Series

February 02, 2003

This is a picture of my friend[i]. His name is Andy. Andy and I met while we were in college and have been close friends for nearly ten years. The vast majority of you here wouldn’t be able to say that you know him; you’ve only seen his picture. If I were to tell you a bit about Andy—that his wife’s name is Jolie, he’s a pastor in North Vancouver , and that his hobbies are photography and running—could you then say that you know him? Well, you’d know a little bit about him because of what I just told you, but you don’t really know him.

There are a couple of you here who’ve met Andy. My sister, Heather, met him a few years ago when they were in our wedding party together, and she’s met him casually a couple times since. But could Heather say that she really knows Andy? No. Lisa, my wife, has spent some real quality time with Andy and Jolie. We’ve spent weekends together, and shared part of our holiday with them, and on Boxing Day they spent the day with us and we talked deeply and prayed together. Lisa could say that she knows Andy, that Andy and Jolie are good friends to us. However, even though Lisa has spent some really great, rich, times with Andy, even she couldn’t say that she really knows him well. If the truth were told, the only person in this room who really knows Andy is me.

I don’t say that to brag, I’m just telling the truth. I know Andy well—his struggles and insecurities, I know what makes him laugh and get angry, I know his passions, his strengths, and his history. I know these things because we have committed to one another as friends, and for almost ten years, we’ve deepened our friendship and therefore, our knowledge of one another. We want to know each other. That means that we talk deeply, and we listen to one another. We ask each other questions and challenge one another’s thinking. As often as we can, we spend quality time together. I know Andy. Knowing Andy has had an impact on who I am today.

But do I know Andy as well as I possibly can? Do I know all there is to know about him? No! Andy’s changing and growing, he’s a deep person with many quirks and qualities. Do I want to know him more? Yes! I love him. He’s my friend, and as such I will continue to deepen my knowledge of him, and he me.

Last week we began a study of the book of Ephesians. Like much of the New Testament, Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul. Paul wrote this letter as an encouragement and a teaching. He wanted to encourage the Ephesian Christians for being “faithful in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:2), and to teach them about living for God in the world. You remember that we learned last week that the reason we exist in the world, the point of us gathering for worship, the purpose of church is the glory and fame of God.

Paul devotes the entire first half of Ephesians to laying the proper groundwork for life. Last week, out of verses 3-14 of chapter one, we spoke of the importance of worship. That in worship, if it is true worship, we learn about who God is. That if God is the subject and object of our corporate worship we are shaped as His people to live in the world for His glory. In fact, the context not only of Ephesians, but also of our very existence as church, is to “live your whole life to honor the name of Jesus—to give him a good reputation and spread his fame.”[ii]

The point of my illustration about my friend, Andy, points to the big idea from our text in Ephesians today. As well as I know Andy now and could tell you all about him, there is always going to be more for me to learn, more that I could tell. In a nutshell, that’s what Paul says about God.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the HOPE to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe…

Paul is saying to his Ephesian readers, “I’m praying that God, through his Holy Spirit, will reveal more and more and more about who He is, so that you can know him better, deeper, truer, and therefore live better, deeper and truer for his glory in the world. Here then, is the Big Idea that the message hangs on today:

Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation

I want to go back to my illustration about Andy for a moment. Andy and I talk well. When we call on the phone, or spend time together, we trade a few jabs about the Canucks and Oilers, but then our conversation turns deeper. One of the things I’ve always liked about Andy is that he shares deep things about himself. He wants me to know him. But Andy wouldn’t just tell these things if I didn’t take the time to listen. For me to know my friend, Andy, I need to ask things about him, I need to listen to him and respond to him. The same is true of God.

Because God is God, it’s impossible for us to know all of him. King David, who wrote many of the Psalms we read in the Bible, wrote, “(God, your) knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain…” (Psalm 139:6) However, David goes on to say, “how precious to me are your thoughts, O God!”(Psalm 139:17, emphasis added) David implies that God shares His thoughts with Him—that God reveals his thoughts to him. Paul says the same thing when he prays for the Ephesians: “O God, reveal yourself to them, make them know you better…”(verse 17, paraphrase mine)

In Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians in our text today, Paul asks God to reveal three things about himself to the Ephesian church, three truths about God[iii]:

Did you know that when/if you chose/choose to follow Jesus for your life your future was/will be altered? An essential characteristic of Christianity is the affect God’s calling has on one’s future.[iv] Paul prays that the people would know the “hope” that comes with being called by God. Hope is future. Hope is a peace knowing that no matter what happens, God’s grace and mercy always wins.

You’ve heard it said that perfect love—God himself—drives out fear (1 John 4:18). This is what hope is. Hope is to live fearlessly in this life because the God of Love has conquered. That’s not to say that bad things won’t happen, or that we can protect against bad things happening. To live in fear is to try and secure safe passage in this life, but God never promised that. It is as Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble, but (have hope), I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, emphasis and parenthesis added). To live in fear is to miss the hope that God promises.

When bad things happen, we have ultimate hope in God because he had overcome the bad things.

Would it change the way we live as church if we truly rested in the hope we have nothing to fear in this world?

You’ve all seen those scenes in an airport or bus station when someone emerges from behind the “passengers only” door to the waiting arms of loved ones. Such delight is there in a reunion long awaited. When loved ones reconnect, it’s as if the entire world vanished around them and there was just they and their joy at being together again.

Now try and imagine, though I think you’ll find it impossible, that joy multiplied a million times, ten million. Can’t do it, can you? That’s because such joy can only be felt and expressed by God. But it is the sort of joy described in verse 18 where Paul prays that the Ephesians might know “the riches of his glorious inheritance.”

What Paul tells us about God here is that God delights to welcome us. We are his inheritance. It brings him joy, glory, when we accept that he chose us. The most accurate way to interpret this verse is more like “that you may see the wealth of God’s glory”, meaning the great glory of God that is present when he inherits his people.

Remember, this is all about God’s glory and fame. We exist to bring him glory, and when we come to know him and acknowledge him as the King he is, he is glorified, and it is rich beyond all riches.

Would it change the way we live as church if we walked in the truth that God delights in us for His glory?

What would you do if you were Prime Minister for a week, or the President of the United States? What changes would you make? I know, because you’re good and wise people, that you’d no doubt make decisions to ease the suffering of the world’s poor and oppressed, and establish a more biblical way of life (and maybe shorten the workweek!).

What if you had the power to make changes that would affect the course of history—for the better—for the next 100 years? Wouldn’t that be great?

But you know, not even the most powerful, noble, wise, men and women this world has can stop all the evil and suffering from happening. Not even the wisest most passionate leaders have ever raised someone from death to life by their own power. Such power exists exclusively in the One True God of the Universe. However, the third thing that Paul wants to teach the Ephesians about God is “his incomparably great power” (1:19).

Here Paul emphasizes what God did in raising Jesus from the dead and setting him at His right hand. Paul wants all the believers to know that such power is available for them.

Now it’s really important that we understand that the power Paul emphasizes isn’t some cosmic display of force. Rather, it’s on God’s life-giving power especially available for believers.[v] It’s the power to raise us from death to life, the same power that our friend Edna surely encountered. It is the power that is above all power: the power of eternal life over temporary death.

Death cannot win. If death had the last say, God would not be God. He would not be over all, supreme. Death would. But when God raised Jesus from the dead, he trounced death, usurped its feeble strength, and made it possible for all who believe to experience the same power over death.

Do you believe that God’s incomparably great power, the power over death, is available to you?

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

Paul’s a good pastor. Like I said last week, he really wants his readers, those under his teaching, to know who God is. He’s desperate that they be shaped by truth, and not by what passes for truth. The reason is that when people know God right, they bring Him glory and fame. If the people in Ephesus lived with skewed ideas about God, certainly they’d suffer, but more importantly, more tragically, God’s reputation would suffer. So Paul is careful to teach and tell about God.

As we’ve read this portion of Ephesians, he’s taught us some things about God. I want you to talk about this together. I know this will be unusual, but what I’d like you to do for a minute is turn to your neighbor and talk about what you learned about God today.[vi] Go on, I’ll interrupt in a minute…

Well, do you know more about who God is? How would you describe God now after getting to now him a bit better today? Living right as church means that we are charged with the call to live our whole life to honor the name of Jesus, to point to God—to give him a good reputation and spread his fame. The first step in doing that is by getting to know who he is.

God is hope. God delights to bring us to himself, for his glory. God is all-powerful. Let’s pray.

[i] In the auditory version of this message I held up a picture of my friend, Andy.

[ii] John Piper, The Pleasures of God (Oregon: Multnomah, 1991), p. 112.

Getting To Know Him (Part 1)

Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation