Thelma Howard lived a quiet life as a modestly paid housekeeper. When she died, her family discovered that she had actually been a multimillionaire. Her employer, Walt Disney, had given her shares in the Disney Corporation as gifts over many years. She had been sitting on untold riches — but she didn’t know it.
Paul has just told the Ephesians that the Christian life is one of extraordinary spiritual riches. Those who trust in Christ have been blessed “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). But what a tragedy it would be to possess those riches without really knowing them — and, even more importantly, without knowing the God who gives them.
That is why Paul moves from praise in the first half of chapter 1 to prayer in verses 15–23. He prays that Christians would know God better.
A Prayer of Thanks
First, though, Paul gives thanks. He has heard about two things in the Ephesian Christians: their faith in the Lord Jesusand their love for all God’s people.
These are two great themes of Ephesians. The gospel restores our relationship with God, while the church is God’s new society, where we are brought into relationships of love, unity and fellowship with one another.
Notice that Paul doesn’t congratulate the Ephesians for these things. He thanks God for them. He is thrilled to hear about God’s work in other people and in other churches.
That challenges us. We may pray earnestly for growth, conversions and revival in our own church. But would we rejoice if God answered those prayers in another church down the road? Gospel joy means being genuinely thankful whenever we hear of God at work — wherever it happens.
A Prayer to know God better
Paul’s main prayer is that the Ephesians would know God better. He asks that God would give them “the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him” (Ephesians 1:17).
Think about the people you love most. What are your deepest hopes for them? Good health, a successful career, good grades, financial security? These are all good things. But Paul points us towards something greater: knowing God better.
Christianity is fundamentally about relationship with God. And, like every relationship, our relationship with God is either growing or drifting.
J.I. Packer put it memorably: “We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing the God whose world it is. The world becomes a strange, mad and painful place... Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble through life blindfold... with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This is the way to waste your life and lose your soul... Our aim in studying God must be to know God better himself. Our concern must be to enlarge our acquaintance, not simply with the doctrines of God’s attributes but with the living God whose attributes they are”.
How tragic it would be if we devoted enormous energy to knowing our work, hobbies, interests and even other people better, while being content with knowing God only superficially.
Paul then gives us three ways that knowing God better will affect us.
a) Know your hope
Paul prays that “the eyes of your hearts” would be enlightened so that they would know the hope to which God has called them.
The Christian hope is rooted in everything Paul has already described: we have been chosen, forgiven, adopted and sealed with the Holy Spirit. We experience these blessings now, but one day we will experience them fully.
That hope changes how we live now. When the eyes of our hearts are shaped by the future God has promised, our present lives begin to look different.
b) Know your value
Paul also wants Christians to understand “the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.”
God places extraordinary value on his people. Christ died to purchase us, and God considers his church his treasured inheritance.
Knowing that we are deeply loved and valued by God should change how we treat his people. We should care for the church, take its mission seriously, guard its teaching and seek to live in a way that honours Christ.
c) Know God’s power
Finally, Paul wants us to know “the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19).
This is not an abstract power. It is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and seated him above every authority.
And that power is at work in Christians. It took extraordinary power to bring spiritually dead people to life in Christ — and that same power enables us to live the Christian life.
Paul will go on to explain what that looks like: humility, patience, unity, forgiveness, self-control, truthful speech and sacrificial love. It takes real power to live like that in the ordinary circumstances of life.
Thelma Howard never knew the riches she possessed. Don’t let your Christian life become a similar tragedy.
Know your hope. Know your value. Know God’s power for living. And above all, know God better.
Comments
Post a Comment