Welcome morning. If you would
care to open your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter one. Continue our study in the book
of Ephesians this morning. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent, is your matchless name. And Father, how thankful
we are to be able to come before the throne of grace the throne
of the God of heaven and earth, and worship you. Father, I pray
that you would enable us to do that this morning, to worship
you in spirit and in truth, to worship around the gospel of
your dear son. Father, what a blessed privilege
that you've given us to have a place we can come and hear
your gospel preached and worship. Father, I pray you'd not let
us take this blessed privilege for granted, and that you would
send your spirit upon us this morning and enable us to worship,
enable us to hear, enable us to believe, enable us to cling
to our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, bless your word. You
promised that you would bless your word. Father, bless your
word this morning, we pray, for your glory and bless it to the
hearts of your people. What we pray for ourselves, we
pray for our children's classes. Father, how thankful we are for
all these young ones that you've given to us. And Father, we pray
for them. We pray that you'd protect them
bodily, that you would keep them safe from this difficult generation
in which they grow up. And Father, above all, how we
pray mercy for their souls. We pray you'd make us faithful
to always point them to our Lord Jesus Christ. And in your time,
you might be pleased, Father, to show them who and what they
are, reveal to them the Lord Jesus Christ, and cause them
to run to him. Father, we pray for those who
are away from us today, those who are in times of great difficulty
and heartache and sorrow and trial. Father, we pray you'd
be with your people, that you'd comfort their hearts with your
presence, that you'd deliver as soon as it could be thy will.
Father, all these things we ask, and we give thanks in that name
which is above every name, the name of Christ our Savior. Amen. I've titled our lesson this morning,
A Pastor's Prayer. Paul was not the pastor at this
church at Ephesus, but he was the one who first preached the
gospel to the people there, and he had a special love for that
congregation that the Lord had called together through his preaching.
And here he tells them about his prayer for them. And what
Paul prays here is the prayer of every pastor for the people
that he serves. Now you'll notice that in this,
as we read through this, there's no mention of physical things,
physical blessings in this prayer. It's all spiritual. And I will
tell you that I pray, when I pray, I pray for your physical well-being.
I don't want to see you suffer. I pray the Lord bless you in
so many different physical ways, things that we need. But what
I pray for, what I beg God for, is your spiritual well-being,
because nothing is more important than that. And that's what we
see in Paul's prayer here, beginning in verse 15 of Ephesians 1. Wherefore,
I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love
unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making
mention of you in my prayers. Now, a pastor's prayer, first
of all, is going to include Thanksgiving. First of all, we're thankful
for the God that we pray to. Paul calls our God here the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the God who sent the Son
into this world to be the Savior of his people. And he's, Paul
calls him the Father of Glory. He's the God of all glory. And it is his glory, he said,
to show mercy to his people. Now aren't you thankful to be
able to pray to that God? The God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of glories. He has the power to answer prayer,
to hear and to answer prayer. Now, our goal when we preach,
when we preach the gospel, is to glorify that God. That's our goal, to glorify the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of glory, to tell
truth about him, to glorify, bring glory to his name. is first
and foremost to bring glory to His name. There's not going to
be any worship without truth, is there? There's not going to
be any salvation without truth. God cannot be glorified without
truth. So we want to be truthful and
glorify His name. But we're preaching to people.
We're preaching this truth to people. And we preach so that
sinners will hear Christ and believe on Him and be saved.
We preach Christ so that God's people will be fed and strengthened
and instructed. Now we can't make anybody believe
on Christ. We can preach to them. We can't make anybody believe
on Christ. So when someone does believe on Christ, we give thanks. Because God did that. We didn't
do that. God did that. God the Holy Spirit
made them believe. And the evidences that we have
that somebody truly believes are what Paul mentions here.
Faith and love. Faith and love. You know, the
only evidence, we preach the God of electing love, don't we? He chose a people to save. Well,
you know, the only evidence that you have that God elected you
into salvation is faith in Christ. That's the only evidence. That
is the gift that God gives everyone he chose to save, everyone for
whom Christ dies, he gives them all the same gift, the gift of
faith in Christ. If you believe Christ, The Father
elected you into salvation. You know, the only evidences
that you have that God has saved you is faith in Christ alone. If you trust all of your salvation
to Christ, to his doing, to his dying, then God's given you faith. He's given you the gift of faith.
And if somebody gives you a gift, you're thankful, aren't you?
We're thankful. Thankful that God's given you
a new nature, a nature of faith A nature that trusts Christ and
rests in Him. That gift of saving faith God
gives every one of His people. But you know what? That saving
faith can't be seen, can it? Faith is in the heart. It's hidden
in the heart. The evidence of salvation that
can be seen is love. It's love that faith produces.
It's love toward God and love to the brethren. Your faith in
the heart is seen by love that acts outward. Faith is the motor
that drives us to love. That's why love is called the
preeminent mark of a believer. Isn't this what our Lord said?
By this shall all men know you're my disciples. That you have love
one to another. It's love. The Apostle John said
if a man says he loves God and hates his brother, that man's
a liar. It's love toward God and love
to the brethren. in a loving attitude, in a love
that acts, that is an important mark of a believer. The only
reason somebody loves like that is God's given them a nature
of love. And we thank God, because he's the only one that could
give it. And Paul says, you know, I'm thankful. I'm thankful I
see these evidences of faith and love in you Ephesian believers,
because that's the evidence God's done something for you. That's
the evidence God blessed the message of Christ to your hearts.
And I say the very same thing, I'm thankful. I'm very thankful
for the faith and love that God has given so many of you. All
right, number two, a pastor, he's gonna pray for wisdom. Wisdom
for himself and wisdom for those to whom he preaches. In verse
17, Paul says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom. Wisdom. Pastor Franny told me one time,
he said, you know, he said, I used to pray for wisdom every day. And he said, then I realized
that's got to be the most selfish prayer that ever was. He said,
now I pray for wisdom for the congregation and for me. We all
need wisdom. We need wisdom to preach. We
need wisdom to hear. We need wisdom to conduct ourselves
wisely so we protect the unity of the saints. We all need wisdom. And that's what Paul's doing.
He's praying for wisdom. And the wisdom he's talking about
is the wisdom to know God. The only God can give that wisdom.
In Job 38, verse 36, the Lord is talking to Job in that great,
those great chapters where he's talking to Job, saying, where
were you when I did this, Job? Where were you when I did this?
And he tells Job, who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Who
hath given understanding to the heart? Who's done that? Only
God. We can't give it to ourselves.
We can't give it to our loved ones. Only God can give that
wisdom. And we're talking about wisdom. You know, this wisdom
is a whole lot more than knowing things. Knowing points of doctrine
and knowing things, knowing facts from the scriptures. The wisdom
we're talking about here is the wisdom to know a person. To know
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our wisdom. Isn't that what
Paul said? Christ has made unto us wisdom.
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. These things
are not points of doctrine, not things, are they? It's a person. Christ has made unto us wisdom. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
wisdom of God. You're the age old question,
how can God save a sinner and still be just? How's that possible?
How can you bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Nobody knows
the answer to that. By nature, nobody does. Well,
the answer to the question is Christ. He's the wisdom of God. God could save sinners and still
be God. He can save sinners. He can forgive
sin and be merciful and still be just only in Christ, only
through the sacrifice of Christ. And we need to know him. We need
to know him. We need Christ, our wisdom. I
like what Solomon said in Proverbs 4, verse 7. Wisdom is the principal
thing. Therefore, get wisdom. In all
thy getting, get understanding. Now, we can just put the name
of Christ in there. Christ is the principal thing. Therefore,
get Christ. In all your getting and everything
you're trying to get and everything you're trying to do to get ahead
in this life and make a life for yourself, in all thy getting,
be sure you get this. Get Christ. Seek Him. Seek Him. We've got to have this
wisdom. Can't know God without it. Can't
know God without Christ. David said in Psalm 111 that
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is the beginning. This is a foundational principle
of wisdom. It's the fear of the Lord. Reverence
and worship of the Lord. And if the Lord give us wisdom,
this is why we pray that the Lord give us wisdom. If he gives
us wisdom, we're going to know God. we're going to reverence
him and we'll be able to worship him together. And that's why
I pray the Lord give each of us wisdom. Give wisdom to know
Christ. All right, number three, in a
pastor's prayer, he'll pray for a revelation of Christ. In verse
17, Paul says that the Lord may give unto you the spirit of wisdom
and revelation, revelation. You know, the gospel is not like,
um, teaching math in school. Teaching somebody two plus two
is four, that's just teaching somebody facts. You don't need
a revelation from God to understand two plus two equals four. I can
hold up my fingers and figure that out, can't you? That's not
what we're talking about here. And here's why the gospel must
be revealed. Christ must be revealed to us.
Because nobody by nature can know God. We can't figure out
God by our wisdom. We can't figure out God by man's
intellect. And the reason for it is our
minds are spiritually dead. I'm not saying men are stupid.
Men are brilliant. I mean, the things people do
in science and medicine and math and business and the things people
do, I mean, man is brilliant, even with a mind that's destroyed
by sin. Physically, naturally speaking,
men are brilliant. But with that brilliant mind
that can figure out math and chemistry and engineering and
all medicine and all these things, our minds are dead by nature,
so we can't know the first spiritual thing. We cannot know, we cannot
figure out anything spiritual and come to the right understanding
of it. Now we try to figure things out spiritually, but we always
come to the wrong conclusion, don't we? By nature we do. The
one and only way sinful men and women like you and me can know
God is if He's pleased to reveal Himself to us. Now, we're totally
dependent on Him. And that's the only way we can
know any spiritual truth. The only way we can know any
spiritual truth, and by that I mean know it and love it and
believe it and hang our souls upon it, is if God is pleased
to reveal it to us. He's got to reveal it to us.
You know, let's start where we were ruined in Adam. The only
way we can know our sinfulness is if God reveals it to us. Otherwise,
we think we're pretty good, don't we? We're comparing ourselves
to other people, we're comparing ourselves to our standard of
the law, you know, we're trying to grade ourselves on the curve.
We think we're pretty good until the Lord's pleased to reveal
our sinfulness to us. I mean, Paul said, I thought
I was alive once. And then when the Lord showed
me what the law really says, I died. I didn't know that until the
Lord was pleased to reveal to me my own sinfulness, my own
helplessness, my own depravity. And the only way I can know Christ,
the only way I can know I need him, the only way I can know
he's everything that I need, the only way I can trust him
is if the Lord is pleased to reveal Christ to us. So the pastor's
prayer, is Lord, reveal yourself to us. Reveal yourself to us. And boy, didn't Paul know what
he was talking about? Saul of Tarsus knew the law. I mean, you talk about an intelligent
man. He knew the law. He knew the scriptures. He knew
the ceremonies. He knew all that. But this is
what he said. I'm lost. Oh, I knew all that,
but I was lost in my self-righteousness. So I looked at the scriptures,
I looked at the law, I looked at the ceremonies, and I had
a dead mind and came to the wrong conclusion that I could keep
the law and make myself righteous. He came to the wrong conclusion,
didn't he? He lost his self-righteousness. Until when? Until when? Paul told the church at Galatia,
I was lost. Until it pleased God to reveal
his son in me. Then I knew. Then I saw what
the law was. Then I saw how the law appointed
me to Christ. Then I saw how Christ was the
fulfillment of all those ceremonies. Then I saw that Christ is the
issue. Christ is the gospel. Christ
is the savior. The only righteousness there
is is the righteousness of Christ. But I didn't know that until
God was pleased to reveal it to me. Well, that's my prayer
for you and me. That God be pleased to reveal
Christ to us. And as I pray that the Lord reveal
Christ to us, I tell you, the next thing I do is I'm determined
to preach nothing but Christ because the only way we're going
to know him is that somebody preaches Christ to us. Oh, I
pray God will reveal Christ to you and me. If he does, oh, we'll
be thankful. All right, here's the fourth
thing. Pastor will pray for eyes that
see Christ, that see Christ. In verse 18, he says that the
eyes of of your understanding being enlightened. Now we pray that the Lord enlighten
our eyes because we're in darkness. We pray that the Lord gives us
eyes to see Christ and believe on him because we're spiritually
blind. The seeing eyes of the Lord.
The only way we're gonna have it is if he gives it. He's got
to give it. And that's why we're praying,
Lord, I understand people being blind. I once was blind. I mean,
now I see by your grace, but I understand somebody being blind.
That's why I pray, Lord, give eyes and see, give eyes and see
Christ. And we're talking about seeing,
it's not seeing like I'm looking at you and seeing you all sit
there right now. We're talking about understanding. By nature,
we had no spiritual understanding. We don't understand that Christ
is all, do we? By nature, we do not understand
that. We think we've got to add something
to him, that we've got to help him out, that we've got to accept
him in order to ratify his sacrifice for us. We just don't get it. That's what being spiritually
blind is. We don't get it. We don't get it. Even when the
preacher tells it to us, reads it to us from God's Word, we
don't get it. You know why we don't get it? We're blind. We're
blind. We can't see. We can't see our
sin. I think, you know, I got a little
bit of righteousness. I got a little more righteousness
than this fellow over here, you know. We don't see our hopeless
condition. We think if I just try a little
harder, I can make this situation a little better, don't we? We
don't see our need of Christ. Oh, you know, I'd like for Jesus
to help me, but I don't see, I don't get it. I need him to
do all of the saving for me. I need him to be all of my righteousness.
He is everything I need, but I don't see it until the Lord
gives me eyes to see. So that's why we pray, Lord,
give us eyes to see. Like I said a minute ago, I'm
determined to only preach Christ to you. I'm going to keep preaching
Christ. I'm going to keep telling you,
even though you're blind, I'm going to keep telling you, look
to Christ, look to Christ. If the Lord ever gives you eyes
to see Christ. Now I'm not going to beg you to do anything. I'm
not going to beg you to make a decision or walk an aisle. No, I'm just
going to keep telling you to look to Christ. I'm going to
keep telling you Christ is all. I'm going to keep telling you
about His glory as best as a fallen human tongue can tell you. I'm
determined to do that. But I can tell you when you're
going to come to Christ. When you're going to look to Him.
When you're going to come running to Him. When the Spirit gives you eyes
to see Christ. If you see Him, nothing will stop you from getting
to Him. Nothing will. So that's my prayer that the
Lord give us eyes to see Christ. And then fifth, a pastor will
pray for this, a knowledge, a knowledge of God, a knowledge that comes
from experience. In verse 18, he says that the
eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know
what is the hope of his calling and what is the riches of the
glory of his inheritance in the saints. Paul says, I want you
to know this. I want you to know it because
by nature, we don't know any spiritual truth. That's why God
gives us a pastor to teach us. Now, what we really need is the
Holy Spirit to teach us. That's us. I mean, I can teach
your head. What we need is the Holy Spirit to teach us, but
he uses pastors and teachers to do that. And our great need
is for somebody to teach us Christ, to teach us how he saves sinners. We need to be taught that we're
sinners that can't do anything to please God. That's why we
need Christ to come and please him for us. We need to be found
in Christ. We need to know Christ. And I'll
tell you, if we know him, not just know his name, I mean, how
many people live in this, billions of people live in this, or many
of them, many of them know the name Jesus, but they're not saved.
Just because somebody can say his name doesn't mean that they
know Christ. This is knowing Christ by experience, to know
Him, to be joined to Him. If we know Him, we have eternal
life. That's why I pray that the Lord
teach us, give us a knowledge of Him, because if we know Him,
we have eternal life. Isn't that what our Lord said
in John 17? This is life eternal that they might know Thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. If you know
the only true God, Jesus Christ, who He sent in this world to
be the Savior of sinners. If you know Him, you have eternal
life. Now, there are three specific
truths concerning the Savior that Paul mentions here that
he prays that we be taught. And the Lord is going to teach
everybody He saves these three truths. First, we need to be
taught the hope of His calling. He says that in verse 18, that
you may know what is the hope of His calling. I want to know
this calling. I want to know it by experience
because you know, the Lord doesn't call everybody to come to Christ,
does he? He commands all men everywhere to come to Christ,
but he didn't call everybody to come to Christ. He only calls
his sheep. That's why I want to know by
experience this calling, this irresistible call of the spirit
to be called to Christ. I want to know that. I want you
to know that call by experience because if you've been called
to Christ, Brother, you got a good hope. You have a good hope. That hope is not a hope like,
well, we're talking about, I hope the Bengals win today. Hope?
I don't know. This is not the hope like that.
This is an expectation. If God, the Holy Spirit's called
you, you have an expectation of eternal life. And here's why
you can expect it. Because God promised to give
it. He promised to give it to everybody he calls to Christ.
You know, the Lord purposed to save a people. He sent His Son
to die for those people, to shed His blood, to put their sin away.
That's God's purpose. And so He calls those people.
He calls those people to come to Christ begging for mercy.
Now, I tell you, everybody here, come to Christ and beg Him for
mercy. You say, well, now, I'll come to Christ when I can just
know for sure it's the Spirit who's calling me. Are you a sinner? Huh? You come to Christ begging
him for mercy. You'll find out later on you
came because he's drawn you. You come to Christ because you're
a sinner who needs a savior. Come begging him for mercy. And this is what the Lord himself
said. All that come to me. Yeah, I'm going to draw them.
The Father would send me a drama. All that come to me, I will never
cast out. That's pretty good hope, isn't
it? So you can expect the Lord will never cast you out because
he promised he wouldn't. So come to him, beg him for mercy.
And that's the hope I pray that each of us have, an expectation
of life, forgiveness, righteousness in Christ. And this hope of life
eternal, it's an expectation of glory, an expectation if it's
based on Christ alone, Christ alone. Second, Paul says we need
to be taught what is the riches of the glory of our inheritance. The riches of the glory of the
inheritance in the saints. Now the Lord prepared an inheritance.
Peter says it's incorruptible, undefiled, it fadeth not away.
The Lord has an inheritance for his people. We looked at that
a week or two ago in Abraham and Isaac. Abraham gave everything
he had to Isaac. Isaac inherited it all. The Lord
has inherited, or has purposed an inheritance for his people
that's rich. I mean, it's rich. It's everything
that the eternal God has for a sinner. Everything. Everything
that we need to stand before him perfect. And that inheritance
is kept safe. For you who believe, it's kept
safe. It's reserved for you in heaven. We can't waste it away
like the prodigal son did. Remember that prodigal son came
to his father and said, give me my inheritance now, my share
now. And he wasted it all, didn't
he? Lost it all. Ended up being homeless and penniless,
eating the food they fed to the hogs. Well, I'd do that in a
heartbeat if Lord let me, wouldn't you? So he had left that inheritance
in our hands. It's in Christ's hands. It's
reserved in heaven for us. Now, I pray the Lord give us
some knowledge of this inheritance, of what we have, what we have
in Christ right now, and what we have to look forward to. I'm
telling you, that'll keep this world in its proper perspective. This inheritance, it's in the
saints now. And oh, what's coming? He's giving us a foretaste of
it now, what's coming? If we have some knowledge of
that, it'll keep this world in its right perspective. And then thirdly, we need to
be taught the saving power of God. In verse 19, Paul says,
and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe
according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought
in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at
his own right hand in the heavenly places. Now, the power that Paul
is talking about here is God's power to give life, to give spiritual
life. And we know that God has that
power, don't we? We know He does. We know He has
this life-giving power because He raised Christ the Savior from
the dead. The Lord Jesus was dead. And then He was raised. He was raised to life. And God
the Holy Spirit uses that very same power to give spiritual
life to dead sinners. You know, this is something we
don't understand. This is what we need to understand. We don't
understand this by nature. We're dead. We're dead. Can you imagine the power that
it takes to make a dead man live? Have you ever seen it? When you
go to the funeral home, do you ever expect to see it? Do you
expect to see that corpse sit up and walk out and go get a
cup of coffee with you? No. I mean, that kind of power
is just beyond our comprehension. Well, what kind of power would
it take to raise that corpse up from the dead? Paul's telling
us here it takes that very same level of power to give spiritual
life to me and you. And the Holy Spirit gives God's
people life, spiritual life, for the very same reason he raised
Christ from the dead. The Lord Jesus, our Savior, died
for sin. The sin of his people was made
to be his and the father killed him. The father thrust the sword
of justice into the heart of his son in justice because he
made him guilty. Even though he never personally
committed any sin, the savior became guilty of the sin of his
people and God's justice demanded he die and he did, he died. But
three days later, he strolled out of that tomb. He went from
there, he spent some time with his disciples, and then he ascended
back to glory to sit on the right hand of his father on the throne
in heaven. Now, why would the father raise
him from the dead? The only reason he'd raise him from the dead
is the sin that had been charged to him is gone. See, sin demands
death, doesn't it? But where there is no sin, there
can't be any death. The only reason Ebi dies is because
of sin. If there's no sin, there can't
be death. Well, the Savior rose from the dead because there's
no sin left on him. There's no sin left in him. His blood put
all of that sin away. There's no sin. So he had to
come out of the tomb. He couldn't stay dead. Well,
the Holy Spirit gives God's elect spiritual life for the very same
reason. Christ put their sin away by
his death for them. He put their sin away. He died
as their substitute. Their sin is gone, gone. Then God's justice demands that
they have eternal life. Just like God's justice demands
death for sin, God's justice demands life when sin's been
put away. And the Holy Spirit comes in
the preaching of the gospel and miraculously and powerfully in
a powerful, mysterious way that we can't exactly put our finger
on, He comes in power and takes the preaching of the gospel and
gives spiritual life in the heart of a dead sinner where there
was no life before. Suddenly there's faith in Christ
where there was none before. Suddenly there's love for Christ
and love for the gospel. Suddenly there's a need for the
gospel. Suddenly there's an ability to feed on the gospel where there
was never any before. What happened? The spirit gave
life. Gave life. And he does it because
Christ died in our place. And that's what I pray for you
and me, that the Holy Spirit will supernaturally give life
to us through the preaching of the gospel. You know, I pray
that the Lord will call out his sheep, save his people. And then
I pray, Lord, give me a message of Christ. Give me the message
of Christ. Give me the message for the hour.
Oh, I could go through and pick lots of true things, you know,
to preach and to say from this book, But I want God's message
for the hour, don't you? For this hour, for this people,
for every Lord that's right here this morning, because this is
the means that God uses to give life. And he blessed it, hadn't
he? He's blessed. I pray he'll continue
to bless it in the days and weeks ahead. All right.