Gary, perhaps without jumping on you at the end of the service, you could just take over for the prayers. I'm pretty well out of touch after a month. Thank you very much. Thanks. Ephesians chapter one then, please. Ephesians and chapter one. We'll continue our study in this lovely epistle. This evening we should be thinking particularly of the verses from 15 down to 19. But let's just read the chapter through together. Ephesians chapter 1. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him. In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance. until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is there, the hope of his calling, and what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which we wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come, and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. God will bless that reading of his word to us. We've been thinking over previous occasions about this tremendous song of celebration that Paul has been, as it were, singing to us here from verse three down to verse 14 in this first chapter of the Ephesian Epistle. 200 words, almost without a break, words tumbling one after the other in a celebration of the believers' blessings and their redemption and their salvation. The great work of God. reconciling the believers to himself. And further, that in doing so, the believer is then in Christ, the very body of Christ. We saw how Paul first of all celebrates himself, not with any pride, he simply celebrated what he is through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the grace and electing power of God. He celebrates the saints, particularly in this writing, those of Ephesians, although as we noticed when we started our studies, the epistle to the Ephesians seems to have been written as a general epistle and was read by many, and of course is very, very applicable to us in the day in which we live. Then he speaks about their blessings in and through the person of the Lord Jesus. He speaks about the very fact that they are the body of Christ, they are in Christ, and we said that you could write those two simple words across this particular epistle. He's celebrating the fact that through the electing grace of God, and through the salvation that we get through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ shed there on Calvary's cross, We are blessed, blessed he says, in the heavenly places. God's overflowing grace he celebrates. Spiritual discernment that is given to us through the power of the Holy Spirit living within us as believers. Future blessings, days that lie ahead of us even now, wonderful blessings that will be ours. in days to come. He celebrates salvation itself. He celebrates the Holy Spirit sealing and guaranteeing that we are indeed in Christ. Paul's wonderful song of celebrations. But if this great song is ending, the celebration goes on. But in these next four or five verses, as I say, we're going to look at this evening, he prays now. And he prays fervently, and he prays fervently for the Ephesian believers and to us in our day and age. And he prays that we might have enlightenment. Enlightenment. He praises God for the practical outworking of the blessings of those folks there in Ephesus. He says, wherefore I also after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints. He celebrates the fact that not only are they saved and gloriously saved, but they're working out that salvation as they deal with each other in their particular circumstances. He praises God for that practical outworking of the faith that they've had. He's been singing about it as evidence in the lives of the Ephesian believers. He's been thinking about their faith. He speaks there in verse 15 of their faith. And he speaks, too, of their love. He speaks of their saving faith. He speaks of the fact that they are saved by grace, through faith. We come to chapter 2 and verse 8, that well-known verse, for by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Paul is saying that he sees that demonstrated in the lives of these Ephesian believers. Practical faith in Christ. They knew full well, as you and I do, I trust, that we are definitely, gloriously, wonderfully saved. But he goes on to say that it's further demonstrated by the fact that they show this love to other believers. They demonstrate it in their daily lives, that Christ would not only save them, but would uphold them through all the problems, difficulties, the vicissitudes, through all the good things, all the enjoyable things, of life. Christ would always be there. To be in Christ is to be in Christ every moment of our days. Practical faith then in Christ. It's a wonderful thing isn't it? It's something which perhaps we find difficult at times with our human understanding. I saw a story once written of a man who was walking through a frozen environment. It was a very, very hard winter's day. And he came to a large lake that he got to cross. And he was concerned about whether the ice would bear his weight. And so he puts his hands down on the ice, and he feels it. And he feels that it will take his weight, and off he moves across. And gradually, feeling as he goes, he gets out to the middle of the lake. And there he stands, and he's frozen. in fear because now he knows he's out there, he can't go any further, he can't turn back. What is he going to do? He's terrified of his situation. Suddenly he hears a roaring, a galloping of horses' hooves and out of the distance comes a stagecoach and it's rattling along being pulled by large horses and it comes to the edge of the lake and it doesn't stop, it just gallops across the frozen lake. They had faith, they had belief that that ice was thick enough to take them. And the Christian life can be like that. So often we can be afraid and we can be concerned about whether we can actually, actually carry out those things that God has laid before us. The difficulties in life, the problems in life. Paul is saying to the believers here, this is it, you work out this practical faith in your life, you believe that Christ saved you, believe that he will uphold you and take you through to the end. But if their faith was exemplary, it was further demonstrated by, what does it say? It says, by their love to all the saints. And it's that word all that jumped out at me. It's all the saints that we are encouraged to love. But Paul says he sees that in the Ephesians. You're not discriminating in any way, shape, or form. We love to choose to be with the people we like to be with, don't we? Young people want to be with young people. They don't want to be with old folk like me. Older folk find young people perhaps a bit difficult and want to be away from them at times and be with older folk. We're natural. It's natural. It's natural for us, isn't it? There are people that we find easier to get along with than others. It's very difficult, isn't it, to get on with everybody in the same way. Hall says these Ephesians are demonstrating how that's exactly what they're doing. They're getting on with each other, they're loving each other absolutely equally in every way, shape or form. Even the difficult people. Even the ones who perhaps rub them up the wrong way. They're getting on with them and they're doing it in love. And he said this is a tremendous demonstration of your practical living out the fact that you are in Christ, that you're all in Christ. I have to remind myself, you know, we're all going to be in heaven one day, for all eternity. Might as well start getting on now, mightn't we? Might as well make an effort now to love each other, won't we? Because we will then. This is what Paul's saying. You're demonstrating that to me. You're wonderful in what you're doing, in the way that you are loving all the saints. Jonathan Swift, a pastor, said this on one occasion, or wrote in a book, he said, our surface Christianity arms us with what we think are proper prejudices and rationale for criticizing other people, those who fall short, keeping them at arm's length. You know, we're good at doing that, aren't we? We're good at saying, well, old so-and-so over there don't quite agree with what he says, you know, can't love him because his theology doesn't sit particularly comfortably alongside mine. Paul says these Ephesians were not like that. They would forbear with one another. They would go and not keep these folks at arm's length. Not so the Ephesians. They were not going to be like this. And the word love there is the agape love. The very love of God himself. That's what they were showing one to another, each other. Not just love where they had a very tenuous attachment to other people, but a love that was all-consuming. The love of God for you and I. That was the love that they were sharing amongst themselves, these Ephesians. God's love in their hearts. and it was shown in their love for each other. And one commentator wrote this, he said, you're thinking of my life for your life. That's how we should love each other. My life is only worth anything if it's your life, if I'm considering you first. You've probably heard the illustration of the people who sat down for a meal. They were sat down at a table for a meal and they picked up the spoon and it was a very long spoon. And they discovered that it was so long that they could pick the food up, but they couldn't get it in their mouth because it was too long. And the thought was that they were not to feed themselves, but to feed each other with their long springs. And that's what we should be doing for each other as believers. Those of us who love the Lord Jesus should be loving each other in that way. That whatever we do, really, should be for others. and not for ourselves, just as the perfect example of the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated to us. The Ephesians looked out for each other. The Ephesians were bearing each other's inadequacies, bearing each other's eccentricities, and even their sins in love. And that's what Paul encourages us to do here, to love each other to that extent that we will put up with people's inadequacies, their eccentricities, and even their sins in love. And for this Paul gives thanks. He praises God for this, that he sees this in these Ephesian believers. I just asked myself as I was thinking about this, do we rejoice in the spiritual attainments of others? Does it rejoice our hearts when we see a fellow believer demonstrating this love? Does it rejoice our hearts when we see their spiritual attainments perhaps and often even exceeding our own spiritual attainments? This is what Paul is saying here. Do we praise God that they show greater faith than us? Do we praise God that they love more than we do? Do we praise God that they have more success in their service in their Christian lives than we do? We like to be top dog. We like to be doing things properly. We like to coerce other people to do things in the way that we do them, the way we want it done. But, you know, we need to be on the lookout for these spiritual attainments in other Christians, in other believers, and to be grateful for them and to rejoice with them and rejoice for them, God. Not only does Paul give thanks, but he then moves on to a prayer, a powerful petition on behalf of these believers. And the first thing he asks for in verse 17, he asks that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Paul says, Paul says, I want you to develop and to gain a far better knowledge of Christ. That's what I want you. Not just knowing the facts about him. I mean, you and I may meet a famous person. We may shake hands with them. We may talk to them for a period of time. But we can't claim to know them. We can't claim to know them intimately, in a deep and meaningful sense. those of us who've been married, readily attest to the fact that when we get married, having perhaps known our future wife for some three, four, five years perhaps, that when you get married and you live together, you discover all sorts of things about them that you never ever knew. They're not the person entirely that you thought they were. We think we know somebody, But you try living together with somebody closely, in a close relationship, and you discover that they're not quite the picture that you had of them. I'm not sure whether Margaret would have married me if she'd known what I was going to be like, but there we are. You'll have to ask her and she might be truthful. But there we are. This is what Paul is saying. You want to know the Lord Jesus Christ intimately. To truly know somebody, he says, you've got to have a mutual knowledge and a mutual exchange with them. And with Christ, it even goes further than that. In the Old Testament scriptures, where it speaks of to know somebody, it talks about Adam knew Eve. And there it's connected all the way through the Old Testament with sexual intimacy. And when we come over into the New Testament, we find that the spiritual parallel is that that Jesus has in mind in describing those who have eternal life. That's what the word know means in the New Testament. Jesus speaks about us knowing Him and of knowing the facts of eternal life. Are we in Christ? Is there an intimate exchange between Him and us? It speaks of Noah in the Old Testament, you'll remember, that he walked with God. You go into the background of that phrase and what it meant in those days, and it means that he had an intimate relationship with him. He walked with God just for the very real pleasure of walking with him, for no other reason. And this is what Paul is trying to encourage us here. He says to these Ephesians, if you want to go on, if you want to go on developing this faith and this love, then get to know the Lord Jesus Christ as an intimate, close acquaintance, friend. Of course, the Ephesians knew Christ. Paul had already said that. But Paul wants that knowledge to grow fuller and deeper. He wants them to have a more real knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, one day we're going to meet Him. We're going to stand before Him. We don't want to stand there as strangers, do we? We want to stand there knowing Him as a close companion, as a very real friend. So are we in Christ, fully in Christ? Yes, these Ephesians were full of faith, and they were full of love, and that was emanating from the very fact that they were in Christ. But Paul says don't stop there. Paul says go deeper and deeper in your knowledge of him, learn all you can of him, get a real appreciation of the Lord Jesus Christ as the bedrock, as the foundation for anything that you would seek to learn to do and to know over the Christian life. But he says, be careful. Take care that you do it by relying on the wisdom and the revelation that alone comes from God. Don't do it in your own strength. Don't make up your own rules and regulations and your own ideas. Do it, he says, in wisdom here. Wisdom and revelation in the knowledge Utilize the power of the Holy Spirit and not that of our own strength when we seek to plumb the depths of the Lord Jesus Christ. Better knowledge of Christ, then, he says, will enable you to deepen your faith, to strengthen your faith, and to show that love to the fellow believers. Then he says, I want you to have better spiritual vision. Verses 18 and 19, he says, The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the riches of his glory, his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power. Spiritual vision. He wants the eyes of their heart to be to be enlightened. The heart in scripture, of course, speaks of it as being the fulcrum of man's being, the very real mainspring of a believer's life, the seat of your intelligence and of your will. Eyes are so important in physical life. We're going to have to talk to Brenda about that, don't we? Eyes are so important. Sight is so important. I've often thought that if I were called upon to lose one of my faculties, sight would be the last thing I would want to lose, I think. You can cope a bit with deafness, you can cope a bit with losing a limb, if you've got no sense of smell, perhaps no sense of taste, you can't speak. But to lose your sight is a dreadful thing. This is what Paul's saying here. He says eyes are so important in physical life, even more so in spiritual life. And Paul requests better vision. And he requests better vision for these folks and he requests it in verse 18 in hope and in riches and in verse 19 in power. He requests these three things for them, that they might have better vision. Hope then, hope for that which God has called them to. Colossians chapter 3 and verse 4 says, when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him. And Paul emphasises this tremendous, tremendous, gigantic hope of the believer, that one day we shall be in his presence. We shall see him as he is and we shall be like him. Paul says, this is your hope. This is your hope, he says. Develop a love for it and an appreciation of it. Ken Hughes says this in his commentary. He says, we are going to stand with Christ. at the final press conference of the universe. He says, and our photograph is going to be taken with him, and we are going to be like him. That's the truth of it, isn't it, in modern parlance. One day we are going to be up here with him, over the earth, and we are going to be like him. This is the hope that we have within us. Paul says, keep that before you all the time. Make sure that becomes a driving force in your life. Then he talks about riches. Paul here talking about riches, it's not their riches he's interested in, he wants them to understand and to rejoice that they are God's riches. Sometimes perhaps we lose sight of that fact, that God saved us that we might be some riches to him, treasures for him. Again, another commentator, FF Bruce, says this. Paul prays here, he says, that his readers would appreciate the value which God places upon them. He says, his plan to accomplish his eternal purpose through them as the first fruits of the reconciled universe of the future, in order that their lives may be in keeping with the high calling and that they may accept in grateful humility the grace and glory thus lavished on them. God's appreciation of us, God's love for us in and through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Hope then that we'll be with him and like him and we shall be demonstrated to the whole earth as his body, the church. Riches, riches in our lives today as we seek to Do those things which would bring honor to the name of God and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They become riches to God, his appreciation of us. And then finally, power. Paul labels hard to express the best he can, the highest power available, possible. The power that changes the believer from a destination of hell to become a child of God. That's the power of God, that he would change us from those who are children of hell bound for hell to those who become children of God. He says it's a power that operates in the life of the believer today. And Paul says to them, in effect, do you see it? And he prays fervently that we might see these things through the eye of faith, that we might, through our eye of faith, see that hope as a reality. See those riches as something which God enjoys from each one of us every day of our lives and recognize the power that God exhibited, that God dispensed when the Lord Jesus Christ went to the cross to die for us. Do you see it, Paul says? Do you think about it? And so Paul has moved from his great celebration of spiritual blessings, there in verses 3 down to 14, And he has a little preamble of praise to God in verses 15 and 16 for the practical outworking faith and love of this Ephesian church. And then in verse 17 he prays that they might have a better knowledge of Christ and that they might have increased spiritual vision. First of all in hope that they will share his glory. Secondly in the riches that they are Christ's treasured inheritance. and thirdly, the power, that His all-surpassing power is on them and will continue on them till their glorification. May it be that our vision and joy in our Christian lives is to appreciate all that it means to be in Christ. Amen.