Sunday Sermon: Praying That You May Know (Epehsians 1:15-23)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the book of Ephesians. Here's Pastor Gabe.

Ephesians chapter one. The Kennys, Raymond and Jubilee have been in Texas past couple of weeks and they're heading back up from there.

So I'll have some added band members when they get back. But remember the Hickerson's in your prayers as well, since they just moved from here to Leavenworth this past week.

And then other member of our worship band, Jason Boone, who is presently in Saudi Arabia.

And I think as you've been watching the news and things that are going on, as tensions are rising with Iran, our activity in Saudi Arabia is increasing as well.

So be in prayer for those who have been deployed to the Middle East. Ephesians chapter one is where we are today.

And we'll be looking at the passage closing out the chapter from verses 15 to 23.

In honor of the word of the King, would you please stand? Ephesians chapter one, verses 15 to 23.

The apostle Paul writing to the church in Ephesus 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 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 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.

Let us come to the Lord again in prayer. Our heavenly father, as we open this word,

I pray that it encourages us and that it also sustains us. It is by the declaration of your word that we came to faith, saving faith in our

Lord Jesus Christ. And it's by a continued consideration of that word, meditating upon it, studying it, writing it upon our hearts that we are even sustained in this faith that we now have.

We thank you in our Lord Jesus Christ for the grace that you give us daily. And I pray that you continue to bestow that grace upon us as we read and study your scriptures this morning.

And we pray these things in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen. Thank you.

You may be seated. Just a couple of days ago, some of you may have heard about this, but there was an asteroid that just barely, barely missed the earth.

Did you hear about this? About a fifth of the distance between us and the moon, it passed right by the earth and scientists didn't even know about it until it had happened.

For all of our exploration of the cosmos and how deep we've been able to look into space, all the vastness of the stars and the galaxies that the universe is filled with, and you've probably seen even like video illustrations of what those strings of galaxies look like.

Justin Peters just this past week on social media shared a particular video and was watching that.

It was fascinating to consider how we can know the shape of the universe and what that might look like and how all of the galaxies are strung together when it would take us more than the lifetime of the earth to even get a probe on the outside of our galaxy to study those kinds of things.

And yet, despite the distance that we have looked and the advancement of the telescopes that we have, we couldn't spot a measly little asteroid that just about hit the earth and would have caused some significant damage had it done so.

Now, this wasn't like a life -ending event where all life on earth would have been eradicated had this asteroid hit us, but it would have leveled a city.

Had it hit something like New York or Boston, the entire city would have been gone from the size of this asteroid.

Even entering the earth's atmosphere, those things tend to break up into smaller asteroids and then they could hit various places and cause massive devastation.

But we didn't even know it was there until it had passed by, missing us by a distance of about 45 ,000 miles.

The distance between us and the moon, by the way, is about a quarter of a million miles. So it tells you how close that got.

The interesting thing I thought too was the irony in the name of the asteroid.

It was named OK 2019. We came out of 2019,

OK, that asteroid didn't hit us. But it's only by the providence of God that an asteroid like that doesn't hit earth.

When we study space and we look throughout the cosmos, we actually see that the universe is a very chaotic place to exist.

There's disaster going on all the time, and not just on the cosmic level, but even here on earth.

We look around and we see evidence of the fact that all of creation has been subjected to futility by Him who subjected it, as Paul says in Romans 8.

And this futility that creation has been subjected to is because of our sin against God.

And since all things have been subjected to decay, and there's storms and natural disasters, accidents, we get old and die, all of this stuff being evidence of the sin that we have committed against God.

Yet it is God who sustains us and does not allow those things to destroy us when today could be your last, tomorrow, who knows?

Any day that you wake up and you're able to breathe, that's a day that you can praise

God that He gave you another day to live and give glory to His name. The Lord is the one who gives us life, and the

Lord is the one who sustains us. As it says in Job 14, He has even numbered our days and set our limits which man cannot pass.

It is the Lord who has decreed these things. And so we come to understand as we study the scriptures, the sovereignty of God and His rule and reign over all creation, what it should stir in us, a desire to worship the

Lord our God, knowing that He is in control, that He has given us life, that He has redeemed us from the grave through His Son, Jesus.

And in all of these things, we give Him glory and praise. We've considered the sovereignty and the providence of God as we have been studying this chapter of Ephesians chapter 1, where we probably have laid out for us more clearly than any other chapter in the

Bible, the doctrines of election and predestination. But then we also have mentions of adoption and revelation and resurrection in the life.

The Apostle Paul has given lengthy introduction to this letter.

All of Ephesians chapter 1 is basically introduction. And you don't see too many periods in there either.

Even in the section that we read today from verses 15 to 22, there's only something like what, one or two periods in there.

These long flowing praises unto God that the Apostle Paul gives for what we have been given.

And as he had talked about election and predestination in the verses previous, here in this particular section, he talks about how it is in Christ that we are even sustained in the salvation that we have.

There's a doctrine that we as Baptists hold very dear. It is a doctrine that goes by several different names, often called perseverance of the saints.

You may also know it as once saved, always saved, or the doctrine of eternal security.

That in Christ, when one is saved by his hand and we come into his fellowship, he holds us tight and nothing can snatch us from him.

Jesus says in John chapter 10, the father who is greater than all has given them to me and no one can snatch them out of my father's hand.

I and the father are one. As we read in Romans chapter 8 verses 28 and 29, he works all things together for good for those who love

God and are called according to his purpose. Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might become the firstborn among many brothers.

And then we go on to read in Romans 8 .30 that those whom he predestined, he also called.

Those whom he called, he also justified. Those whom he justified, he also glorified.

Let's do a little review over those two particular terms, specifically election and predestination.

It's in Ephesians chapter 1 verses 4 and 5 that we read that God our father has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

There are many different perspectives and opinions about this doctrine that we call God's sovereign election, but what are we talking about basically when we read about God having elected us from before the foundation of the world for salvation in Christ Jesus?

One of our own statements of faith that we have in the Southern Baptist Convention is called the abstract of principles.

And this is the statement that all seminary professors in all Southern Baptist seminaries must sign in order to teach at those seminaries.

And in the abstract of principles, Roman numeral five, it mentions election and gives this definition of election.

Election is God's eternal choice of some persons unto everlasting life, not because of foreseen merit in them, but of his mere mercy in Christ in consequence of which choice they are called justified and glorified.

How about the doctrine of predestination? As we've read about predestination here in verse 5 and then we also read about it in verse 11, 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 counsel of his will.

Whenever we talk about predestination, what we're talking about is the sovereign decree of God, that which he had foreordained before he had even created anything.

What are the decrees of God? Again, from our own Baptist confession of faith in the catechism, question 11, what are the decrees of God?

And here is the answer. The decrees of God are his eternal purpose according to the counsel of his will, whereby for his own glory, he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

And we considered various passages last week in the scriptures that speak to that very thing.

Now, there are all different kinds of arguments and perspectives that people might have over what that might mean.

And there's a whole litany of questions that I could go through and say, here's the different perspectives on election and predestination.

But usually those questions boil down to something like this. No matter how those questions get asked or what those situations may involve, the question usually deals with something like this.

If God has decreed from before the foundation of the world, all that has happened, are we not robots?

Does that not just make us pawns on the chessboard of life and God just moves us around however he wills and we really have no decision to make in this whatsoever?

Here is the easiest possible response to a question like that.

And you may wonder it, and I have asked the same thing. But an easiest possible answer to that question would be this.

Jesus Christ, who is God, put on human flesh and dwelt among us.

And in the book of Hebrews, it says that he became like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a perfect high priest for us in the presence of God the

Father. So let me ask you this, knowing that he became like his brothers in every respect, was

Jesus a robot? Of course not. So therefore we are not either.

We are not just predetermined muppets, you know, walking around on earth with God as his hand up there and he's making us do all these things that we do.

Everything that has happened and everything that will happen has been decreed by God from before the foundation of the world.

But you still have a responsibility to hear the word of God and respond to it. And Paul addressed directly in Romans 9 the person that says, well, but who can be at fault for anything?

How can God find fault in anyone for who can resist his will? Paul's response to that is, who are you, oh man, to answer back to God?

There are things that are divinely mysterious to us and we're not going to understand them as we live on this side of heaven and exist in these finite bodies on a timeline where we have a starting point and an ending point.

But when we enter into glory, and as we've already talked about this morning, we are made to be like him because we will see him as he is.

Then we will see the picture of redemption as God had foreordained it from before the foundation of the world, and we will look at it and we will go, oh, okay, duh, that makes sense to me now.

God sees from his vantage point, we cannot see from that vantage point. Who has known the mind of the

Lord or who has been his counselor? As the Spirit says in Romans chapter 11, Isaiah 55, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts and my ways are higher than your ways, declares the

Lord. So may we be in submission to God, but knowing that he is sovereign and he does love us and he is interacting with us in creation even now through the

Holy Spirit that dwells within each and every one of us. So may we know that we can trust

God. We know that everything that happens is happening for a purpose, for our good and for his glory.

Someone may ask, if God is already foreordained, if he is already decreed, then why would someone like Moses be able to change

God's mind? We have that said to us in Exodus chapters 32 and 33, where when

Moses had been up on the mountain with God, the Israelites were down in the camp doing what?

Making a golden calf to worship. And when Aaron gave them that calf, he said, behold, your

God who led you out of Egypt. They worship the created thing rather than the creator himself.

And because the Lord knew what was happening down in the camp, he said, I'm going to wipe them out. I am going to destroy them.

So leave me be while I destroy them in my anger and I'm going to make a great nation out of you.

Moses responded to God, but Lord, you've rescued your people out of Egypt only to bring them out into the wilderness and destroy them?

I mean, what is that going to communicate to the other nations? What kind of God you are?

That the promises that you have given to the children of Abraham, you're just going to bring them out of slavery and destroy them?

And then it says that the Lord relented from his anger. So if God has indeed foreordained all things that are going to happen, and he knows what's going to happen because he's ordained it to happen, why would we have an event like this spelled out for us in Scripture where it appears as if Moses changed

God's mind? The reason for this is because God had done this to sanctify

Moses. That Moses might become an intercessor for Israel.

And then Moses is a picture of Christ who would come, and the book of Hebrews says that Christ is the greater

Moses, and he is our intercessor for us before the Father. All of these things were being done for our good and for his glory.

That's the answer to why anything happens the way that it happens. God does all things for our good and ultimately to glorify his name.

We don't change God's mind. Prayer is not to change God's mind. It's to change ours.

And as the Lord said to Moses, and so he says to us now, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom

I have compassion. This was God saying to Moses, I'd already known who I was going to deliver and going to destroy, but these things have happened that you might be sanctified.

And so the same is true for each and every one of us. The things that happen that we go through as we're growing and learning and being raised up according to the knowledge of his will that we have laid out for us in Scripture, these things are for our sanctification, that you may grow in holiness, that you may understand

Romans 8, 29, those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

In Ephesians 1, verse 15, the section that we're looking at today, in light of God's election and his predestination, his sovereign decree,

Paul 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 to you, thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

I give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. See, we may argue about doctrine and our different perspectives on things like election and predestination, but what we need to come to understand by these particular doctrines is they're meant to point us to Christ.

It's not meant for us to have a squabbling philosophical argument over. That's not why Paul laid these things out in Scripture.

It's so that we would cling to Christ. That's the whole point. Keep in mind, again,

Ephesians 1, 4, that says, even as he chose us in him, and Ephesians 1, 11, in him we have obtained an inheritance.

This is all in Christ. All of this is meant to point us to Christ. We would cling to him and we would hold to him.

And that's what Paul is praying for his fellow saints for here, that they would continue to cling to Christ.

I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints.

Remember what we've come through as we get to the book of Ephesians, 1 and 2

Corinthians, Galatians. Those are three very rebuking books with three churches that were either wayward or on the verge of becoming such.

And so Paul has had with earnestness to try to pull them away from the sin that they are going toward, that they would be restored in the understanding of the gospel that was first delivered to them when the apostles came to their city and gave them the gospel of Christ.

But with the Ephesians, Paul is not doing that here. There's nothing that he needs to rebuke them of.

He has heard that the Ephesians have been faithful. And he's rejoicing in that, particularly considering that this is a church that he was so very, very close to in his heart.

In Acts chapter 20, when he had to say goodbye to the Ephesian elders for the last time and even said to them,

I know that on this side of heaven, I will never see your faces again. Because the Spirit had more work for him to do and had already said to him, you will not see the

Ephesians again. So Paul is in tears with them. And he prays so earnestly for them.

But he even says to them in that prayer, in Acts chapter 20, he says, I know that fierce wolves will arise from among you.

There are false teachers that are going to come, not from outside the church, but even from your own midst.

And they're going to try to lead astray, if possible, even the elect of God. So I pray that you would remain steadfast.

And so what Paul hears when he's writing this letter to them is that they have indeed been steadfast.

For this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints.

You have a love for Christ and you have a love for each other. That is the demonstration that the

Holy Spirit is alive and working in your midst. That the

God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, I'm sorry, I skipped verse 16.

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

You know, oftentimes we pray, and as we've done this morning, I've even done this very thing this morning in our prayer time.

But oftentimes we pray for those who are in need. We don't often think about those who are not in need, but we need to pray for them too.

For what was the instruction that Paul gave to Timothy, a man who was a pastor that he was sending to Ephesus.

He was sending Timothy to Ephesus to be the pastor of the Ephesian church. And what did

Paul say to Timothy was first of all in 1 Timothy 2, of first importance.

First of all, I say that prayers, supplications, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all people.

For kings and those who are in high positions. That we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good and pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires that all men would come to repentance.

This is the first thing that Paul says to Timothy. You say, well, that's chapter two.

Paul had more to say there in chapter one. Right, he was giving basic instructions to Timothy in chapter one.

As a pastor, what's the first instruction that he's going to follow as he is leading over that church?

Prayer. Praying for each other and for all people. Not just people who are in need.

Not just people who are suffering, who are struggling, who are hurting. We pray for everyone, for all people.

And that you would be thankful for them. Thanksgivings be given for all people. And then Paul says for kings and those who are in high positions.

And the point being, the highest of the high to the lowest of the low and everyone in between. Pray for everyone.

We may look at a person like the President of the United States as being of a high particular stature and somebody who is above us.

And as far as human order is concerned, as far as human authority, which

God has even foreordained, as it says in Romans 13, as far as that human authority goes, yes, he does have a position that we must show respect and honor to.

But he is still a man, like any one of us. He is a human being, just like we are here in this room.

He is subject to sin and in need of repentance, just like anyone is.

So may we pray even for kings and those who are in high positions. May we desire that those who fill those positions of authority would receive godly counsel so that we're able to lead peaceful and quiet lives.

We're able to exercise our faith without fear of the government coming against us.

Just this past week, I was reading stories and articles and statistics about how Christianity is the most persecuted belief system on earth.

Now, we don't think about that much here in the United States because we have it pretty comfortable. And we have a constitution that so far protects our right to be able to gather together in an assembly and worship like this.

We can even go downtown and preach the gospel and can't be arrested for it. But there are people in the world who do not have that kind of liberty.

And just for gathering like this, they might even do it in a secret basement room. But if somebody gets wind of it, they're sending soldiers there to round those people up and arrest them because they're worshiping somebody other than the emperor of the country.

We need to be in prayer for them. We need to remember that there are persecuted

Christians in this world. That they would hold fast to Christ, though they may lose their lives because of it.

We here in the United States, who have it a little bit easier, nevertheless are subject to temptation and sliding.

Falling away is the term that the scriptures use. Backsliding is another word that we use.

And we need to pray for one another, even those who are in the faith. Even those that looking at them, you might not think, well, that person has a need.

But we all have a need. We all have a need to be faithful to our Lord Christ every day.

And that's one way that we can pray for each other. Paul does that for the Ephesians here, praying that they would be steadfast.

And they are going through persecution there in Ephesus. 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.

The spirit of wisdom and of revelation. So the spirit of revelation, understanding that as we read the scriptures, we can understand it.

And it's the spirit of God that gives us that ability to understand it. Paul illustrated that with the

Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2, saying that the natural man cannot understand the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned.

It is only the one who has the spirit of God who's able to understand the word of God. But though you may have the spirit of God to understand the word, you also need the spirit to give you wisdom, lest you be puffed up with knowledge.

Remember what Paul also said to the Corinthians, that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

And so you can have knowledge and be filled up with pride, and actually be very destructive and not so gracious or charitable in the way that you exercise that knowledge with other people.

You need to ask also for wisdom that you may know how to use that knowledge responsibly.

And Paul prays for both, for the Ephesians. He prays that they would have the knowledge of God according to his word, the spirit of revelation and the knowledge of him, but that they would also have the spirit of wisdom, knowing how to exercise that knowledge rightly.

And he prays for wisdom first before he prays for knowledge, so that you would have the wisdom to know that what you learn must be rightly applied, or the grace and love of God that's demonstrated in his scriptures is lost upon you.

This is not just a textbook that we're reading this morning. This is not just some sort of story or fable that was made up way back when.

I think some of us, even though we may confess with our mouths that we believe this is truth, there still might be some sort of disconnect in our heart or in our mind to understanding this stuff really happened 2 ,000 years ago.

These words were written by an actual man, the Apostle Paul, to an actual church that existed there in Ephesus in the

Roman province of Asia Minor. And that's understandable.

We're human beings. We're subject to forgetfulness. Sometimes we can kind of get in a groove, you know.

I just believe it. It just is. But do we really exercise our understanding to know that this really is the

Word of God? The Holy Spirit really did work through one of his apostles to give us this, that we may believe and know that he is

God. And so Paul prays that they would have a spirit of wisdom to be able to discern these things rightly, and a spirit of knowledge that they may know the

Word according to the revelation that is given to us by the Holy Spirit. In James 1, it says, if any of you lacks anything, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives generously to all without reproach.

How do I have the wisdom to rightly understand this Word and rightly apply it? Ask God, and he will give you that wisdom, that we may have the eyes of our hearts enlightened.

This is verse 18, 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? What might this mean to have the eyes of your heart enlightened?

So that we may see not with our eyes, but with our spirits.

The late Billy Graham illustrated this principle this way. He said, who has seen the wind?

Has any of you ever seen the wind? Have you ever caught the wind? Have you ever held it in your hand? I happened to mention to Becky this morning as Dave was making announcements,

I noticed the trees starting to blow. It was pretty calm when

I left this morning, and there wasn't any movement of air at all, hardly. And suddenly, we've got a front that's kind of coming in and bringing some wind with us.

So we can see things moving around. We see the effects of the wind.

And this is still going with Billy Graham's illustration. We see the effects of it, but you can't actually see the wind.

You can't actually grab the wind and hold it in your hands. And so the same is true of the

Holy Spirit of God. And Billy Graham wasn't so terribly original with his illustration. It was the same one

Jesus gave to Nicodemus in John chapter 3. That just as no one knows where the wind comes from, or where it goes, where it's blowing to, so it is with the

Spirit of God. We see the effects of God in creation and in people all around us, but we don't actually see the

Spirit Himself. So how do we know that the Spirit is there and that He is working even when we cannot perceive

Him with our senses? And this is why Paul says, I pray that you may have the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may be wise to know

God is in your midst and He is working among you. And that's here as well, my fellow saints.

That we may know the presence of God in our church and that He is working among us to be loving and compassionate toward others and to consider even the needs of people in our own community.

That we may demonstrate the love of God and know the love of God according to His Word and always holding out the

Word of Life, as Paul says in Philippians chapter 3. So that as we exist in this crooked and twisted generation, we may share the hope of eternal glory that is in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is the only power to save. For God will come to judge the unrighteous.

And it's only in Christ Jesus that we have righteousness. These are the truths of the scriptures that we must behold and know and believe to be true, that we may share these things with others, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened.

We know the truth of scripture. We know the power of God that works in these words.

And we may know that it has the power to save and the power, excuse me, to sustain those who are in the salvation of God.

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, that promise of heaven of the kingdom that is above, which no man has seen and come back to tell us of.

I mean to make that point very clear, no one has seen heaven and come back to tell us about it.

Despite what books might show up on the bestseller list, they didn't go to heaven and come back to tell us about heaven.

There was a great preacher you've heard me quote from many times, Paul Washer, who had a heart attack a couple of years ago and he died.

He was declared dead and they managed to resuscitate him and bring him back. And when Paul Washer came back and started regaining his strength over the next several days, there were people who love this man and have valued the teaching that he has given during his time of ministry who were waiting to hear some word of Paul Washer, to hear from him how he was doing and that his hope was still as strong in Christ as it had ever been.

And finally, one day, very joking, he did release something through his wife who posted something on the internet and he said,

I'm doing fine. I still love the Lord Christ and no, I did not go to heaven and I'm not coming back to write a bestselling book about it.

The apostle Paul even said in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 that he got to see those things, but he saw what no man may utter.

And so though he got to see those things, he couldn't even perceive it to put it into words to us what it was that he saw.

It was not given to him by God to say what it was that he saw. And the other men of the

Bible that we know of that saw those things in glory, men like Isaiah, Ezekiel, John, when we read those words of what they saw, they were in absolute fear of what they saw.

And those words are so difficult for us to comprehend. That we even squabble and argue over what they mean.

Though we use scripture to interpret scripture, that's a discussion for another time. But the point being that these things in glory that have been promised to us, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and yet it is in our hearts that have been enlightened by the

Holy Spirit that we know these things to be true and cherish them and hold on to them that we may have hope for those things that have been promised to the saints.

The glory that is above. This morning, Becky read with our kids the fifth commandment to honor your father and your mother.

And the extension of that commandment is that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving to you.

Now, because we read that in the Ten Commandments, we might think of an earthly existence that we're supposed to have, a land that God has given to us.

Though that was the case with the Israelites and the promised land that God was going to give to them, what we have spelled out for us plainly in Hebrews chapter 11 is that the true land that they were hoping for wasn't an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly one.

And so that should be our anticipation as well. God has promised for us a land.

He has promised for us a kingdom, but it's not something that we can set foot on here on this earth.

It is something that we will live with God in glory forever.

And to understand that, we need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which

He has called you. Verse 19, And what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His great might?

So in the last couple of weeks, we've talked about election. We've talked about predestination. We've talked about how the salvation that we have has come about by the working of God's power.

And we'll talk about that even more as we get into Ephesians chapter 2 as well. But here

Paul says that it is also by the working of God's power, not just that you became saved, but that you stay saved.

It is the working of God's power that you are sustained in this faith that He has given to you.

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?

There we have that again. Election in Christ. Predestination in Christ. The sustaining of your faith in Christ.

All of this is meant to draw us closer and closer to God that we may cling to Him who saves us and sustains us.

This past week, devastating news hit the evangelical community of a man who was a very famous pastor who had fallen away from the faith.

And he even made a public declaration through his Instagram account that he is no longer a

Christian. This man pastored one of the largest churches in the country at one point.

And he pastored it at a very, very young age. He's not too much older than I am.

As a matter of fact, the first time I heard his name was when I was in high school. And he had written a book which had been published and was a very popular book at about,

I think he was 20 or 21 years old when that book got published. His brothers also published a book which we've actually read and studied in one of our youth groups here in this church a few years ago.

And he made this announcement that he was divorcing his wife and he was leaving the faith.

And it's not the first time that we've seen a high -profile minister of this kind fall away.

It won't be the last. But as I was pondering these things, as I was thinking about it,

I'm sitting at my desk chair downstairs and I said a couple of things rashly.

So I just had to take a moment to be still and kind of think about what it was that had happened, what had taken place.

What could have possibly happened in this young man's life to lead in the direction that he went?

And it was then that my friend Nate Pickowitz, who's a pastor up in New Hampshire, said the following, if not for the grace of God, every one of us would fall.

None of us should ever look at anybody else who falls away from the faith and say to themselves, well, they messed up.

I'm not going to do that. It's by the grace of God that you're a Christian. It's by the grace of God that you can call yourself a

Christian tomorrow. Jason K. Allen, who is the president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary just down the road from us in Kansas City, he said, when

I read of Christian leaders falling morally, or in a most recent case, altogether abandoning the faith, my response after initial shock and sadness is always fear and trembling.

Jesus, hold me fast. It is by the grace of God that we are saved and we are sustained in this salvation that we have.

There's a man by the name of Nebuchadnezzar. Some of you may have heard that name before. In the book of Daniel, he was a pagan king who hated

God. And through the prophet Daniel, it was said to Nebuchadnezzar, you're going to become like an animal.

And you're going to go out in the wilderness and you're going to eat grass like the ox. And for years, that's exactly what happened to Nebuchadnezzar.

He went insane. He went mad. And he lived out in the wilderness like an animal. But then he came back to his senses and even wrote the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel.

He became, for all intents and purposes, I know this was Old Testament, but he became a Christian.

He came to fear God and know him as God. Here's something that Nebuchadnezzar wrote with the spirit of God working through his soul.

He says in Daniel 4, 34 through 35, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing. And he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

And none can stay his hand or say to him, what have you done? This is

God who is sovereign, who decrees all things, who has called us from sinful man to salvation in his son,

Jesus Christ, and who upholds us by his willing might. Far above all rule and authority, it says in verse 21, and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

The father put all things under the feet of the son and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

That is us. We're the church today because God has saved us.

Again, I remind you that we are fragile and we are but dust. As James even says in James chapter four, what is your life?

You're like a mist that appears for a moment and then you're gone. It is only by the power of God that we know of him and we continue to know him and walk in him in faithfulness.

So my brothers and sisters in Christ, may this encourage you all the more to walk with God, cling to him daily.

Do not think this day I don't need the gospel. No, you need it every day.

For it is the gospel that has saved you and it is the gospel that has the power to sustain you.

It is in the gospel that we have the hope of tomorrow and the promises, the inheritance that God has given to his saints in Christ Jesus.

I mentioned to you at the beginning an asteroid named

OK 2019. Yeah, we might be okay for a day, but who knows if we're even guaranteed tomorrow.

When I read about such cosmic events like this, an asteroid that is pummeling toward the earth, sometimes we make movies about it, right?

Big natural disasters of asteroids that are coming every once in a while. You'll read a story of some new theory that a person has or even an invention that somebody has made to help protect us from these streaming bodies that fly through the heavens at incredible speeds to the earth, as though we can stop such events when we didn't even know such an event was going to happen until after it had already passed the earth.

Whenever I read about these things, however you read the book of Revelation and how you understand it, my mind still goes to Revelation 8 .8.

I saw something like a huge mountain all ablaze and it was cast into the sea.

See, there is a day that has been fixed by the authority of God when the earth is going to be judged and it will be consumed by fire.

But take heart, my brothers and sisters, for I've read the last page and Jesus wins and all of us who are in Christ will likewise reign forever with him in glory.

Thank you for listening to our weekly sermon presented by First Southern Baptist Church of Junction City, Kansas.

For more information about our church, visit fsbcjc .org.

On behalf of our church family, my name is Becky, inviting you to join us again this week, Growing Together in Christ, when we understand the text.