like, "Should we tell them to stop?" And He's like, "No, no, they're fine." Why? Well, because apparently, even though they weren't known, they had some sort of faith or trust or relationship with Christ.
But then there's a time when we see people who don't have a relationship with Christ try and cast out demons in the name of Christ, and the demon says, "I do not know you," and attacks them. So study the book of Acts. It's a fun one. There's a lot that happens. But the point of all this is being is the name is not just the name you throw out and it's just like, "Okay, whatever I want is going to happen." It's that it has power for the church. It's powerful for God's people to work the will of God. To help, to protect, to bring hope, to perceive power, to understand our role in the church. The name of Christ has power unlike any other name.
All things are under His feet, not just the kingdom of Satan, but everything you could think of in all of creation. Compile all the power, all the greatness, all the honor of anything in all of creation that you can think of, and it's barely even a footstool for him. Culturally, at the time when this was written, if they heard the word feet, the initial response would've been, "That's disgusting. Feet are gross." It's very similar to today. Not much has changed. I think of when my wife and I were dating, and if my feet went anywhere near, she would slap me, and jump and run away. And it's like, my feet are gross. I get it. Feet are gross.
But back then, they were walking in sandals, barefoot. The dust of the road, the filth and grime that are on the streets that they're walking are just covering their feet. And that's why washing of feet was such a big deal when someone like Jesus did it for others. But what it's saying is if there was a less honorable part of Christ, which there's not, all of Christ is fully honorable, fully glorious, fully beautiful, all of the greatness of the things of this world, they barely are even able to get to His feet. They're barely even worthy of that. That's how great is the honor and power of Christ.
And He's not just powerful sitting there on His throne. He is head over all things. He leads. He guides. He is in control. He is sovereign. He is working and leading and guiding His people. We can trust in His power because it's not just there and doing whatever He wants, but He is leading, guiding us in His will.
And then verse 22 and 23, 23 is my actual favorite verse of this text. It says, "And He put all things under His feet and gave Him," Christ, "as head over all things to the church, the church is His body, the church, which is the fullness of Him who fills all in all." Church, do we recognize that we are called to be the fullness of Christ. Like I said, not just a glimpse. We are called to be the fullness of Him, to bring all of His power, all of His working, all of His love, His characteristics to the world. Why? Because it's not about us. He is the one who fills. We are dependent on Him.
Again, going back, bringing it full circle. We are dependent on the relationship we have with Him, our love and trust for Him, to trust Him, to fill us, to open our eyes to what we need to see, to help us see where we are weak and need to be strengthened, to let Him fill us, so that the way we live can fully exemplify Him to all who see Him. Are we the fullness of God to each other? Are we the fullness of God to those who see us? We need to have the eyes of our hearts opened to see our need for His power, but also to see how His power can help us be the church today.
So we'll close with prayer for that. We'll close with prayer, for us to have the eyes of our hearts open to the power of God, that fulfills us and enables us to be His church. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are powerful. You are mighty. You are working. And you desire to do good for your church. Open the eyes of our hearts to see the greatness of the ways you are working in our lives. Lord, individually where we need to see you, open our eyes to see how you are working in our lives. Lord, corporately, with this body, your church, here, open our eyes to see how you are working powerfully for your kingdom here and now.
Lord, open our eyes to see that we are called to exemplify fully you to those who see us. Fill us with your power. Fill us with your strength, not for ourselves, not for our own good, but so that we can truly be your church. We can be your people. We can bring your kingdom here and now. And that those who see it turn to you and love you. Fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your hope. Fill us with your power. We praise you, and thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.
