Good afternoon again. Our scripture reading this afternoon is taken from Ephesians chapter 15. Sorry, there is no chapter 15 in Ephesians. Chapter 1, verses 15 through 23. Chapter 1, verses 15 through 23, and you find this in your bulletins printed. 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 toward 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 his 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 age 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. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, may you give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you. May you open the eyes of our hearts as we look at this portion of your Word. Empower us, Lord, to understand this, to believe it, and to understand it not just with our minds, but also with our hearts, with our whole being. so that we might be ministered by your word. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So this portion that we are studying today is connected with what we have studied these past weeks, this long sentence, verses three through 14. And you see the connection right away at the beginning of this passage that says, for this reason, for this reason is pointing you back to what Paul said before, and actually point you forward to what he's going to say after that sentence for this reason. And what he has said before is that we have been given in Christ spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. And he lists some of these spiritual blessings for us as believers, that we were chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless, that we were predestined before the foundation of the world to be adopted as his children, that we were redeemed, and also that we have an inheritance awaiting for us, and all these things in Christ. And you know that Paul, when he listed all these things, he was praising God for meditating and seeing what God has done in his life through Christ. And what he wants to do now is that he wants you to join him in praising God. And how does he do that? First he praise God and here he pray that you understand this, that you understand these spiritual blessings so you can also praise God as he praise God. And the connection here in this verse is, again, for this reason, connect you back to what he said, but also to what he's starting to say is that, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints. He knew, Paul knew, that those Ephesians who are receiving these letters were recipients of these blessings because they have faith in Christ and because they love the body of Christ. And these two things are connected and have to be connected in the Christian, in the life of a Christian. If you believe in Christ, you love the body of Christ. For one simple reason, not because it comes from you, but because it comes from the work of the Holy Spirit in your heart, that as you believe in Christ, he moves you to love the body of Christ. Yes, there are people who might say, I believe in Christ, but I don't love the body of Christ. And that basically is defeating the whole statement of, I trust in Jesus, because it's a proof or a testimony that probably something is not working in their hearts. But also there are some people who come to the church and they enjoy the fellowship of Christians and they say, I am a Christian because I love to be around believers, but they don't necessarily believe in Jesus as their Savior. Therefore, Paul is telling you these two things that are the basic, probably the basic definition of what a believer is, is somebody who believes in Jesus. And as a result of that, love the body of Christ. If you are in union with the head of the body, which is Christ, you are in union with the body of Christ. And therefore, because of that, you are a recipient of all these spiritual blessings that Paul already listed in the previous verses. Now, he says, 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. The Ephesians were part of Paul's prayers, as it was the Philippians, the Thessalonians, and all these brothers and sisters that he met when he went and preached the gospel to them. He was praying to God and he was thanking God for what he had done and was doing in their lives. You don't see Paul here thanking them for their faith and love for the body of Christ. Paul is thanking God because they believe and because they love the body of Christ. Because God is the author of our faith and works. He is the one who has given us the gift of faith to believe in him and he is the one who actually moves us to do good works. This is why Paul thanks God for what he was doing in their lives. Now as he thanked God in his prayers, he has special prayer for them, a very important prayer, and I think that this is what I would like us to pray at the end of this sermon, that we would join Paul to pray as he prayed for the Ephesians. He says 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. So he's praying to God that God will give them the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Actually, our ESV translation translates well the word spirit, Nelma, here, because he capitalized the word saying that it's the spirit of God. Other translations would translate this with a low-cap S, spirit as influence, as our spirits are influenced. But we know that based on the context that actually Paul is talking about God giving to the Ephesians the spirit of God, the spirit of wisdom, and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Now the interesting thing is that these people to whom Paul is writing, they are already believers. How do we know that? Paul says he has heard about their faith and their love for the body of Christ. Yet he is still praying to God that God will give them the Spirit of God. And we know that actually what defines a believer is that a believer is somebody whose heart has been transformed, regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit. Yet Paul is still praying that God will give them the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. And this is because the spirit of God does not only work in our conversion, but it continues to work in our lives through our sanctification. Actually, our sanctification is not just only focused on us becoming blameless and holy, but it's also that the Holy Spirit is working in our life, renewing our minds daily and giving us a greater understanding of the gospel and also increasing our faith in him. And this is what Paul is praying for them. When he says that God gives them the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him, he clarifies that when he says, having the eyes of your heart enlightened. You know, with our eyes, we see and perceive things and recognize things. And with our eyes, with our physical eyes, we see things and we like things or dislike things. But our physical eyes, the eyes that we have in our faces or heads, do not recognize or see spiritual things. They only see physical things, and they can only like or dislike the things that we see that are physical. But when Paul is talking about the eyes of our hearts, he's referring to our souls. Therefore, what he is saying here is that He will send to them the Spirit of God, so they will be sensitive of these spiritual things. Remember, these spiritual things are in the heavenly places. And the heavenly places doesn't mean far away from us. The kingdom of God is right now, right here, is around us. But our physical eyes cannot see these heavenly things. Therefore, Paul is praying to God that that God will sharpen their hearts, the eyes of their hearts, to perceive those spiritual things. Remember, the whole point is that he wants the Ephesians to join him in praising God. He has praised God for all these spiritual blessings. And they might have read these blessings, they might have heard about these blessings, but that doesn't necessarily mean that these blessings are taking root in their hearts. And this is what happened to all of us as believers. We have heard this good news many times. We have heard about our inheritance. We have heard about our salvation and the hope that is awaiting for us. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have taken root to the point that that is moving our whole life to praise God for what we have received in him. So his prayer again is that our God the Father will give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation. So, having their eyes of their hearts enlightened, they may know. They may know. And there are three things that he wants them to know. Now, remember, these three things are things that they already know. but he wanted to know even more. In fact, the way that Paul uses this word, know, here is not in the Greek sense of just having understanding, but it's in the Hebrew sense, which means that he's having understanding, but also experiencing it. He's having understanding with our heads, with our minds, but also experiencing it. Remember, when your eyes see things, your eyes perceive things, and your eyes create emotion in your life to like, to have joy, or to hate something that you see. So that same thing happens with our spiritual eyes or should happen that it should move us to praise God as we meditate or as we consider these spiritual things. So that you may know first what is the hope to which he has called you. That you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. Again, they knew that hope. They knew that hope because that's the essence of the gospel. The gospel was presented to them as good news, as something that you're looking forward to in the future. What is that hope? That hope is what Colossians 1.27 says is the hope of glory. There is no hope of glory in this world. Even though there are people who might be successful in life and some people think, and they might think that they have already reached glory, there is no real hope of glory in this life. We have people that has been very successful and they take their lives. They commit suicide because we don't know what's going on in their hearts until something like that happen. Or there are people who are actually content But at the end, there is a tragic accident or a tragic disease in their lives and everything is finished. And even if none of these things happen and they continue their life and their life, they die at an old age, the end for everyone is death. We were all born with a terminal disease. that is not only going to affect us at the end of our lives, but it's affecting us daily in our relationship with others, in our relationship, first of all, with God. There is no hope of glory in this life without Christ, but the hope that God has given us, and as Paul says, he called them to this hope, is that hope of glory. He called them because God is the one who foreknew us and predestined us and called us to one day to be glorified. It wasn't our decision, it was God's decision, but God is moving us towards that hope. This is why Paul can exhort the Thessalonians in chapter four, verse 13, that they should not mourn as those who have no hope when one of them, when one believer has fallen asleep, which means that one believer has died because there is hope of glory. Now remember what Paul wants is that their eyes of their hearts will be enlightened to this biblical truth. You might know this today, but still you can mourn as those who have no hope because you actually need to pray that God deepens this truth in your heart. In fact, again, this is the sanctification process. All our life is about growing in this understanding and that understanding taking root in our lives so that so that we experience it, not just with our minds, but we actually experience it with our senses, with our feelings, with our emotions, that we can glorify God with joy because of that hope to which he has called us. The second thing that he wanted them to grow in their understanding is that they might know what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? Well, one of the things that the prosperity gospel or the health and wealth gospel have wrong is that it points people to seek for an earthly inheritance as if what is important is what you get here on earth. And therefore, people are pursuing things, pursuing material things. expecting God to bless them materially here on earth as this is what is more important. That if you give more to God, God will give more to you right now, right here on earth. I even heard of a pastor of a mega church in Barranquilla, who was the pastor of a prosperity gospel church, that as he met with his leaders, he was telling them that he didn't want Jesus to come soon because he was living the best time of his life. He wasn't looking forward to that heavenly inheritance, which as Peter, first Peter chapter one, four says is imperishable. but he was looking to things that are perishable on this earth. So remember, Paul is asking that God will give you the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, so your eyes, the eyes of your heart, will see and love that inheritance that is awaiting for you. To the point that you will see the things and the sufferings and struggles of this world no worth to compare with that glorious inheritance that is awaiting for you. Third, he's also praying that you may know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe. That you may know that God is almighty, but he is specifically talking about the work of Jesus in your life. And this is what he does in the following verses. He talks about his resurrection, he talks about Christ's dominion, and he talks about his headship, that he is the head of the church. He says that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. At the resurrection, God defeated our last enemy, our worst enemy, death. And understanding this, and not understanding this just with our minds, but also with our whole being, should move us to praise God, but also to have confidence in Him, that He who raised Jesus has promised to raise you also, and He has already, already given you new life in Christ. Because when Christ died on the cross, you die with Christ on the cross. And when Christ was risen, you also rise spiritually in your union with Christ. You have new life in Christ. The power of God is demonstrated in the fact that Christ has dominion over all things. He sits and seated him as his right hand in the heavenly places. And remember, the heavenly places is right now, right here around us. His kingdom is right now, right here around us. For above all rules and authorities and powers and dominions 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. Christ is above all kingdoms and all powers and all dominions. How often as Christians we get nervous about movements around the world with governments and things that are happening when in reality we have to remember that Christ is King and he will be King forever. Again, his prayer, Paul's prayer is that as the Holy Spirit have your eyes and your hearts, the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that this reality becomes more truth in your heart. And also that Christ is the head of the church and of all, is the head of Jesus. And gave him as a head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." Christ is the head of the church. Even we might see things that we don't like in the church, in churches around the world, we have to remember that Christ is still the head of the church. that he is still in control. There is something here interesting in verse 23 that has caught the attention of people who have interpreted this in different ways. When Paul says, which is his body, the church is the body of Christ, and he says the fullness of him, the fullness of him. And there are at least three ways in which this has been interpreted. One is that the church is Christ's body. Yes, that's clear there. But also when he says the fullness of him, some people have interpreted this as to mean that Christ is the fullness of him, meaning God. And it is true that God fills all things. You see that in Jeremiah 23, verse 24. And Colossians 1, 19 and Colossians 2, 9 says that in him, in Christ, we find the fullness or the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. But we don't see other scriptural references that says that Christ is the fullness of God the Father. The other interpretation has been, and this has been endorsed by John Calvin and Martin Lloyd-Jones is that as the church is Christ's body, then the church is the fullness of Christ. When he says the fullness of him, meaning that the church is the fullness of Christ. But if that would be the case, we will be saying that Christ is incomplete, that he needs to be completed by the church. So the last interpretation, which is what I endorse, is that look, that sentence as passive rather than active, says that the church is the body of Christ, that which Christ feels. So it means that when he says the fullness of things means that Christ is the one who feels the church. Therefore, he says, he feels all in all. He is in control of all things in the church, And when he says in all, means in the universe. Remember Paul's prayer here for us, for the Ephesians and for us, brothers and sisters, is that the God will give us the spirit of wisdom and knowledge of him so that our eyes, the eyes of our hearts will be enlightened to see these spiritual blessings. I think that we should join that prayer for our own lives. I think that that should be part of our prayers. To remember that even though at some point in our life God was the one who opened our eyes and gave us faith to trust in him, that our faith continues to grow until we die or Christ comes. That we should be praying that God continues to open the eyes of our hearts to deepen our understanding of the gospel so that this will affect our whole being. It will affect our decisions. It will affect the way how we feel about the struggles and difficulties and things that we face on earth. Not just that we pray that for ourselves, but we should be praying that for the members of the body of Christ. especially when you see a brother who is, or a sister who are struggling about something, you should be praying that God will deepen this truth in his heart as well, because this is what we all need as members of the body of Christ. Now, as we come together to partake together of the Lord's supper, we are to remember that as well, that God gave us this sacrament that God gave us this physical sign, but this physical sign represents a spiritual reality that has already happened in us, which is that Christ on the cross died for our sins. That Christ on the cross paid for the debt that we have, and that as he died on the cross, we die with Jesus on the cross. We have to remember that as we partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, that we are also spiritually nourished by it. That this is not just a commemoration or a celebration, but it's also feeding us spiritually. in our souls, and when it's feeding us spiritually, it's making more real in our hearts and in our minds these spiritual blessings that are already ours in Christ. Let's pray. Dear God, we thank you for the plan of salvation that you already designed before the foundation of the world. and that in that plan you destined us to be your people redeemed by you, that you send your Lord Jesus Christ to pay on the cross for our sins. We thank you, Lord, for these other spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ, that we have this hope of glory, Lord, that we have this hope of receiving an inheritance that is imperishable, and that we have this understanding that you are the head of all, that you are in control. Help us, Lord, as we partake together of the Lord's Supper, to remember this truth, to remember that at the cross you are ready earn the victory for our salvation. Help us also to love the members of the body of Christ, because as we come together and partake together, this signifies that we are members of one church, one body. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.