Introduction
In the opening verses of Ephesians, Paul tells us about some of the great spiritual blessings which God has poured out upon us through Jesus Christ. God the Father is the source of all these blessings, because they all come from him; and Jesus Christ is the fountain through whom all these blessings flow. God pours them out upon us because of Christ who loved us and who gave up his life for us to make peace for us with God.
And so, what are the blessings? The first is that God has chosen us in Christ to be holy and blameless in his sight. That’s what we will be one day. And God has predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ so that God is now our Heavenly Father and we can go to him with our cares and concerns. And God has redeemed us, or he’s delivered us, through Christ from the penalty we deserve for all that we have done wrong. And God has revealed to us the mystery of his will which is to bring all things together under Christ one day. Right now, the world is divided. Everywhere you look there’s division and opposition and hostility. Because of sin, differences have become divisions. But God’s great plan is to bring all things together again under Christ. Everything will fit together perfectly under him so that there will be unity and peace and joy in the new heavens and earth where all who trusted in Christ will live with him for ever. And God has begun to bring all things together in the church, where we’re taught to love and serve one another.
And what else? God has chosen us in Christ to be his portion or his treasured possession so that we can count on God to love and care for us always. And God has sealed us with his Spirit to make clear to us that we really do belong to him and that we are under his protection. And the Holy Spirit, whom we have received from God, is also the deposit or the down-payment of what we will receive one day because of Christ, which is everlasting life in the presence of God.
So, Paul has been telling us about these spiritual blessings which becomes ours because of Christ. And in today’s passage, Paul tells his readers that he gives thanks to God for them; and he also tells them that he’s praying for them. He praying for them because he wants them to know certain things which only God can make clear to them.
Verses 15 and 16
Let’s begin with verses 15 and 16 where Paul tells his readers that he gives thanks to God for them.
He says that ever since he heard about their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for all the saints, he hasn’t stopped giving thanks to God for them. In other words, he gives thanks to God for their faith and for their love. He gives thanks to God, because God is the one who enables us to believe and God is the one who enables us to love the saints. When he refers to ‘saints’, he means believers. In the Bible, every believer is a saint and every saint is a believer. Nowadays, we say someone is a saint if they’re especially good or nice or loving or patient. We say that so-and-so is such a saint for putting up with her husband who is so unpleasant. But in the Bible, every believer is a saint. And the reason we’re able to have faith in Christ and love one another is because God has worked in our lives to change us. He enables us to believe. And he enables us to love one another.
Lots of people think that it doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you live a good life and are loving and kind. They say you can believe anything, so long as you’re a good person. But the Bible makes clear that what we believe matters. We all need to believe in the Lord Jesus: we need to believe that he’s the Son of God who became one of us; and who gave up his life on the cross to pay for our sins and shortcomings; and that he was raised from the dead and will return one day with power and great glory. We need to believe all of those things about him. And we also need to believe in him. We need to trust in him. We need to rely on him for forgiveness and peace with God. Instead of relying on ourselves and our own good deeds and our good life for peace with God, we’re to rely entirely on Christ and what he has done to save sinners from God’s wrath.
So, what we believe matters. Other people say that only faith matters and it doesn’t matter what you do. They say that so long as you believe, it doesn’t matter what you do. They think: I can do as I like, because I believe in the Lord Jesus and God will forgive me. That’s what people think. But the Bible makes clear that true faith changes us. True faith changes us. The moment we believe, God begins to work in our lives to change us. He starts to make us holy and blameless, so that we become more and more willing and able to do his will here on earth. He changes us so that we now hate to do what’s wrong and we want to do what’s right.
It doesn’t happen all at once, but bit by bit over time. However, over time we should start to see a change in our lives. And one of the changes God makes in our life is that he enables us to love other believers. Some of us are not very lovable. But God enables his people to bear with one another, to put up with one another, to forgive one another and to love one another.
So, faith and love go together. We need to have faith in Christ. We need to believe in him for forgiveness and peace with God and for the free gift of eternal life. And then, a true faith changes us.
And both of these things come from God, which is why Paul gives thank to God for the faith and love which his readers had. And do you know what that means? It means that if you don’t have faith, ask God to give it to you. And if you have faith, but you’re not very loving, ask God to give you a love for all the saints.
Verses 17 to 18b
Let’s move on to verse 17 and the first half of verse 18 where Paul tells his readers that he’s praying for them.
He says that he keeps asking God to give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they may know him better. He’s talking about the Holy Spirit, isn’t he? The Spirit of wisdom and revelation is the Holy Spirit. And he gives us wisdom and revelation, not directly, but indirectly. That is to say, he doesn’t pour wisdom and revelation and knowledge into us directly from above. What he does is this: as we listen to the preaching of God’s word, or as we read the Bible at home, the Spirit helps us to understand God’s word. He gives us the wisdom we need to understand what God has revealed in his word. And by giving us the wisdom we need to understand what God has revealed in his word, he enables us to know God better, because the Bible is all about God and who is he and what he has done for us and what he promises to do for us in the future. That’s how the Spirit works.
The Spirit also helps us to understand what God has revealed about himself in what he has made. The Bible tells us that the heavens declare God’s glory. It tells us that nature reveals God’s power and goodness. And the Spirit helps us to see God’s glory and his power and his goodness in what God has made. He enables us not only to appreciate the beauty and goodness of the world, but to acknowledge with gratitude that the beauty and goodness all around us comes from God.
Paul wants his readers — and that includes us — to know God better. And how do we know God better? The Holy Spirit gives us the wisdom we need to understand what God has revealed about himself in the world around us and in his word, the Bible.
And Paul also prays for his readers that the eyes of their heart may be enlightened in order that we may know certain things. So, if it were not for God, we would remain in the dark about the things Paul is about to mention.
The things Paul is about to mention are clear enough. These are not obscure or difficult things. These are things which are not hard to comprehend. The problem lies with our dark hearts. Because we’re sinners, we don’t grasp the things of God as easily as we should. Because our minds are darkened because of sin, we don’t know these things. But God is able to switch on the light in our hearts. He’s able to take away our darkness and make these things clear to us.
Verses 18c and 19
And so, what are these things which Paul wants his readers and us to know? Paul mentions three things: the hope to which God has called us; the riches of God glorious inheritance in the saints; and God’s great power.
So, the hope to which God has called us. I listen to a lot of podcasts about various topics including technology. And on one of the technology podcasts recently, whose hosts are in the USA, they were meant to be talking about technology, but every so often the host would refer to current affairs in the States and the upcoming presidential election. And the hosts were in despair. They were in despair, because they didn’t want Donald Trump re-elected and they weren’t too sure about Joe Biden’s ability. It seemed to them that they were doomed and one of them was seriously considering moving away from the States to another country. And there are lots of people who are in despair over the state of the UK, or the state of Europe, or the state of the Western world generally. Instead of being hopeful, lots of people are hopeless.
But God has called us and made us hopeful. He calls us through the reading and preaching of his word to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; and whoever believes becomes a member of God’s people. And God gives his people hope. He gives us the hope of everlasting life in his presence in the new and better world to come, where there is no more sorrow or sadness or disease or death or sin and misery, but only perfect peace and rest and happiness as we gaze on the glory of God in the face of Christ our Saviour. Whereas people are in despair, because it seems that things can only get worse, God gives his people hope, because he promises us better things to come in the new heavens and earth.
However, he also gives us hope for this life too, because he enables us to believe that he’s in control of all things. We’re not at the mercy of fate or chance or some faceless power that is against us, because God has got us in his hands and he’s able to work all things together for our good. Think of Joseph in the Old Testament, when he was sold into slavery by his brothers and when he was thrown into prison by Potiphar. It would have been easy for him to give up in despair, but he kept trusting and serving the Lord. And when the time was right, God rescued him from the prison and installed him as prime minister over Egypt.
So, imagine someone who is looking for work. She might despair of ever getting a job, because she thinks the world is against her. Nothing is going her way. She thinks that to get a job around here it’s all down to who you know and she doesn’t know anyone! And so, she feels like giving up because she thinks everything is against her. What’s the point in applying for a job, because things never go my way! It’s easy to think like that. But believers, those who have faith in Christ, need to remember and believe that we’re in God’s hands. There’s not a mysterious, faceless force conspiring against me, because God rules over the heavens and the earth and he’s my Heavenly Father and I can trust him to work out all things for my good in his own good time. Things may be hard right now, but I’m hopeful that things will be better, because my hope is in God.
Paul also wants us to know the riches of God’s glorious inheritance in the saints. Notice that Paul is referring here to God’s inheritance. We have an inheritance which we receive from God. We inherit eternal life from God. But Paul is not talking about that here. He’s not talking about our inheritance, but God’s inheritance. And this goes back to what we read in verse 11, where we saw that when the NIV says that in Christ we were also chosen, it should really be that in Christ we were also chosen as God’s portion. In Bible times, a son received a portion of his father’s property as an inheritance. And Paul was saying in verse 11 that believers are God’s portion. Of all the people of the world, he chose us to belong to him. We are God’s portion, his inheritance, his treasured possession. And now in verse 18 Paul says he wants his readers and us to know this about God: that he has chosen us as his portion, his inheritance, his treasured possession.
Why is it important for us to know this? Because it tells us about God’s great love for us. Since God rules over all things in heaven and on earth, since the world and all its people belong to him, then he could have chosen anyone. But instead of choosing anyone, he chose you — if you’re a believer. And he didn’t choose you because you were any better than any other person, or smarter, or more attractive, or more holy, or more trusting. You weren’t any better than anyone else. The only reason he chose you is because he is gracious and kind and out of the sheer goodness of his being, he decided to take you as his portion. And having chosen you as his portion, he’s now prepared to do everything necessary to take care of you. He’s willing to work all things together for your good.
I was listening to another podcast recently where the hosts were talking about time travelling movies where someone goes back into the past and tries to change things so that it’s better for them in the future. It’s fantasy, isn’t it? We’re not able to travel back in time. And even if we could, we’re not smart enough to see the unintended consequences of our actions. If we were to travel back in time and change the course of history, who knows what might happen? But we don’t need to time-travel, because God is doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves. He’s already arranged all things in the past for our benefit today and in the future. And God is willing to do those things for us, because he has chosen us as his portion, his inheritance, his treasured possession.
And so, Paul wants his readers to know the riches of God’s inheritance in the saints. It’s rich, because it’s wonderful. To know that God set his love on us and chose us and that we belong to him and that he’s working all things out for us is wonderful. If God is for us, then who can be against us and succeed?
And then the third thing Paul wants his readers and us to know is God’s great power. And look how he describes God’s power. He calls it God’s incomparably great power. It’s God’s immeasurably great power. It’s his all-surpassing power. And it’s for us who believe. It’s for believers. He uses his all-surpassing power for us and for our benefit.
We see God’s great power in us in the way that he changes us. Have you ever tried to straighten out one of those metal coat hangers which you get at the dry cleaners? When the children were small, we often had to make things for them for school from those coat hangers. And it was hard work to straighten them. First you had to un-twirl the hook to open it up and then you’d try your best to unbend it. And try as you might, it was impossible to get it straight. Well, if that’s hard, straightening us out is far, far harder. All of us, by nature, are bent out of shape, because all of us are sinners who sin against the Lord continually. We’re always doing what’s wrong. We’re meant to obey God and to reflect his glory in our lives, but we’re bent out of shape. However, God uses his incomparable power, his immeasurable power, his all-surpassing power, to straighten us out. He’s able to work powerfully in us to remove our sins and shortcomings. He takes away our sinful desires and inclinations and attitudes and replaces them with good desires and inclinations and attitudes.
As I’ve said before, he doesn’t do it all at once, but he does it bit by bit. And while we’ll never be perfect in this life, we’ll be perfect in the life to come, when God finishes his work in us and glorifies us in his presence.
Do you ever get sick of yourself? Do you ever get tired of your sins and weaknesses? I hope you do, because that’s a sign that God is at work in your life. But when you’re sick of yourself, you can still rejoice because God will one day change you. You’ll no longer be bent of our shape and crooked, but perfectly aligned to God.
And then God not only works in us, but he works for us. He’s on our side to help us. I’ve already said something about this, when we were thinking about hope. God not only gives us the hope of everlasting life in his presence in the new and better world to come, but he gives us hope for this life too, because he works all things together for our good. And he’s able to work all things together for our good because of his incomparably great power. If God were weak, then he couldn’t help us. But God is not weak. He’s mighty. He’s powerful. His power is incomparable. It’s immeasurable. No-one and nothing can thwart his plans for the world and for us.
Verses 21 to 23
And just how great is God’s great power? Paul gives us an example of God’s great power in action. He could have referred us to the creation. How powerful is God? Look at how he made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them just by speaking. And he could have referred us to providence and how God sustains all things moment by moment every day. But instead of referring us to creation and providence, he refers us instead to Christ’s resurrection. And perhaps he refers us to that, because while we can make stuff, and while we can sustain stuff, none of us can raise the dead. We can make stuff: homes and towns and cities and so on. And we can make life by having children. And we sustain those things by caring for our homes and towns and cities and our children. But we can’t raise the dead.
But God can raise the dead, because he raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. And God not only raised him from the dead, but he also seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. So, God exalted the Lord Jesus to heaven, where he sits enthroned as king at God’s right hand side. And God raised him far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every title that can be given. So, whatever other powers there are, the Lord Jesus was raised above them. That includes earthly powers like kings and queens and prime ministers and presidents and rich and powerful business people. And it includes spiritual powers like the devil and all his demons. God has placed Christ above them all. And by mentioning this age and the age to come, Paul is telling us that Christ is above all present powers and he is above all future powers.
And he says that God has placed all things — all things — under Christ’s feet; and God has appointed him to be head over everything. So, he now rules over all things everywhere. And according to Paul, he is head over everything for the church. Do you see that at the end of verse 22? He rules over all things for our sake. He rules over all things for our benefit. He rules over all things for our good.
And so, think of that. Lots of people are in despair. They’re worried. They’re upset. They think: What’s going to happen to us? What will this leader do? What will that leader do? What’s happening in the country with all these strikes and the state of the health service? What will be the outcome of the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East? And what about all these evil things which people are doing all the time? What’s going to become of us?
But let’s remember and believe that God has called us to hope. We can always be hopeful. Let’s remember and believe that we are God’s portion, his treasured possession and he will take care of us. And let’s remember God’s great power and how he has placed our Saviour, Jesus Christ, over all things in heaven and in earth in this age and the next. He’s higher than satan and all his demons. He’s higher than every political leader. He’s higher than every business leader. He’s higher than every community leader. He’s higher than that person who is bothering you right now. And he’s our Saviour who loved us and who gave up his life for us before rising from the dead. The one who rules over all things is our Saviour. And we are his church, his body. And just as we care for our own bodies, so he cares for his body.
So, listen! We have no need to worry. We have no need to be anxious. We have no need to be in despair. Our Saviour who loved us and who gave up his life for us is over us and he’s over all things and he’ll take care of us both now and for ever.
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