5/21/23 Eph. 1:15-23 “You Are Very Special!”

19 May 5/21/23 Eph. 1:15-23 “You Are Very Special!”

5/21/23    Eph. 1:15-23       “You Are Very Special!”

I think that many of you know how I felt a few years ago about going to school all the time in Kansas City.  Just as a little refresher, I didn’t like it.  But I made it through and I am done.  Plus, I have now been made a pastor in the Global Methodist Church.  Praise the Lord!  One January when I was at school in Kansas City, I took a class called Personal and Social Ethics.  I had always heard how hard this class was but I didn’t believe it until that January.  I had been doing pretty well down at school as far as grades are concerned.  But in this class, I didn’t have a clue.  I would guess that at least a third of the people were in the same predicament that I was in.  We just didn’t get it.  I don’t know if the instructor wasn’t able to get his ideas across to us or if we were just plain dumb.  Anyway, it was months later before I finally received a grade for the class and I passed.  The reason I bring this up is that we are reading Paul’s writing again today.  Often times I hear that some of his writings are very hard to understand.  I have to agree with you about this.  I think that Paul can be very hard to read because he really doesn’t tell or use stories.  When Paul writes, he writes about Jesus Christ and the great things that Jesus has to offer you if you accept Him as your personal Savior.  It gets to be a little hard to read and understand because this is all Paul talks about so he doesn’t use many stories.  I read someplace that this first chapter of Ephesians was originally written in two sentences.  That might make it even harder for anyone to understand.  So, let’s see if we can unpack this a little as we try to dissect this run-on sentence.

Pastor Clark Tanner tells the true story of a man who wrote to him one time telling him about all the ways that he thought that God didn’t exist.  He believed in his argument and Pastor Clark knew that there would be no use in trying to write him back with the facts.  I remember a few years ago when our then mayor of Fargo, Jon Lindgren, told our local newspaper and everyone how he is very sure that there is no God.  One of his front-line arguments was that he went to a Lutheran Church for many years before he finally realized that there is no God.  I think that this statement alone goes to show us that just because you come to church, doesn’t mean that you have a relationship with Jesus.  As a matter of fact, it doesn’t matter how smart all the free thinkers in Fargo are, if they don’t have this relationship with Jesus, then they will never understand the Bible.  That is because the Bible is written so that only believers can understand it.  People, especially young people, understand this when someone attacks your faith.

The first thing I think that we should notice about this reading is that it reads almost as if it is a prayer.  One of the great things about Paul is the same thing that makes him a little hard to read once in a while.  This man was and is greatly in love with our Lord Jesus Christ.  He knows what it was like to be against Jesus and as far as he is concerned there is no real life without Jesus.  And I agree.  Paul had a dramatic conversion as he was blinded and Jesus helped him to see again.  Because of this incident and more, Paul loves Jesus.  And it is because of this love that he tries to tell people just how great Jesus really is.  He doesn’t tell stories.  He explains how Jesus will work in your lives and sometimes this can be a bit overwhelming.  That is why I have to sometimes stop reading Paul and rest.  There is wealth of faith written in these few verses that we are reading today.

I think that Paul should have been a motivational speaker because even today we look to Paul for ideas on how to boost morale.  We need to remember that Ephesus was a city where just about anything was ok.  It was an ‘anything goes’ town.  It was as bad as California today.  It was a center of pagan religions.  There was immoral behavior where ever you looked.  This is where the Holy Spirit led Paul to start a church right in the middle of Satan’s back yard.

These people of the church of Ephesus were just regular people who had all the troubles that we have with our faith except it might have been a little worse because Christianity was so new.  The exciting thing that Paul is doing here for these people is that he is praying for them because they have been so good with their faith.  This is about the best thing that he can do for these people when he isn’t there.

This is the best thing that you can do for people that you know.  Please notice what he is praying for.  He is not praying for the health of the people or the wealth.  He is not praying for opportunity or protection.  These things are important for us to pray about but this is not what Paul has in mind.  He prays for their wisdom and revelation.  Paul wants these people to grow more in Christ.  He wants them to have the wisdom that only Christ can give them.  This is the wisdom of who Jesus really is and what He can actually do.  The revelation is the revealing of the glory of all the things that God has done through Jesus Christ.  This is a powerful prayer.  This is a prayer to grow the church.

This is also a prayer for us.  I don’t know how many times we hear that someone will pray for us.  Sometimes I wonder if that is actually happening.  There are a few of you who have a prayer life that is dedicated and true.  But sometimes I think that we might just go through the motions and tell people that we will pray for them.  I have decided to change my prayer for you this week.  I now pray that all our congregations will have the wisdom of Christ and the revelation of Christ.

I will do this because I want you to be stronger Christians.  You people do a pretty good job right now but I’m of the school that no matter what you are doing, you can do it better and this includes being a Christian.  We can always improve on things.

Just for a moment, I would like us to stop and think about this because it is really important.  What is the nicest thing that you can do for someone?  After we cut through all the clutter of our material things, we can sort of see that maybe to love someone is the nicest thing we can do for them.  I’m not going to argue with that.  To give someone love is one of the nicest, most important things you can do for someone.  One of the ways that you can give love to someone is to pray for wisdom and revelation for them.  When you are doing this, you are asking God to help them to know God better.  As they get to know God better, then God will reveal more and more to them.  As He reveals himself more and more to them, they will gain Godly wisdom.  As they gain this wisdom, people will be attracted to them for all the right reasons.  Things will start to fall into place in their lives.  There will be fulfillment and contentment where there never was before.

This is a great time of year to begin this.  I think we all know people who are graduating from high school and college or just starting something new in life.  Pray that these people will have wisdom and revelation in their lives.  This is probably the most complete prayer you could give them.  We also have people who are down and out.  We have people who are poor.  We have people who are in trouble.  We have people who for most of their lives have not understood a word God has said to them.  Pray for these people that they would receive wisdom and revelation.  This is the way to truly love someone.  This prayer is one of the most powerful in the whole Bible.  Use this as a model.

The good part of Paul is that he is never done with his people or us.  He prays that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened so that we may know hope.  I don’t know how many people I have talked to or counseled who just have no hope.  Things have crashed around them and there is no place for them to turn.  If they are fortunate, they know Jesus and He will help them out.  There is still pain and there is still a lot of work to do but at least there is hope.  This is the hope we have in Jesus Christ.  For people who don’t know Jesus, it is a whole other ball game because they don’t have a clue as to what I’m talking about when I tell them about Jesus. This is what I was referring to in our opening story.  This is why you should be inviting people to this church service so they can hear the Good News.  This is the story of hope and it is a story that everyone needs to know.  Confess your sins and ask Jesus into your heart.  This is the best news that you can ever have.

So, you have hope and you also have the riches of the glorious inheritance of the saints.  In other words, when we have Jesus, we have a spot with Him for eternity.  And it is not just a spot, it is a glorious inheritance.  Jesus never does things part way.  He never does a half a job.  He fed 5000 people with next to nothing and He had all kinds of leftovers.  He not only quieted the storm but He instantly took them to the other side of the lake.  He does things with us in mind.  He does things so we can have the best place ever in eternity.  Jesus loves you and wants all of you, all of you to join Him in heaven.  I don’t know what it will be like there but I do know that you cannot begin to imagine how great it is.

The last thing I want to mention about this passage is that God wants us to have the power that He has.  There are some things that are a little scary about knowing God and this is one of them.  Paul knows all about this power.  He had the power to cure the sick and raise the dead.  He had power that only the disciples knew about.  And yet with all the power that Paul had, he did not let it be used for things that were wasteful.  The things that were wasteful were the things that were not for the glory of God.

You have heard me say many times that all God has, He wants to give to you and here is another example.  But with power comes responsibility.  The first thing that you have to remember is that you belong to God and God will take care of you.  So don’t worry about your life.  God will take care of it.  There are countless stories about people giving their lives to God, and God has taken care of them through it all.  So don’t worry about you because your life isn’t about you anyway.

We are to take this power to other people.  We are to help our neighbors.  We are to feed the poor.  There is so much work to do if you would just look around.  God wants you to take this power and use it for His glory.  He gave you the pattern when He sent Jesus to live with us.  He knows that we can’t do these things by ourselves.  He knows that we are weak and need help.  Therefore, He showed us how this is done in Jesus Christ.

Personally, I don’t think that we can handle all this power on a continuous basis.  I think that we get flashes of this and that is when wondrous things happen.  But the world we live in is just too broken, too sinful for us to sustain this for long periods for the most part.  Now God knows all this stuff.  He knows everything.  He knows we can’t do this so He gave us Jesus to head our churches.  He gave us this Bible so we could read and study passages like this.  Then we can come to know that God wants us to have all these wondrous things.  We can look to Jesus and we can look to the Bible for help.

One of the most important things that He has given us is the ability to come to Him in prayer when we are alone and in settings like this.  We are the church and Jesus is the head of our church.  The building has nothing to do with the church.  The building is just a place for worship and nothing more.  God wants us to have all the wonder that He has through the head of the church, Jesus Christ.

John Stevenson tells a great story that illustrates this.  Victor always felt like a loser.  At age 16, a teacher advised him to drop out of school and get a job.  He did and he didn’t do much better in the outside world.  By the time he was 32, he had failed at 76 jobs.

But job number 77 was about to change his life.  As part of the interview process for this job, Victor was required to take an I.Q. test which measured his intelligence.  A score of 100 is considered to be normal.  Victor scored a 161.  Victor had never noticed this before.  He was a genius.   This knowledge transformed his life.  Victor Serienko went on to become famous for his work in laser surgery.  He became president of a group called MENSA which is an organization for geniuses.  All of this was because this test said that he was special.

Sisters and brothers in Christ!  You are all that special.  You all have scored off the charts on the Christian I.Q. test.  You have all these special tools that we have described to you today.  Plus, you have much, much more.  Grab ahold of these things like Victor did.  There is not a person here that cannot take the hand of Jesus and turn this world upside down.

As you go about your week this week, do something for someone else that you normally wouldn’t do.  See what happens.  Don’t try to do this on your own but let Jesus guide you.  He will give you all He has and more.  This is one of the things that make being a Christian so great.  We can be in constant touch with the very creator of the universe.  Go to Him today and you will never regret it.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.