For this hour, we're gonna be in Ephesians chapter one again. The first hour, we looked at the gift, the gifts of the Father. What he gives to his chosen people, spirit of wisdom that causes us to see who God is and what we are. Then he gives us the revelation of Jesus Christ and gives us faith to believe. We see him as the savior, what we need. The only one that can meet our need is him. And then he gives us our understanding enlightened by giving us those things. And when our understanding is enlightened, we no longer think like we used to think. We no longer speak like we used to speak. Just as the woman at the well changed her tune completely, he said, come see a man that showed me all things ever I did. Is this not Christ? Just like the man that the Lord healed with blinded eyes, he said, I know not. It's one thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see. We give all the glory to the Lord, and we didn't do that before. These are the gifts of the Father. Now I've actually titled this message, Understanding Enlightened. Understanding Enlightened, because that's where our text starts, or it's where our text is gonna be when it's gonna start. But if the Lord doesn't reveal himself and cause us to have our understanding enlightened, cause us to see him, we'll never come to the knowledge of the truth on our own. It's an impossibility. There's his ways are past finding out. So what the scripture tells us his ways are past finding out. He must give us these gifts, or we'll be lost forever. The glorious part about having your understanding enlightened is that you speak what he speaks now. Whatever he speaks regarding his Christ, Lord Jesus Christ, regarding the blood, regarding righteousness, regarding holiness, regarding sovereignty, regarding your sin. We speak what he speaks, the same exact as him. At this hour I desire to look at what a glorious enlightening our Lord has done for his people and what the effects of those gifts are. So we have the gifts now that we spoke about. I wanna look at the effect of those gifts this hour. So let's read this together. Look at verse, we'll start in verse 15. Wherefore I also, after I had heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, ceased not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and the revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the depth or what is the hope of his calling and what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us. 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 title this understanding enlightened because God and mercy because God in mercy chose to elect a people unto salvation, chose to predestinate them into eternal life, ordained them unto his salvation. He comes to those individuals and he enlightens them. Now that word has different meanings, but I like the, uh, the verse that would go hand in hand with it was when we were In darkness, the light of his glorious gospel has shined forth into our hearts. If he doesn't shine forth his light, we'll never see. We're stumbling around in darkness and don't even know it. I don't mean to sound sarcastic when I say this, but a blind person don't know what they're missing if they've been blind from birth. Think about that. They know they can't see, but they don't know what it is to see. So how can they understand everything that they're missing? They can have an idea, but they don't know the beauty of a sunset. They don't know the beauty of a rainbow. They've never seen colors. So what is my point? That's us by nature. We can't see the beauty of our Lord's son. We can't see the beauty of his promises in the gospel. That's what the rainbow represented. We can't see him or know anything about him until he causes us to have eyes to see and ears to hear. That is having our understanding enlightened. And at His purpose time, He does that for His people. He calls us to know some glorious truth. He enlightens our eyes and understanding. We understand He is God and we are not. His salvation is all by grace. And if He doesn't give it, then we won't be saved. So in here, we have the three effects of the gift of God. Number one is the hope of His calling. Look at, I think it's verse 19. No, it's not 19. 18, the odds of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe. So we have the hope of his calling, the riches of the glory of his inheritance to the saints, and the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to who believe. First is the hope of his calling. Now I want you to notice whose calling it is. It's his calling. That's possessive. That means he owns it. It's by his determinant counsel, someone's called or not called. Second Timothy chapter one verse nine tells us God saved us and called us. not by our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to his people before the world ever began, before time ever happened. This is all his doing. This is his calling. He owns this. It's his. There's so many times we get discouraged. But we have hope. We have hope. And if we were to say with Paul, if we had hope in this world only, we'd be of all men most miserable. We don't have hope in this world only. Why would we be miserable if we were only hoping in things of this world? Because this world's going to pass away. Heaven and earth shall pass away. The Lord said, but my word shall not pass away. to place our desire and hope in things of this world is to put your desire and hope in wood, hay, and stubble rather than the blood of Christ. But when the Lord comes and gives repentance and faith, we now value Him beyond measure. Now we desire Him. Now we want Him to be the reward. We want Him to be our everything. We need His righteousness. We need Him to justify us. We need that. And unless He chooses to do that by His calling, It won't be done, but thanks be to God, we have hope in his calling. Why do we have hope in his calling? Well, he's faithful. He's faithful that promised. He said, I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. He said, all that the father gave me shall come to me. And he that cometh to me, I'll in no wise cast out. He said, my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. We have hope in his calling because he's the one doing the calling. If my salvation hinges upon me calling out, I don't have hope. Why? Because is it not true that we're like a ship on the sea just being tossed about with every weight and wind that comes around and we're rocking to and fro back and forth. One day we'll be happy. We'll be what they say on cloud nine. That's expression. And then the next day we'll be down and depressed and upset and needy. It may not even be day-to-day, it may be hour-to-hour or minute-to-minute. It just happens that way, doesn't it? If it's dependent upon me to call in order for me to be saved, I'm gonna need Him to make me call upon Him. Thanks be to God, my hope's not in what I do, it's the hope of His calling to me. The hope of His calling to His people, the hope of His calling to you. Understand that salvation is God's possessive. Salvation is God's salvation. He's the author and the finisher of it. He wrote it. He completed it. He accomplished it. He was successful. And he must choose to call us out of darkness into his light or we won't be called and believe in his salvation. Men have died. Men have lived and they have died with their choice that they have made. But I have no confidence in the choice that I make. I need him to choose me. I'm bound to this sinful flesh, and the choices that I make are dictated by the flesh's will and desire, which is power, popularity, and pleasure. That's what the flesh desires at all times. The flesh wants to be seen. The flesh wants to be heard. You know, I talk about social media sometimes, and you know it's true how many millions and millions of people are on social media. Why? They want to be seen. They want to be heard. Some people just want to be nosy, too. I guess that's probably possible, but we understand what I'm saying here. The Lord has made it where we have no confidence in the flesh. I don't want to be seen anymore. You don't want to be seen anymore. Who do you want to see? I want to see Him. That I might know Him and I might have the free pardon of sin. That I might know Him and His grace and His mercy. That I might have Him as my own Savior. That I might have Him as my King of kings and Lord of lords. That's our desire and that's what this calling does. is it reveals him. That's why we have such great hope is that he is the caller. He does it all. And we find ourselves the benefactor of all these graces that the Lord's already ordained to give to us. We'll get to that in a minute. That's part of the inheritance. Men have lived their life and they've died looking to their choices, looking to their life, looking to their morals, looking to what they've done, thinking that God is going to reward them for what they have done. Why did the Lord tell them, when he was preaching, he said, they're going to come before me in that day. Not all that say, Lord, Lord, in that day we'll enter into heaven. They'll come and say, Lord, we've done all these wonderful works in thy name. We've even cast out demons in thy name. And what does the Lord say to these people? Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you. It has to be Him that calls us, not us that calls Him. He's going to reward those that are looking to self, but the reward is going to be eternal hell. That's the reward. That's the consequence for rejecting Christ. And that's exactly what our flesh will do every single time it's left to itself. We need His calling and we have hope in that calling. We have hope in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work. And that part of that finished work is the calling by grace. Somebody might say, well, what is your hope? Well, we have true hope that the work of God that he intended to do on the cross of Calvary to redeem his people has been completely, utterly, entirely accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. And you can put a period on it right after that. Completely, utterly, entirely accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ alone. That's the hope that we have as his people. We can't undo it, we can't alter it. Think about a hope that you could change. We would mess it up, wouldn't we? This hope, you can't change it. That means you can't mess it up. It don't need to be fixed, it ain't broken, but we can't put our hands to it. We're sealed into the day of redemption. We can't alter it, change it, undo it, add to or take away from it. It's finished, it's settled in heaven forever. We hope, we have a hope that when Jesus lived, that he lived for me. and I lived in him. We have a hope that when he died, he died for me and I died in him unto the law, unto death. The elect's hope is that when he was resurrected, we were resurrected in him as evidence of our justification that we've all been justified. This is the hope when he calls us out of darkness into his glorious light. This is the hope that we see and is made real unto us. We see it's finished. It's actually really finished. People don't preach that. They preach a half finished salvation. This salvation is finished. Rest. Don't do anything. Rest. You're obligated to do one thing and it's nothing. That's what you're obligated to do. Don't add to it. Don't take away from it. This is the hope of his calling. When he comes to a center and reveals himself in his power, what he has done, we find ourself just like Mary at his feet, listening to his words. That's the desire of the Lord's people. We have hope in his calling. We have hope that He endured the full wrath and fury of God's justice on our behalf. Meaning He was our substitute. We know what a substitute is. Even the children would know what a substitute is because they have substitute teachers at school. When the teacher's not able to be there for whatever reason, they bring in a substitute. The substitute's to act in the place of the teacher, to do the job of the teacher, to teach the children. Our Lord Jesus became our substitute, took our place under the wrath of the Father, took our place under the debt that we owed to the law, took our place in the hell that we should have endured. He took our place completely. The scripture tells us he was made to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Not only did he swap places with us, but he gave us his righteousness. He gave us his sanctification. He gave us his redemption. This is what he accomplished. This is the hope we have in his calling. This is what's all revealed in the calling. Turn with me to Romans chapter 5. I want us to see that hope. Paul speaks of it in Romans 5. Look at verse 1. Therefore, Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now whenever you see a therefore, and I'm gonna say this probably every single time, go ahead and see why the therefore is therefore. So go up a verse. Go up two verses. But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus, our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. That word for is because. We're raised, he was raised because our justification. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Is it faith that justified us? No, Christ justified us. He gives us faith, and by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. In whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in what? Hope. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. We no longer glory in ourself. We no longer glory in our decisions. We no longer glory in what we practice or don't practice or what we know or don't know. We glory in Him. We glory in the Lord. We have hope in the glory of God. And not only so, now get this, not only so, but we glory in tribulations. Now do you glory in tribulations? You do if you know who's the tribulation giver. It's hard to glory whenever you're in a trial, but when the Lord reveals the rest of this verse, and the verse after to us, then we're able to glory in it. What does it say? We glory in tribulation also knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed of the gospel, because hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in the hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. This hope makes us not ashamed. What are you saying? Well, I'm saying that we see less and less of self and more and more of Him. We are no longer ashamed of Him, we're ashamed of self. We see him as right and good. See, coming to Christ means you're taking sides with God against yourself. It means that I'm literally saying I'm guilty. I'm guilty. And only if the Lord gives repentance will we be able to say I'm guilty. Everybody justifies themselves. You can, even at young age, even children. Some of you parents, grandparents might be able to relate to this, but you have a kid that'll do something, maybe, I don't know, steal something or something, and you say, why'd you do that for? Well, because I wanted it. Well, it wasn't right for you to do that. And they'll justify themselves by saying, but, and they'll fill in the blank, whatever, why they do that. That's our nature to justify ourselves. See, he's telling us here that we're justified freely by his grace. This is what the hope that we have, not that we're justifying ourself or looking to ourself anymore, but we're looking to the one who is our justification. Therefore we glory. in tribulation because we know it worketh into hope at the end. How can you glory in tribulation? Well, you know the trial giver. Each trial makes us hope more and more in his gospel and hope less and less of ourself. Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth. That's what the scripture tells us. We become less and less ashamed of him and more and more ashamed of self. Let's go back to our text in Ephesians chapter one. Verse 18, 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. God's people have been enlightened by His grace, first, to hope in His calling, and second, we have the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Because of the successful redemption wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the riches of His glory. What is the riches of His glory? Righteousness. How about redemption? How about justification? Sanctification? There's riches. How about him? Just him. There's riches. Listen to what Peter said. First Peter chapter one, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again into a lively hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Here's the purpose, to an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. So what is the inheritance? You ever heard men and women talk about getting a mansion whenever they go to heaven? You heard about that before? Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place, I will come again and receive you unto myself. Where I am there, you may be also. And he says, in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. Man, the religious went crazy with that one. I'm going to get me a mansion. That's what they would say, I remember. And it was almost like, my mansion's going to be bigger than yours because I've lived a better life than you. I mean, that's really how they were. I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but this really happened. Is our inheritance a mansion? Would it be, if that was your inheritance, would that be heaven? Maybe it's just a prance around on streets of gold. You realize gold is one of the most valuable resources we have here, the rarest, but if you took gold to glory with you when you died, it would be looked at as pavement. What's the inheritance then? It's Christ and his precious blood. His precious, He is the inheritance of His people. The scripture says that He has made us accepted in the beloved, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. But it also says that we're heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. You know what that means? Everything He owns, His people are heir to. His people are heir to. Now, For you and I, to the believer, we don't look and say, okay, I own everything, and we brag, it doesn't work that way at all. As a matter of fact, we stand in awe that the Lord would be so gracious. What we glory in is the cross of Christ. That's what Paul said when he said, woe is me if I glory, save the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. If I preach not the cross, then we've missed it. If I preach not the gospel, we've missed it. We preach Him. We don't brag about what we have or what we don't have. We preach Him. He is the inheritance. Is it not eternal life in Him? Is that not an inheritance? The opposite is eternal death. I want us to think about this just briefly. If God gave us everything, even His Son, even His Son's death, what will He withhold from us that we need? What will he withhold from us that we need? There's oftentimes, scripture says, you have not because you ask amiss, but he says, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be open for everyone that asketh receiveth. And he that seeketh findeth, and him that knocketh shall be open. What I'm saying is, is that we ask for things or situations, oftentimes, and this is what James was saying, he said, oftentimes we ask to consume of our own lusts. We're owning something for self. What does the believer ask for? Lord, save me. Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me whole. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. Is that not the prayer that you continually pray over and over again? Why? Because he's called you out of darkness into his light. He's given you hope of his calling and he's given you an inheritance. An inheritance would be the ability to approach the throne of grace that you might obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. You have the ability to enter to the holiest of holies by his blood and approach the throne of God. That's a gift, isn't it? I love the thought of what Isaiah 40 says. The Lord's given us every good gift in exchange for our sin. Think about that. All of our sin, he took and gave us all good gifts in return because of his finished work. Isaiah 40 says, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God, speak comfortably to Jerusalem. and crying to her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received the Lord's hand double for her sins. Double, what is double? There's a whole lot of doubles. Goodness and mercy, grace and truth, hope and peace, forgiveness of sin and made righteous. There's a lot of doubles, aren't there? This is the inheritance of God's elect. Now lastly, look at verse 19. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe according to the working of his mighty power. The exceeding greatness of his power to us word is the same power that God used when he resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead. How do we know that? Well, he tells us in verse 20, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him in his own right hand in heavenly places. This is what it takes to save someone. This calling. So we have hope in his calling. We have, now we have the power of his calling. We have the inheritance of the saints. Now we have the power of this calling. His exceeding, he calls it exceeding great and mighty here. You see that? verse 19, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power. So he has exceeding, great and mighty. That's how his power is described whenever he calls a sinner out of darkness into his light. When he saves a sinner, that's how it's described here. That's what it takes for the Lord to save someone, to bring life out of death to bring, to speak light into darkness to come forth. He commanded light to come forth out of darkness. That's what he does for each one of us. You remember Genesis chapter one, people don't normally think of this, but when it says in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Well, it goes on to say, and God said, let there be light. First of all, that's Jesus Christ. Don't miss that. That's who that is. Let there be light. And there was light and God saw the light that it was good. That is the same thing he does to his elected sinner. Whenever he comes to them, he says, let there be light. And out of this darkness that we are, this corruption that we are, springs forth the light that he puts in by his spirit, freely by his grace. That's an inheritance, isn't it? Brethren, we've had our understanding enlightened, as he says here. We have a blessed hope in Christ alone. We have an inheritance that's incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, that's reserved in heaven for us. We are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time, and we are sealed by the spirit of promise. Sealed to the day of redemption. We see that it takes the grace of God. We've been made to see that it takes the grace of God to save a sinner. He has to do it by his power. None of us have the power to save ourself. We don't have the ability. We don't have the understanding. We don't have the knowledge. Lord has to do it. Nothing else can or will. but the power of God. That's why it's so blasphemous to say I chose God. You're saying I controlled his power. That's insanity. That's what that is, insanity. I chose God. I obligated him to save me. I gave Jesus my heart. Jesus don't want your heart. Don't want my heart. Heart's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. He looks to Christ as everything required for the salvation of his people. And you know what that does for his people? Causes us to rest. causes us to rest knowing that the Father is well pleased with the Son and that we are in Christ Jesus. The same power whereby he resurrected his Son he used to make his people alive. Thank God he has made our understanding enlightened. We don't think like we used to think. We don't hope in what we used to hope in. We don't believe what we used to believe anymore. We now say, Christ is all. Christ is all. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word. We ask that you would bless it. Give us understanding and clarity. Forgive us of our sin, in Christ's name, amen.