WISDOM & REVELATION (Eph 1:17-19)

Get your seat. It's going to be a good day. We're looking forward to gathering together and worship.

And and as I listen to everyone, I can hear the fellowship going on. I can hear the camaraderie, the relationships that are growing and building.

And and that's what this this day really stems around is community gathering together to worship the

Lord together. And I don't know about you, but my soul longs for this every week.

I long to gather with the saints and to be able to worship our God together. And and hopefully this week for you, if you're a follower of Christ, if you're a part of twelve five, this week has been saturated in relationship with God and communing with the triune

God and study of scripture and prayer and worship in your own time and preparation.

It's my passion then to come together today and it be a communal engagement of corporate worship.

That's what we long for. And there's something unique about that that God uses in our lives, isn't it?

It's that it's it's part of one of those common means of grace that God is working in us week in and week out.

Well, before we get started, we've got some announcements. We haven't been doing announcements a lot lately, but but we do have a few announcements.

One being most of you know that every Tuesday morning we open up this building specifically for a time of prayer.

And so we open up from seven to eight a .m. every Tuesday morning and everyone is welcome to come and be a part of that.

If you want to come and you want to seek the Lord together with some brothers and sisters, come. We've got we've got a few people that are consistent that are there every week that are able to be.

And I know some of you may not be able to be because of work. But you can also if you want to stop in for five, 10 minutes on your way to work, you're welcome to do that also.

But this is a time for us as a church to be very intentional about our prayer. Right. We ask a lot of things of God.

We have a lot of needs within the church. We have needs within the community and with our family members. What better way than to gather together and go to the source that will provide for those needs.

And so Tuesday morning every every Tuesday at seven to eight a .m. this building is open for that.

Another consistent thing is our midweek Bible study every Wednesday night at 630. The youth,

I say youth loosely because it's 10 and above, meet over at the house with Pastor Jeremiah.

And he has been walking through the book of First John with him. And exegetically just walking through that book a little bit at a time.

What part are y 'all in now? Chapter two. They've made it to chapter two here. Okay. Well, what an amazing time.

If you have a teenager or if you're watching online and you have a teenager that you want them to grow in the word of God, what a great opportunity for that.

But for us adults, we just recently in the past two weeks started a new study. I forgot to grab the book.

There's a copy. There's only three copies left on the table if you haven't gotten a copy of Everyone's a

Theologian. And this is an introduction to something called systematic theology. And you may think, well,

I don't know what that means. Well, we try and explain what that means. But this is really kind of a grid of all these different doctrinal positions that we have theologically as Christians that we think scripture teaches.

So if you ever wondered, why do we believe what we believe? Well, this is a great opportunity for you to jump in and go through that book with us together on Wednesday nights in here in this building every

Wednesday at 630. New member class. We usually only do one new member class a quarter, but last quarter we had to do three.

And now we have another one coming up for this quarter. And so it's Sunday, April 30th, which is,

I believe in two weeks, if I'm not mistaken, two weeks from three weeks from today. April 30th.

Two weeks. Okay. Right after lunch,

Pastor Jeremiah will oversee the sermon Q &A and I will lead the new member class over at the house.

So if you want to be a part of that, please reach out to me. Let me know that you want to be a part of that. That's the first step in learning what it means to be a part of this community.

Now, remember also every week part of our extended time of worship together involves fellowship.

And we've chosen to do fellowship like the early church with what we call Koinonia Feast. This is just a fancy word for fellowship, deep abiding

Christian fellowship. And this Koinonia Feast, you can see there's food back there. So please stay.

We do that directly after the Lord's Supper, and then followed by our sermon Q &A, which is a part of our service also.

Then closing out officially our service for the day with a benediction at that point.

So please plan on being a part of that. That's hugely beneficial for this particular body.

Well, before we jump into our call to worship, we often try and pray for another local church.

And today on our list is Journey. We've prayed for Journey numerous times.

Journey is a church right up the street, an SBC church that a lot of us have good relationships with much of their leadership and many of their members.

And Journey has just recently brought on a new pastor in the past month or two, I believe. And so I would like for us to go to the

Lord in prayer and pray that God would bless their ministry and use them mightily.

So pray with me. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning. We thank you for allowing us to worship you.

But Father, we also are so thankful for brothers and sisters all over town that get together today and worship you.

And so specifically, we just want to lift up our brothers and sisters at Journey. God, we pray that you would use them mightily.

Father, we pray that you would work in their midst. We pray for their new pastor that is preaching and preparing to preach this morning.

God, I pray that you would give him boldness and clarity of thought, wisdom, and that he would speak only truth from your word.

I pray that he would boldly proclaim the full counsel of God. Father, I pray for their leadership.

I pray that you give them wisdom and discernment. Lord, help them to shepherd people well. Father, I pray for their people that they would grow in the fear and knowledge of you.

Lord, that you would use that church to bring about awakening and revival.

God, we ask that you would bless their service this morning as they gather together to worship the same

God that we worship this morning, the one true God, the triune God. We thank you for them in Christ's name.

Amen. Amen. Well, let's officially start our service off today. Let's stand for our call to worship.

We've come to Psalm 66 in our reading together through the

Psalms, and so we thought we would take the first few verses here, one through five, as our call to worship, as a read and response.

And this psalm starts off, how awesome are your deeds to the choir master.

It's a song, a psalm says, shout for joy to God, all the earth.

Give to him glorious praise and say to God. So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.

They sing praises to your name. Come and see what God has done.

And all of God's people said, Father, Lord, we we humble ourselves before you this morning.

How awesome you are. How great are your deeds? Lord, it's such a joy and an honor to come together here this morning on this beautiful morning together in your house with the brothers and sisters and sing and worship and praise you.

You are worthy of all of our praise. We praise you so much. We thank you for all that you do.

We thank you for what you're going to do. We thank you for this service. We love you.

We praise you. And all of God's people said, amen. You will lead the way.

Sing with joy now. Our God is for us. The Father's love is a strong and mighty fortress.

Raise your voice now. Your love is greater. Who can stand against us if our

God is for us? I will stumble even when

I fall, even when I tumble. Stand by me, shoulder by shoulder.

You will cheer me on, you will never leave me. Sing with joy now.

Our God is for us. The Father's love is a strong and mighty fortress.

Raise your voice now. Your love is greater. Who can stand against us if our

God is for us? He who can separate us, hell and death, cannot defeat us.

He who gave his Son to free us, holds me in his arms.

Neither height nor depth can separate us.

Hell and death will not defeat us. He who gave his

Son to free us, holds me in his arms.

Sing with joy now. Our God is for us. The Father's love is a strong and mighty fortress.

Raise your voice now. Your love is greater. Who can stand against us if our

God is for us? Sing with joy now. Our God is for us.

The Father's love is a strong and mighty fortress. Raise your voice.

Who can stand against us if our God is for us? In the dawning, the theme of heaven's praises rode in frail humanity.

In our moaning, in life has come, looked to Christ to condescend, and took on flesh to ransom.

Behold the wondrous mystery. He, the perfect Son of Man.

In his living, in his suffering, never traced nor stayed of sin.

See the true and better Adam, come to save the hell -bound man.

Christ, the great and sure fulfillment of the law, in him we stand.

Lift your voices. Come behold. Come behold the wondrous mystery.

Christ, the Lord, upon the tree. In the steed of ruined sinners hangs the lamb in victory.

See the price of our redemption. See the

Father's plan unfold, bringing many sons to glory.

Grace unmeasured, love untold.

Behold the wondrous mystery. Slain by death, the

God of life. But no grave could ever restrain him.

Praise the Lord. He is alive. And what a foretaste of deliverance.

How unwavering our hope. Christ in power resurrected.

And what a foretaste of deliverance.

How unwavering our hope.

Christ in power resurrected, as we will be.

Continuing in Psalm 66. God turned the sea into dry land.

The children of man, they passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him who rules by his might forever.

Whose eyes keep watch on the nations. Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Bless our

God. O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard. Who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip.

For you, O God, have tested us. You have tried us as is silver. You brought us into the net.

You laid crushing burden on our backs. You let not men ride over our heads.

We went through fire, through water. Yet you have brought us out of the place in abundance.

Thou my vision,

O Lord of my heart. Thou be all else to me, save that Thou art.

Thou my best thought by day or by night.

Waking or sleeping, that passes by.

Thou my wisdom, Thou my truth.

Thou be dwelling as I teach praise.

Thou my inheritance. Thou my treasure, may

I be driven from sorrow.

Still be my vision, O Lord. Be my vision.

Every blessing to my heart to sing

Thy praises. Streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of love to raise.

Teach me some melody sonnet sung by flaming tongues of love.

Rays of light are mixed upon mountain high, retreating down.

Here I raise my heaven -raising hymn when

I, Thy help, I call. And I know that I'm safely to arrive,

O Lord. Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.

To rescue me from danger, enter close to His precious blood.

It's grace, how great a debtor daily

I am constrained to be. Let Thy goodness, like a feather, bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Home to wonder is my heart,

O Lord. Take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

Take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above.

Thank you, God. God, as we come before you to worship you in this time of giving and offering, we ask that you would be honored in that,

Father. Thank you, Jesus, for what you've done on the cross. Thank you that it's paid once and for all.

We praise you, Father. Thank you, Jesus. I pray that you would use this church body and what you've given us to honor you, to glorify you.

That everything we do inside and outside this church body would bring you glory. We praise your holy name.

In your name we pray. I will come into your house with burnt offerings.

I will perform my vows to you, that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.

I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatted animals with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams.

I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Come and hear all you who fear

God, and I will tell you what He has done for my soul. I cried to Him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly,

God has listened. He has attended the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because He has not rejected my prayer or removed

His steadfast love from me. Let's go ahead and open up your copy of God's word to Ephesians chapter 1.

Surprise, surprise. Ephesians chapter 1, we're going to be looking primarily at verses 17 through 19 today, but I want us to read the whole of this section, this prayer from the

Apostle Paul, starting in verse 15 of chapter 1. 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 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, and 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.

This is the reading of God's holy inspired word. Let's go to Him once again in prayer, that He would give us wisdom as to how we can understand this clear, and precise, holy, perfect word.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come to You now and we ask that as we continue our time of worship through a time of preaching, that You would be honored.

Father, I pray that You would prepare all of our minds and our hearts to hear the truth.

The truth that is from Your word. God, You have given us everything we need for life and godliness here in these words.

So Father, I pray that we would glean from them, and we would not just be hearers of that word, but doers of that word.

That as we read these truths, that we would grow in them, and they would penetrate into our hearts and minds in a way that when we leave this place, it changes us, it molds us more, and conforms us more into the image of Your Son.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for this glorious gift in Christ's name, amen and amen.

Well, a Baptist preacher from the 1950s, you probably have never heard of this gentleman by the name of Warren Wiersbe, but when he, preaching this particular text, shared a story about a wealthy gentleman at essentially the turn of the century by the name of William Randolph Hearst.

I'm sure none of you are familiar with this man, but he was a very wealthy man.

And Hearst had invested a fortune collecting art, these treasures of art that he loved dearly, and he collected them from all over the world, just espousing this enormous wealth within these treasures of art.

And so one day, Mr. Hearst, he found a description of some valuable items that he, in that moment, just felt,

I have to have these items, that these treasures of art, I have to get my hands on them,

I must own these. So what does he do? Like any wealthy man that wants something, he sends his agent after it, doesn't he?

So he sends one of his agents to find this beautiful treasure of art, and so his agent goes, he travels the world, and for months he searches and searches, and he just can't seem to find it.

But one day the agent reports that he has finally found this art treasure. He's found it.

And so you can imagine Mr. Hearst is excited, he's waiting to hear, where is it at, what is it going to take for us to get our hands on it?

But it turns out that this treasure that Mr. Hearst wanted so desperately happened to be in Mr.

Hearst's warehouse this whole time. He already owned it. He owned this great treasure that he just thought he had to have.

He had been searching frantically for this treasure that he himself already owned and was just sitting collecting dust in a warehouse.

If he had simply read the catalog of his treasures, he would have saved himself a great deal of money and trouble, wouldn't he?

I love this analogy, I love this story, because if you think about it, this is often where we as Christians find ourselves in regards to these blessings and inheritance that Paul has been speaking about up to this point.

This beautiful treasure that we have in the triune God because of the work that he has accomplished and he has bestowed upon us in that inheritance.

As we looked at last week in verse 15, Paul affirms that these people, the readers of this letter in Ephesus that he's writing to, are recipients of this great blessing and inheritance.

He acknowledged that, he knows this because he hears, remember, of accounts of the evidence of such.

That being, one, their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is evidence that they are recipients of this blessing and this glorious inheritance.

And two, their love for the saints is further evidence of their being true faith in Jesus Christ.

And then in verse 16, he tells these believers, these recipients of this glorious blessing, that he is praying for them.

And now in verse 17 through 23 of what we've just read, that he tells them what he is praying.

And what is he praying? Look at verse 17 with me. He says, that the

God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, the source of all things, the source of all good blessing, the source of all good gifts and inheritance, that that God may give you, and here's what he's asking, that we may receive the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.

So Paul is asking here that God the Father would give them wisdom and revelation. Wisdom and revelation in what?

The knowledge of himself. And how does he ask that it be given?

By the Spirit. Right? By the Spirit is how it's to be given.

Now there is some disagreement as to what Paul means by Spirit here in this writing.

Some of your translations have that word capitalized. Our ESV does so.

But some of your translations do not have it capitalized. It's in a lowercase,

Spirit. Does anyone in here have a Bible with a lowercase in it? Yep. There's a few of them out there.

There's much debate as to what Paul is talking about. Again, to capitalize it means that it is referring to the

Holy Spirit. That's how we see it in Scripture. That's why it gets capitalized. And the lowercase s can refer to a human spirit.

It can refer to the spirit of this world. It can refer to any other spirit. It is sometimes used in reference to a disposition or an influence or an attitude toward something.

But I believe, and for a number of reasons that we don't have time to dive into today and we're not going to dig into.

By the way, that is a great study for you to dive into it and come to a conviction where you stand. But I believe that Paul is referring to the

Holy Spirit here. I believe the ESV got it right in capitalizing Spirit. He is referring to the

Holy Spirit. However, I do admit that that conclusion presents a glaring problem or question.

It's not a problem. It's a glaring question. There's a glaring question. If this is the Holy Spirit, and some of you may already guess that question, but I'm going to tell you anyways.

And it is that if Christians have already been given the Holy Spirit, as we saw back in verse 13, as the seal, right?

If they've already been given the Holy Spirit, then why is Paul asking them to receive him again? That's the question that's being asked.

And the answer is, he's not. The simple answer is that he is not.

If someone has been sealed by the Holy Spirit, they cannot lose that indwelling.

That is forever. That is a secure promise. That is a commitment.

That is a covenant that God has made with you by sealing you with the promised

Holy Spirit. So what is Paul praying for then? What is Paul praying for in this letter?

Well, in order to understand, I think it would be helpful for us to see that he actually prays something similar later on in the book.

Flip over to chapter 3 with me in Ephesians. I want to start looking at verse 14, where Paul is praying a prayer for spiritual strength for these believers that he is writing this letter to.

This whole letter is just riddled with prayers from the Apostle Paul. He's always going to the source.

But in Ephesians chapter 3, starting in verse 14, Paul says, For this reason I bow my knees.

I'm praying to God. I'm going to the source. I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

And what is he doing? What's he praying for? That according to the riches of his glory, according to him, according to his wisdom and his riches and his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being.

You see, spirit is capitalized there, right? And there's no disagreement here as to what spirit is in this reference.

There is no argument as to what Paul is referring to. But he tells them, he says, I pray that you would be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being.

So that, look at verse 17, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So here Paul is using this same type of phrase and praying for them to have the

Holy Spirit. But he's praying specifically that they would be empowered to grow in their faith by the power of the

Holy Spirit. He's not adding the Holy Spirit. It's not like there's somebody over here that has a lot of the

Holy Spirit, and then this person over here is just kind of a Christian that has a little bit of the Holy Spirit, and we need to pray for it. We all have equal amounts of being sealed by the

Holy Spirit and dwelling with the Holy Spirit. It's a matter of us growing in that.

And we're going to look at that here. But that is one of the reasons I believe that back here in chapter 1, the Apostle Paul is referring to the

Holy Spirit. After all, what is he praying that we should receive?

What's he praying back in wisdom and revelation? He's praying that we would have wisdom and revelation.

Who is the source of all wisdom? Only the triune God, right? Who's the source of all revelation?

Only the triune God, right? This is the only source of any wisdom, any revelation that we could possibly have.

Revelation actually speaks of knowledge that we have of him, a knowledge of God.

And even though we all have a general revelation, we've talked about that before, right? Especially on Wednesday nights, we just recently talked about this general revelation that God has given to all men.

God has made himself evident to all men so that no man is without excuse. It is the general revelation of who

God is. But now we're speaking of special revelation, a true knowledge of the

Almighty. It starts at regeneration when we get awakened by the

Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes and breathes life into our dead spirit and takes the heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh and gives us then spiritual ears and spiritual eyes to see the beauty of Christ, to then see the beauty of the triune

God at all. But then it even continues to work in the process of God using the

Holy Spirit to sanctify us and grow us in the knowledge to see more and more.

So that is revelation, but wisdom is speaking of our capacity to make use of that knowledge.

Wisdom is the ability to make use of that knowledge. So when Paul says that the

God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him, he is saying what is already there, what you already have acquired, what is already yours in Christ must be, can be, and will be seen, experienced, and utilized more and more.

I'm going to say that again because that's a lot. That was a mouthful, wasn't it? What he's saying in this passage is what you already have there.

The Holy Spirit has already sealed you. You are already in Christ. That's why Paul's praying for them. He's not praying for unbelievers.

He's praying for believers. You've already acquired the Holy Spirit. He's already yours in Christ.

Christ has already paid the price for you. You're already redeemed, but must be, can be, and will be seen, experienced, and utilized more and more in your life.

That's the process of sanctification. That's the way that we are growing in our knowledge of him.

We're growing in our obedience to him. Not only do we just have this knowledge of who he is, but now we take that knowledge and we have wisdom to utilize it.

That wisdom can't come from us. We don't know how to utilize it in and of ourselves. We can have all the knowledge of God that we want.

We can look at all of these scriptures. Look at the world, the world that uses scriptures. There's cults and false religions all over the world that say that the word of God is the true word of God, but then distort it and misunderstand it.

They don't have the wisdom to even begin to start. And so Paul is praying for this for us.

The Holy Spirit is present and active to be sure. If you've been sealed by him, he is present and active.

But just as the Apostle prays there in chapter 3 that we read a moment ago, that we just looked at, may be strengthened with power through the

Holy Spirit and the inner being. It's obvious that we all need wisdom and revelation to tap into what is already ours.

We've been given a revelation. We've seen him. We've been given wisdom to the point of being able to comprehend and live for him at some level, but we are growing in it and we need that.

And it's only going to come from the source. We can't conjure it up on our own. All the

Bible study in the world can't get you there. All the spending time on your knees in prayer won't get you there.

Now there are means that God uses, but they in and of themselves will not do anything for you.

It is going to take a work of God, the Holy Spirit within you to drive you to this and grow you in this.

Because we are often more like Mr. Hearst, aren't we? That we spoke of at the beginning. We're often like him having such a rich treasure in Christ that we have been brought into unity and be given an inheritance and sealed by the

Holy Spirit, yet such ignorance of our possession of it. We can't even look at the list of treasures that we have in the warehouse and see it and know that it's there.

It's ours. To gaze upon, to look upon, to see the beauty of, to enjoy, to rest in.

And Paul expounds upon his prayer. He prays that the Holy Spirit would give us the revelation, the knowledge of God, and the wisdom to use that knowledge.

And he goes on to identify some specific revelations that he wants us to know.

Some specific revelations that he wants us to experience and to wisely apply. So let's look at the first one here in verse 18.

He says, This is, of course, poetic imagery.

Any cardiologist in here? You can affirm there are no eyes on the heart, right?

But this is language that Paul is using because in Scripture the heart is an indicator of feeling and of faith.

It's often seen as well as a mainspring of our words and our actions.

What's in a man's heart comes out of his mouth, right? This is at the very core of who man is.

And Paul, such as Paul using it in Romans when he says, It's not speaking of the physical heart.

Jesus himself saying, This is imagery that Scripture gives us.

And eyes are, of course, the means in which light shines in. We can't see the beauty.

We can't see it without our eyes, can we? So when Paul says there in verse 18,

He is referring to us having that knowledge deep within us.

This knowledge of God deep within the core of us. Not just an intellectual ascent.

Not just a head knowledge of information that you have about God. But a revelation that changes you at the core.

The very core of who you are as a person. Who the person that God has redeemed you to be.

Very deep within is what he wants the Holy Spirit to enlighten.

So that we're changed deep. And why does he pray this specifically?

Look at the text again. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened. That you may know.

That you may know. I love those words in Scripture, don't you?

That you may know. He could have left us in darkness. In utter darkness. Not knowing anything.

But oh, we see all through Scripture. That you may know. That you may be certain in. That you may be established in.

Not, again, just an intellectual knowledge. But the language that Paul uses here is for us to know.

Is that deep within our heart. That the eyes of our hearts would see it. Would experience.

Would know it. Would live by it. Would truly know. And know what?

Look at the text. That you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.

Do you know that hope? Do you know it deep within?

That hope that he laid out just recently in verses 3 through 14. I'll recap it for you.

The hope that God the Father chose you before the foundations of the world for adoption.

The hope that God the Son paid for you by blood ransom. And the hope that God the

Holy Spirit is your guarantee of inheritance. That is a great hope.

This is what Paul is praying that we would know. That we would see deep within us.

That we would comprehend and live accordingly. And now

Paul is praying that you and I, recipients of this blessing, would live in that. Not a hope of wishful thinking.

Often times we hear this word. I've mentioned it before when we've come across this word. But this is a reminder. When you see hope used like this in scripture.

It's never in the context of how we think of hope. For us, hope is wishful thinking.

I hope that it doesn't rain tomorrow. The weather tells me it's probably not going to.

But I don't know for certain. And so I hope that it doesn't happen. I hope that my children all grow up to know the

Lord. I hope. I don't know. But when scripture uses this word here.

When scripture speaks of hope. When Paul is referring to it in this way. He's speaking of a certainty.

An anticipation, right? It's that kavah that we've talked about before.

There in the Greek. That cord. You hear the word cord there? There's a tension.

And it's being pulling. It's pulling. It's getting tighter and tighter. And at some point, it is most certainly going to snap.

You're anticipating that. It's an absolute certainty. And so when Paul uses this word here.

He's not saying a hope in wishful thinking. He's saying a hope of certainty. An absolute.

That you may know what is the hope. To which he has. I don't want you to miss this.

As a matter of fact, if you write in your Bibles. I want you to circle this word. Called you.

You. You. You. Me. It's personal.

It's not someone else. It's me. Paul is speaking directly to every saint that is going to read this letter.

Right? That I may know what is that great hope. To which he has called me.

I don't know about you. But I get the chills.

The hair on my arm stands up a little bit. When I start to think about the fact that the triune God. The God.

The creator of all things. Set his love and affection upon me.

Set me apart. Called me. Sent his son to pay the penalty for me.

Let's be honest. We need more of that reminder, don't we? I do.

I need a reminder of this hope. Constantly. And Paul is praying that our hearts would be continually more and more reminded of this great truth.

This great glorious truth that he has called us. And we hope in. And we rest in.

And we live by. And we understand it. And we grow in it. And that sanctification that's going on in our lives.

By the power of the Holy Spirit that is changing us within. Is growing us in our knowledge of him.

It's driving us to scripture. And then giving us the ability to even comprehend these glorious truths.

And rest in them. But Paul's prayer doesn't stop there. Look. Keep looking.

Verse 18. He says, 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 are the riches of this glorious inheritance? This is part of that hope.

Understanding the riches of his glorious inheritance. Comprehending this. Paul wants us to grow in our understanding of this great truth.

Not to just say, yeah, I have an inheritance. I get it. One day I'll see it. Let's be honest.

Sometimes we feel that way, don't we? God has left me here in no man's land.

But one day I get to experience it. One day I'll have it.

One day I'll receive that glory. And there's a beauty in that, right? There's a great anticipation of hope in that.

And we should long for that day. I long for glory. I don't want to be left here in this wretched flesh any longer.

Like, Lord Jesus, return. Right? That's what we long for. But there's something else in this process of sanctification that God is working in us in the here and now.

In this very moment. And to see it more and more.

To grow in the knowledge of it. To remind yourself of it day by day. And, of course, that takes the work of the

Holy Spirit. You can't just conjure that up on your own. You see an imbalance sometimes in the

Christian life. I see Christians that are over here. Well, I say professing

Christians. I'm using this lightly. I'm going to assume they're Christians. They're believers. That spend very little time in the

Word. They pray as little as often as they really need to.

And then on the other side of that extreme, you have the Christians over here that go to seminary.

And they dig. And they dig. And they dig. And sometimes both of those things are extremes.

That are out of balance. I'm not saying that you don't dig.

We're all about digging here, right? We're learning systematic theology on Wednesday nights. We're diggers, right?

We must dig. But there's a balance in this to where the

Holy Spirit must be involved in growing us. That head knowledge, if it's not seen by the eyes of the heart, it doesn't work its way in here and change.

I've seen many young men come out of seminary and go into churches and actually ruin those churches.

Because they had all the intellectual information about what the Bible says. But it had never really made its way here to work out into their lives.

This is what Paul's praying. You've got to realize who Paul was originally writing to, the church in Ephesus.

That's why this book is so theological. He goes, these people really love the Word and they're ready and they're mature.

And so what is he doing? He's praying that they would grow in the wisdom and knowledge of that and the revelation of that.

Not just information, but growing in their spirit and understanding how to apply these things.

That wisdom is absolutely essential. That young seminary student that just comes out of seminary has all of this, but has no wisdom to use it.

And this person over here has none of this or any of the wisdom. These are extremes, right?

Unfortunately, we see more of this in the church today, don't we? Let's avoid that at all costs, right? Let's avoid the other at all costs.

Let's come back here to the center. That's why it takes time. I tell you all the time around here, don't be judging each other or yourselves and your holiness in chunks of days and weeks.

That sanctifying process is not going to be visibly seen by your eyes over a matter of days or weeks.

It's in chunks of decades. When you see and live life with people like we're doing, ten years we see the

Holy Spirit sanctifying and working in and giving all of us more wisdom, more revelation, more knowledge.

We must not be like Mr. Hurst again who takes for granted these glorious treasures that are already ours.

These glorious treasures as we foolishly long for more all the while that more is not even being appreciated.

Do you get that? We so long for more. Give me more of you, God. Oh, give us more.

Give us more. There's no more to give. He's like,

I already gave my son and then I sealed you with the Holy Spirit. There's no more to give.

What else do you want from me, people? I've given you absolutely everything.

Now all you need is the wisdom and the revelation to live according to it and rest in it and live by it.

The power of God that we're going to be looking at here in just a moment. Look at it with me. Verse 19.

And what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His great might.

This word power in the Greek dunamis. It's where we get our word dynamite. There's power.

Have you ever heard dynamite go off? You can hear it from miles and miles away and it still rumbles the ground.

And that's not even beginning to scratch the surface of the power in which Paul is talking about here.

The power that breathed life into the universe. The power that comes in to a void without creation and speaks light into it.

This is power that Paul is talking about. This same power. He prays for this.

That we would comprehend. That we would comprehend the immeasurable greatness of His power.

Some of your translations say surpassing greatness. The word that Paul uses here means to transcend.

To surpass. To exceed. There's another meaning of this

Greek word. Speaking of throwing something. Let's say a quarterback.

I don't even know sports so I don't know a quarterback's name. Give me a quarterback name. I've never heard those names.

Patrick Mahone. I'm going to go with that. I have no idea who that is. I'm sure Patrick can throw a ball really far.

But this Greek word is actually referring to being able to throw that ball further beyond comprehension.

It's not even within the realm of being able to get your brain wrapped around it. And so he says this surpassing greatness is immeasurable.

There's no way to even measure it. It's a good explanation of God's power, isn't it? It's beyond comprehension.

And what does he say about this power? He says that it's toward us who believe. Toward us?

The power that created every molecule of the universe by the power of His word has directed that power towards us.

And we don't even comprehend it. We lack the wisdom and the revelation to even rest in that.

How often do you wake up in the morning and worry about something? Even if it's a big thing.

Think of it in the concept of the entirety of the universe and eternity. Is it still a big thing?

But yet we still don't rest in the power of that. God. We can say all day long that intellectual truth that God is sovereign.

God reigns on His throne. And I trust in it. Babe, how are we going to pay our bills this month?

God isn't in charge of money. He's in charge of everything else. He's just not in charge of money. Is my kid going to find a spouse?

A good godly spouse? We homeschool. How are they going to meet anybody? Right? We don't rest in it, do we?

We don't. Not within the day -to -day of our lives we don't really rest in it. I love how

John MacArthur says this. I want to quote him. He says, The surpassing greatness of God's power is given to every believer, not just to those who believe and then have a mystical experience, a second blessing, or some other supposed additional work of grace.

When we are saved, we receive all of God's grace and all of His power.

And that assures us of the revelation of our eternal hope. We sometimes forget about the immeasurable power.

We forget about that the all -knowing, all -powerful God of the universe has brought us into union with Himself and sealed us as we spoke of a couple of weeks ago.

Not with a signature. Not with a handshake. But with the person of the

Holy Spirit. All of us. Not some of us.

Not the super Christian. Every single person who is in Christ today is a recipient of this power toward them.

Paul goes on further to expound upon this power. He says, According to the working of His great might.

Well, this main thought that's expressed in these synonyms, right? This imagery of power, dynamite, working, might emphasizes the great power of God.

But it's best understood in the light of what immediately proceeds. Look at verse 20.

This power that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated

Him at the right hand in the heavenly places. Paul prays that they would be given, that we would be given enlightened eyes so that we may see and discern that.

And truly know that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and set

Him to reign as King over all is the same power that raised us from the dead and brought us into this glorious inheritance.

God said He would send a Messiah. And He did. God said

He would redeem a people for Himself. And He is. Because God is a

God of His word. And does exactly what He says He's going to do. And that is the power that you and I get to rest in.

That we get to live in. That we get to glory in. Notice Paul did not pray for us to have more power.

He didn't pray for us to have more power so that we could overcome sin in our lives. He didn't pray that we'd have more power to overcome the flesh, to obey the law of God.

He didn't pray that because we don't need it.

He prayed that we'd be aware of the power to overcome all of those things.

The wisdom, the revelation, and the knowledge of Himself.

It all goes back to knowing who the Triune God is.

Without that... The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, right? And who fears

God? Everyone that knows Him. Everyone that knows

Him, and that is the beginning of wisdom. And God gives us more and more of that through the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. Well, I pray this same thing for us today as a church, as a people. That we would quit looking for more.

That we would quit looking for more revelation, for more help, for quick solutions to our problems, and realize that we have access to the same power that raised

Christ from the dead. The immeasurable, unsurpassing greatness of the Dunamis.

The dynamite, the power of the Almighty God. Amen? Not only do we have access to it, we have that power within us.

We just don't realize it. We need wisdom and revelation to grow in it. So we must pray for each other.

Pray that each of our brothers and sisters would grow in this, that the Holy Spirit would work in our hearts, each one of us, to grow in this.

This power that comes from a Triune God. Amen? Amen. Well, I've got more, but I'm going to cut it there.

I think we've covered the text. So let's now prepare our hearts to go to the Lord's table.

Today we are going to do it a tad bit different. We're going to come up around the outsides to the elements, and take the elements, but please go back to your seat, and don't take them yet.

We're going to take them together today. We're going to read this text in 1 Corinthians 11, and we're going to take the

Lord's Supper together today, and then we will sing the doxology, and then continue our time of worship through Koinoniafe.