Be turning to Ephesians chapter
1, brethren. The next hour I'll be preaching
from Genesis chapter 2. Ephesians 1. Here in our text, we look at
a verse of scripture that details what Paul had prayed for the
saints. He was speaking in verses 15
and 16 of Ephesians 1 saying that since he heard of
their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, he's been thankful to
the Lord and he's prayed for them, remembering them in his
prayers. And in this prayer, Paul tells
us the substance of what he prayed. It says in verse 17, this is
our text, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of him." And he doesn't define which him he's
speaking of. Is he talking about God the Father?
Is he talking about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as God, as the
mediator? Yes, all of it. He's speaking
of the knowledge that our God gives to us of himself. And that's what I wanna talk
to you about this morning, the knowledge that God gives the
believer. So the Lord gives knowledge to
his children. It's a spiritual knowledge that
he gives to his child. When God saved his children,
Christ when he accomplished our redemption in the Lord Jesus
Christ because he did that it pleases the father to make known
to you his child what he has accomplished for you in the Lord
Jesus Christ when we think of salvation we think of it as in
terms of when the Lord saved us, when he had mercy upon us,
and that that's when we were saved. And yes, there is a sense
in which that is very true, but our redemption occurred in time
when Christ hung on the cross, and our salvation was secured
when the Father chose us and gave us to Christ in eternity
past, before the foundation of the world. But it pleases God
to make this salvation known to His child. He doesn't leave
us in the dark to what He's done for us. He delights in the Son.
He delights in His child. He wants to make known what He's
done and therefore He does it. He makes known to us what He's
accomplished. And so he's going to sanctify
his people by the spirit, meaning the spirit will be given and
separate them apart unto this gospel. They're going to believe
the truth. They'll be called by this gospel
effectually. They'll hear it, they will receive
it, they will believe what the Lord has done through his Son
for them. Of this knowledge which is given,
God makes us to know that we are sinners. Every one of his
children comes to know, I'm a sinner, and every one of his children
is made to know, and I can't save myself. Regardless of where we would
turn, And what we would do, the Lord makes us to know that we
are sinners, desperate for the grace and the mercy of God, and
I can't do anything by my flesh to fix that. He said, even if
we turn to the law, Paul makes mention of this in Romans 3,
verses 19 and 20. He speaks of those who would
turn to the law. And the purpose of that is that
anyone that would turn to the law, anyone that would look to
the law and say, well, this is gonna be my righteousness. This
is how I'm accepted with the Lord. If they hear the law and
the spirit of God will make sure that his child hears the law,
they're gonna hear what the law says to us, that we must be perfect. And we're gonna see how far short
we fall of the law, it's given to stop our mouths from boasting,
to stop us from talking about what we've done for the Lord
and how we've saved ourselves. That's why the law is given,
it's to shut our mouths before God and to become guilty before
God. And he says, therefore, by the
deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in God's sight.
The child of God's gonna know that. They're gonna know that.
So there were some who looked to the law as a schoolmaster.
The Jews did that. And in our day, there's modern
day lawmongers that still do that. Some of you came through
families or came up through churches where the law was pushed on you
for your righteousness. And you based your salvation
and your comfort and your confidence in the Lord as to how well you
were keeping the law. You look to the law. And when
we do that, and if that's our confidence, we're not hearing
the law. Because God doesn't leave his child under the law
thinking that that's their righteousness. He delivers them from that. And
then, for others, Paul says that they came through philosophy,
which is vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments
or elements of this world. In other words, it's just flesh,
all of it's flesh, whether you're coming through the law or you're
coming through the humanity, the teaching of the humanity
of man. That man can enlighten himself
and rise up to a level of some goodness or greatness by the
deeds that he does and the things that he thinks and practices,
like the Greeks did with their philosophy, and like men today
do, believing in being humanists. Either way, God makes his child
to know you're a sinner and you cannot save yourselves. that
we would hear, that we would seek Him to know, well, how then
can a man be just with God? If I can't do it, how can I be
made just with God? The Lord makes His children to
hunger and thirst for true righteousness, that which is spiritual, that
which is truth, because it's of the Lord, and it's not of
this flesh. The Lord has to give it to His
child, because we're dead. We're spiritually dead by nature
and Adam. Christ speaks of this when he
said, the hour cometh, and now is when the true worshipers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father
seeketh such to worship him. Meaning that what pleases God,
he's going to bring to pass in his child. They're going to be
made spiritually alive. They're going to worship God
in truth. It pleases the Father that we
should know him and know him in spirit and in truth, and worship
him in spirit and in truth. And so God reveals himself to
his children through the preaching of the gospel, the exaltation
of the Lord Jesus Christ, declaring what he has accomplished for
you, his child. Salvation is wrought, it's accomplished. Everything necessary has been
done and accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ, and he makes
his child to know He is the Savior. He is my salvation. He's everything
that the Father requires of me. Christ has provided it all. He
makes us to look to Him and to flee to Christ because He is
the refuge of God. We're told in 2 Corinthians 4,
6 that just as God brought light out of darkness. He brought that
uncreated light, the Lord Jesus Christ, to bear upon the earth,
that it's in Christ, in the face of Christ, that He reveals Himself
and gives light to us who are in darkness. He makes us to know
the Father through the Son. And the Father draws us to the
Son, that we may know Him and worship Him and glory in Him. In Christ, I'm made to know that
I'm forgiven of my sins and that I have an eternal inheritance
with him. I don't need to get all that
I can get in this world because these things are passing away
quickly. They come and they go like a
vapor in the world, like a little mist when you look out in your
backyard as the sun is burning off the dew. It comes and it
goes quickly, quickly. And the Lord makes us to know
Let this go. I have an inheritance in Christ. Now, that's a basic knowledge
that every child of God is given. We are brought to know that I'm
a sinner, that I can't save myself, that Christ is the Savior, that
I am forgiven of my sins in Him, that I may rest in Him, and I
know that I shall be raised from the dead and behold my Savior,
that I shall see Him and have an inheritance with Him. And
these Ephesians, they had that knowledge. They had that basic
knowledge of what Christ did for them. That's why they were
receiving this letter. Paul wrote this letter because
there was a church there in Ephesus that knew Christ, that knew what
Christ had done for them. They had that basic knowledge.
And when they received this letter, they rejoiced to receive this
letter. They knew Christ. They knew the Savior. And Paul
prayed for them as saints of God, those who were baptized
believers and following the Lord Jesus Christ. And here, in verse
17, Paul prays that they would grow in this knowledge, that
they would continue to grow in this knowledge of what the Lord
had done for them in Christ, saying that the God of our Lord,
Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give unto you the spirit
of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him." That's good. That's good. We are to grow.
Peter gave this charge to the church, saying, but grow in the
grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. And so we may have a basic understanding
of what Christ did for us, but know that your God is pleased
to teach you, to blossom and grow this knowledge of what he's
done in the Lord Jesus Christ for you, his child. It pleases
him to continue to teach you and to grow that knowledge and
to settle you on the foundation that is Christ, to be rooted
in him and to grow in Christ. So how do we come to know this? How do we come to this knowledge?
If it's not by the law, if it's not by humanistic thought and
philosophy of man, how do we gain this knowledge and grow
in this knowledge of our God and Savior? Well, all knowledge
of God is given by God. He's the only one that can give
it to us. If we can't find it out ourselves
by this flesh, by the strength and power and wisdom of this
flesh, then it's of God. God has to give it. And our God,
he doesn't reform us. He doesn't make the flesh able
now to do better and to follow the Lord and to grow of itself. He doesn't reform this flesh.
We are made a new creature, a new creation. We are called new creatures. We are called the new man. That creation of Christ in us
is called the new man, which after God is created. Created in righteousness and
true holiness. Ephesians 4.24, in righteousness
and true holiness. And what he's saying to us there
is that if it's truly righteous, And if it's truly holy, then
it is not of this flesh, because this flesh is corrupt, this flesh
is defiled. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
is righteous, and he's our righteousness, and the one who has created us
anew in Christ. righteousness, and true holiness. Adam's seed was corrupt. It is
corrupt. It's defiled. It's ruined in
sin and death. But Christ's seed, by which the
child of God is born again, by His seed, that seed is incorruptible,
meaning that this defiled flesh cannot corrupt and ruin and defile
and destroy what Christ has made in his child. We are, by nature,
are corrupt, but what Christ has made cannot be corrupted
and defiled. It cannot be ruined, though in
our flesh it's subject to the law of sin and death, meaning
we shall die, this flesh shall go back to the dust, but we shall
be raised again because of the law of Christ, the law of faith. the law of love and liberty in
the Lord Jesus Christ. We shall rise again, we shall
live forever with Him because that can't be ruined or destroyed,
it's not dictated to by this flesh what we do or don't do,
it's accomplished already in Christ. And so this new man,
it's a new creation, it's Christ's work, it's called in the scripture
a new birth. as when Christ said, you must
be born again. You can't reform yourself. You
can't get yourself born again by the law, Nicodemus. You must
be born again of the seed of your Savior, of your God. It's
a regeneration, a regeneration of Christ's child, of God's child. And that means that it's entirely
new. It wasn't there before. This new man in us, whereby we
believe, wasn't there before until Christ created it in us. And so this new birth is accomplished
by the Holy Ghost, whom the Father and the Son have sent to seek
out the lost sheep of our God, meaning those whom God chose
in eternity past and committed to the care of his son to save
them to do everything necessary. The spirit is now sent to seek
you out. We don't know who they are. He
knows who they are, but we don't know who they are. And so he
calls us to preach the gospel, to broadcast the gospel as if
we were casting seed out into a field to throw it out. put
it out there to preach and proclaim what the Lord has done for His
people and the Spirit comes with power and glory and gives a birth,
new life to hear, a hearing ear to hear that word and to know
the Lord did that for me, He did that for me and to believe
so that faith, life, living fruit is manifested in the child of
God and they hear the voice of the Son of God and believe, they
live, they're born again, they're spiritually made alive. And so the spirit does this work
in giving us the new birth, taking the blood of Christ and applying
it to us to remove the stain and the guilt of sin that's on
this conscience, that I cannot rid myself free, Christ has purged
it away and put it away, making my conscience clean, making me
white again. without sin, without the stain
of sin, and he removes that guilt, settling us in him, believing,
Lord, you've done this. You've done this for me. I'm
your child. I have no other hope. I see what
I am. I see I'm a sinner. I see I cannot
save myself. You are my hope. You are my righteousness. You're my all. And the Lord does
that. He makes you to know what he's
accomplished for you as your substitute. And you didn't do
anything to earn it. Nothing to earn that mercy or
gain God's forgiveness. He's done it all. It's freely
given in the Lord Jesus Christ by the grace of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And it's the spirit of God that
makes this known to us through the preaching of the gospel and
giving us that knowledge of what he's done. affirming it and reaffirming
that knowledge of what he's done for us in Christ. Now that's
a lot of words so let me show you this from one scripture.
Go to Titus chapter 3. It's toward the end of Paul's
epistles a little before Hebrews. Titus chapter 3 and we'll pick
up in verse 4 This is Paul's summary of everything
I just said. But after that the kindness and
love of God our Savior toward man appeared, meaning He came
with salvation, He provided salvation for those whom He loves, not
by works of righteousness which we have done. But according to
His mercy He saved us by the washing of regeneration, a new
birth, a new creation, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. All that was
lost in Adam has been redeemed. by the Lord Jesus Christ, the
last Adam, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ
our Savior, that being justified by his grace, that is, we are
made righteous by the grace of God in Christ, we should be made
heirs, have an inheritance according to the hope of eternal life.
It's all given. It's all provided in Christ.
And he makes his child to know this, to believe him. have no
other hope but Him. And so being regenerated by the
Holy Ghost we receive that which is given by God. We are given
life and understanding in this new man to hear and to believe
Christ to have this knowledge of what he's done for us freely
in grace. And Paul's praying for the Church
of God here it's a Ephesus here but He's praying for the church.
This is the prayer for the people of God that we grow in this knowledge
and the new man. As he said, that the God of our
Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory may give unto you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. And
this understanding can and only does come by the Holy Spirit.
And he gives us our first understanding and that same spirit is the one
who gives us our last understanding. so that everything you're to
learn, everything God would have you to know is all given to you
through the Holy Spirit. And that never changes. It's
given through the Spirit who illuminates the scriptures, the
word that we read in our own time. And as we come and sit
under the preaching of the gospel, he gives it to you and comfort
your hearts in what he's done for you in and by the Savior
whom he sent. And so it's from first to last,
we're taught by the Spirit of God. I like what Paul said in
Galatians 4, 6. He said, and because ye are sons,
God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. And what that means is whether
you are a Jew who would say Abba, That's the Jewish word for father,
or your Greek, who would say father, interpreted father. Doesn't
matter what your background is, there is one God and one Savior
given to men, whereby we must be saved, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And whether you say Abba or you say Father, we have one salvation. Whether you were mixed up and
tied up in the law or in the foolishness of man under darkness
and vain philosophy, Every one of his children are brought out
of that darkness into the light to behold the light of God, the
knowledge of God, the mystery of God revealed in the face of
Jesus Christ. And so the giving of the Holy
Spirit is a promise. Christ promised that he would
give you the Spirit to make these things known to you, his child,
what he has done. It's in John 16, let's go there. John 16 verse 13-15 How be it? When He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth, For he shall not speak
of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak,
and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for
he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. All things
that the Father hath are mine, and therefore said I, that he
shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. And so that's the spirit. that
you have, that's why you hear Christ. That's why you know He
is the Savior. That's why you know that in Him,
your sins are forgiven. And in Him, you have an eternal
inheritance. It's by that Spirit which He's
given. And we know that we have received that Spirit. How do
I know that I have the Spirit of Christ? Because He's all your
hope of righteousness. He's given you that confession
with your mouth to confess Christ as my Savior. He's given you
that faith in your heart whereby you believe that God has raised
Him from the dead. And what that means, that's pregnant
with meaning, meaning that I know that I shall live again in and
by the Lord Jesus Christ. I have an inheritance with Him.
He's my all. He's everything to me. And that's
the faith that he gives to his child. And he grows us in that.
It may be very basic at first, but he grows us and keeps showing
us more and more what he's done and how everything is in and
by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this is the spirit which
is given. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 2. Go to 1 Corinthians 2 and
we're gonna pick up in verse 10. Paul says to the Corinthians,
But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. This was a
mystery, we didn't know it, but God has revealed these things
to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth
the things of a man, save the Spirit of man, which is in him.
Well, that's how the things of God works. The spirit knows the
things of God because he's the spirit of God and he reveals
them to his child. He makes us to know what God's
mind is, what God has determined to do before the foundation of
the world and is working it out in and by the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he says, verse 12, now we have received not the spirit
of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might
know the things that are freely given to us of God." We're going
to know this. Which things also we speak, right? How do you know what a person
believes? What they're saying, by what they're saying, by what
they're speaking to you. Not in the words which man's
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, because they're foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they're spiritually discerned. So if you're troubled, And you're
worried, how do I know if I'm a child of God? Well, are these
things of Christ foolishness to you? Or are they the truth?
Is he righteousness? Do you know he's your righteousness,
that he is the righteousness of God, that he's your hope?
Lord, save me by his righteousness. Don't receive me in my works.
That's the spirit of God that gives you that. And he's the
one who comes through the preaching of the gospel to settle you in
that hope, to root you in Christ, to establish you in Him, to know,
to stop looking at your works, to stop looking at your sin,
what you do and don't do, and keep looking to Christ and follow
Him because He leads His child and never leaves them nor forsakes
them. And He promises you that look
to Me, that hope in Me, I'll never leave you, you're mine.
When I come again, I shall raise you from the dead and you shall
be with me forever. He promises that. And so we come,
we're gathered here to hear this word because he's comforting
us through that word. When we go out on our own, we
look at ourselves, we look at the world, all the troubles come
in upon us. They trouble us and they try
to break up that hope that we have, but the Lord keeps bringing
us back, sitting us down and hearing this word again. And
we're made to thank the Lord for it and rejoice in him, because
we know we've done nothing to earn it or to be worthy of it,
and yet he keeps being gracious and faithful and merciful to
us in Christ. So having the Spirit of God,
we'll continue to walk in his light. As Christ promised, he
that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the
light of life. That's his promise. You can't
make that happen. He says, keep doing, keep following
me. He tells us that, but he makes it effectual so that we
do keep following him and going after him. And therefore in that,
in Christ, he will teach us all things. Under the preaching of
the gospel, under the teaching of the Holy Spirit, we're gonna
know all the blessings that God has given us in Christ. Go back to Ephesians 1. Ephesians
1 and look at verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And then we see there that everything
is given in Christ. And what does Paul do after that?
As you go into verse four and following through verse 11, he
proceeds to declare all the blessings of God given in Christ. Verse four, he shows us that
we were chosen by God in Christ, in him. And that happened before
the foundation of the world, before we did any good or bad
and could either make it or break it. It has nothing to do with
our actions. It has everything to do with
the will of God Christ in him and we're predestinated he says
to our adoption of the children of God to be in the family of
God and we're accepted of God in Christ we're forgiven by God
in Christ and God has made this mystery known to us just read
those those verses 4 through 11 and Ephesians 1 later we see
this mystery is in the face of Christ and it's revealed to us
in him that we might see that we have an inheritance in Christ. Now let's skip down to verse
18 and read these verses here and the rest of this prayer.
The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that ye may
know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of
the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the
exceeding greatness of his power to us word who believe And that
belief there is speaking of the faith which he's given to us,
revealing Christ, revealing the hope we have in Christ. This
verse, you can put in your margin there, just write Ephesians 2.8.
And at Ephesians 2.8, write Ephesians 1.19 there. Because they're saying
the same thing using different words. One is the power of God
to us word, and the other one says, by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of
God. And he's done all this according
to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ. Not by what you wrought by your
faith, but what he wrought by Christ. when he raised him from
the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly
places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion,
and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also
in that which is to come. And hath put all things under
Christ's feet. See how it just continues in
Christ. And gave him to be the head over
all things of the church, which is his body, the fullness of
him that filleth all in all." Now I wanted to read all the
way down there to that last part, that filleth all and in all,
because that's the knowledge that your God is giving you and
teaching you in Christ. Paul said it this way to the
Colossians, Colossians 3.11, to know that Christ is all and
in all. That, brethren, is the knowledge.
And when we first hear, it's a limited knowledge. We know
the basics of what Christ has done for us, but as he grows
us and establishes us in Christ, we're seeing, Lord, Everything
is in and by and tied to Christ. It's all fixed in Him. Christ is made all to the child
of God, to the praise and glory of our God and Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the mystery of God. That's
what He's making you to know. Everything is Christ. It's all in Christ. It's all
by Christ. We thank God because of Christ,
because that's what He's making us to know, Christ. Amen. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for your grace. We thank you for this knowledge, which man just
does not see and thinks is foolishness and simple and disregards and
disapproves of Christ being the capstone, the chief cornerstone,
the headstone, But Lord, by your spirit which you give to your
children, you make us to see, to know that he is everything. And you've made him everything
to us. And Lord, we have nothing, no
one to rejoice in but you. We thank you for this knowledge.
We pray that you, just as you gave this prayer, that we would
receive this spirit of revelation, and knowledge in the Lord Jesus
Christ, that we may know him, that we may know our God by him
and through him and in him, that we may rejoice in you and rest
in you and walk faithfully in this most holy faith which you've
given and wrought in us. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks, amen.