03 Ephesians 1:15-23 What to pray when you don’t know what to pray for

Speaker: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word, our series of Bible study applied to real life. Today is Wednesday, February 4th, 2014. Our passage is Ephesians 1, verses 15 through 23. And our teacher is Krisan Marotta. This is the third message in our series on the book of Ephesians. Krisan Marotta: Today we're in Ephesians 1, 15 to 23. Are most of you familiar with the Aladdin stories? Probably the Disney version of Aladdin and Jasmine. When my daughter was little, that was her favorite. She loved the Disney stories of Jasmine and Aladdin, and we watched them over and over again. And I'm always intrigued by these stories that have a, you know, a genie who appears to some poor victim and gives them three wishes. And little Megan and I, we would have all these conversations about, okay, if we found a genie, what would we wish for? And of course, we do all the politically correct stuff, you know, like world peace and no more hunger. And after we got that out of the way, then we talk about, oh, what's the real stuff? What would we really want? And I bring that up because we're talking about prayer today, and I think oftentimes we treat God as if he's a big blue genie who will grant our three wishes. But and we don't have a genie. We have the creator of the universe. We're not poor victims of fate. We are God's adopted children. But in some ways, I think that's how we treat him. So we're going to look at Paul's prayer at the end of chapter one. It's, and I think it's really we're going to look at not only what Paul does pray for, but what he doesn't pray for. So remember where we were, it's been a while. In the opening verses of Ephesians, he goes through all the blessings that we have in Christ. And he lists how we are chosen by God, we are adopted as his children, we are sealed by his Holy Spirit, we receive an inheritance, and he lists these blessings that we talked about a few weeks ago now. And in response, then he offers this prayer. And just as the f the opening verses of Ephesians were one sentence, this is actually this prayer is also one sentence in Greek. So he just kind of takes a breath and rolls right into it. Let me read it through just to get it in our minded. So starting in fifteen. For this reason, I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he brought about in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is but is his body, the fullness of him who fills all and in all. Okay, so let's start. We're just gonna jump right in. And I actually this is one of my favorite prayers in the Bible, and I hope by the end of this it's yours too, because you ever have those moments where you just fall on your knees and you have no idea what to pray for? You're like it's just too painful or it's just too overwhelming, and you know you need to pray, but you just you turn to God and you're like, I I don't even know how to pray or what to pray. I come back to this prayer because uh well, as we'll see, I think this is like one of the essential things. You can always pray this. Okay, so let's look at what motivates Paul to pray. This is in 15 and 16. He says, For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which exists among you and your love for the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers. So his prayer is prompted by their faith in the Lord Jesus and the love that exists among them as a result of that faith and grace. And that's interesting to me because remember a few weeks ago we talked about the historical situation and what the Ephesian church was facing and Christians in general at that time, they had it really rough. So remember, the economy of Ephesus depended upon the temple of Aphrodite and it was built around idolatry. And when the Ephesian believers bec or Ephesians became believers, there were a lot of jobs that suddenly they could no longer do because they all revolved, they had these like lines back to the temple and they involved idolatry and magic. The book of Acts records that at one point a number of magicians in Ephesus who had come to faith burned their magic books, and at great expense and risk for their lives. This is Acts 19, 19. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone, and they counted up the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces of silver. That's an astronomical number. So if you think about a piece of silver was a day's wage, it's also the term is a drachma, and if you said, let's just assume a hundred dollars a day was a day's wage. So if that if we make that translation, they burned a half a million dollars worth of books, which i is a lot. So they're harassed, they're discriminated against, and it's hard for them to find work now that they're out of the magic business. And I was thinking about how what would the equivalent be today, and this is the best analogy I can come up with. Imagine that suddenly you could no longer take a job that involved the internet. Nothing that touched a computer was open to you. So you couldn't have a desk job, you couldn't answer phones, you probably couldn't use a cash register. Um, you know, basically what would what would be left to do if you could not take a job that um used a computer or the internet? And that's essentially the situation these were in. These Ephesians were in. You know, there's cooking jobs, cleaning and agriculture, but they had slaves for that. So you couldn't even get those jobs because those were, you know, they had slaves to do those. So that's the situation they're in. And you notice Paul doesn't say, I'm praying for you because I know you're going through a really hard time. I'm praying for you because I know life is tough and you're unemployed and you can't get a job and you're having trouble. He says, I pray because I've heard about your faith. I've heard how you're trusting Jesus and you're showing that trust and love for others. And having heard of that, I am thankful for you and praying for you. So his prayer is prompted by how well they're doing spiritually and the grace that's demonstrated in their lives. And I've that's instructive to me. So he's just listed all these incredible blessings we have and what God has done for us. And he says, and I'm for this reason I'm praying for you because you're you have come to this knowledge, you're doing well spiritually, and he goes on to say, to pray for them that they would fully understand everything God has done for them. So let's look at that. Oh, but for before we do that, let's look at how he dresses addresses God. In 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation. It's that Father of glory. It was still relatively rare at this point to address God as Father. The Jews never addressed God as Father. And that was something Jesus brought in. And prior to that, there were all these barriers between us and God. So when God meets Moses, for example, at Mount Sinai, he gives explicit instructions about creating barriers around the mountain, and no one can come near, and they're to consecrate themselves and wash their garments and be ready, and then they can only get within so many feet of the mountain. And he says, Beware, if you go to the mountain or even touch it, you will die. You'll be put to death. So you have all these barriers between us and God, and then that gets uh continued in Jerusalem. There's walls around the temple to protect the sanctity of the place, and then there are courtyards within the walls, and Gentiles can only go so far, and then women can only go so far, and what a courtyard, and then men can only go so far, and beyond that only the priests could go. And then beyond that, there was the holy place which only the special priest could go, only dressed in holy garments, and then of course there was the holy of holies where only the high priest could go, and he could only go one day a year after basically spending a week preparing himself for it. So there were all these barriers between us and God, and now everything's different. Now God is our Father. Now we can address Him freely. Uh and just as the curtain is torn in two, there's no barrier guarding the Holy of Holies. Now, because of Jesus, we can approach him as a child. So it's like open access via the Son. So he's just listed all these blessings in one through fourteen. We're chosen, we're redeemed, we're adopted, we're given this inheritance. And now he says, I pray that you would fully understand what that means. Look at 17 through 19. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of the power of his power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might. That's essentially the heart of this prayer, that's the content of it. And that's I think where we really see the contrast between God and a genie. So it's easy to read through that and kind of get lost in all the phrases in the theology, but I want it they're important phrases, so we're going to break them down. But first, think about what you'd wish for if you had a genie, and then what you pray for, and how similar are those. And I have to admit this was very convicting for me. When I was doing this exercise, I started watching what I was praying for, and I realized you could categorize my prayers in three ways. They were either heal me, you know, so I'm sick or I hurt my ankle or I'm I have a headache or you know, make it better. So some kind of physical ailment, make it better. Or make my life easy was the second category. You know, don't let my hard disk crash or, you know, give me a good boss, let me get an A on this test, don't make it my turn to do carpool, you know, whatever, you know, all those things. It's like just make my life easy, hassle-free, smooth sailing. Or fix it. You know, I'm in a dam, I made a mess of things, I did something stupid, or I said something stupid, or I forgot to do something, or kind of bail me out of here. And those are my typical three foot wishes almost, you know, fix it, heal me, make my life easy. And I think the Ephesian church could certainly have asked for those things because they were in a very uncomfortable, rough, problem-filled situation. And Paul could have prayed for those, but he doesn't. He prays for wisdom and knowledge that they would fully comprehend who they are as Christians. And I you look at that and you think, well, that's real theological and very impractical, right? I mean, who needs that? If you're struggling with unemployment and and being discriminated, why pray for wisdom and understanding? That's just way too intellectual. We want the 12-step programs, the do's and don'ts, and all the little sayings that we can embroider on needlepoint pillows. You know, we don't we don't need theology. And what I want to suggest to you is theology is the most practical thing he could play pray for. And I think we do well to refocus our prayers along those lines. A while ago I was listening to a tape by Larry Crab. He's a Christian counselor and I think he's a psychologist, and he shared in the tape that he was it was suffering that caused him to change his counseling methods. So he shared that a few years in the past of this tape, he was terrified because he thought his wife had cancer, and then the biopsy showed that she didn't, and he went out rejoicing, and three days later he got a phone call that his brother was killed in a plane crash. And he says, this is his quote, he said, his grief tapped a deep root of grief which he had never felt before, but now through the pain he got to know God better. Now he says, I don't use God to solve people's problems, I use their problems to help them get to know God. And then he goes on, if you want God to solve your problems, don't ask for counseling. But if you're hurting and you want to find God in your heart, then we can help you. And that is what prayer is all about, getting to know God. And I love that quote because I think that's exactly what Paul's doing. He's saying, don't ask, I'm not going to ask that God solve all the problems in your life. I'm going to ask that you really get to know God. So he starts with that phrase that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened. I think that's where we we catch it. He's saying, I want you to really deeply, fully comprehend. So this is knowledge that not just you know in your mind that's just facts that you collect, but that you would really embrace it and understand it, and your heart would catch fire and it would change you from the inside out. I love that phrase, that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened, that you would really deeply comprehend this at the in your innermost being. And then he prays for three things. And it's actually really, I think, one thing expressed three ways. So he says he prays that they would understand the hope of their calling in verse 18, the hope of their calling, the riches of the glory of their inheritance, that's also in 18, and the surpassing greatness of God's power. So let's look at those. What is he asking for them to really deeply understand? So the hope of his calling, we'll start with that. Hope is a confident, eager expectation that something will happen. So when we talk about hope today, we often mean wishful thinking. So yesterday I was saying, I hope it doesn't snow again, I hope it doesn't snow, and it was that's a wish or a longing, and I have no idea whether or not it's gonna happen. But in the Greek world, this word, hope, is reserved for something you are absolutely certain is gonna happen. You expect it to happen, you're counting on it to happen, there is no doubt about it. It's very similar to the word for faith in that sense. It's something you count on and hold to. The difference is hope adds an element of joy. It's that you're eagerly looking forward to it. So when my kids were little, if I told them we were going to Disneyland or Disney World, they would have hoped for that trip. They would have been excited, they would have been confident that it was going to happen. They I promised, they expect that promise to be fulfilled, and they were excited. That's hope. If I tell them we were having broccoli for dinner, they would have faith that we were having broccoli for dinner, but they wouldn't be very excited about it. That's kind of the difference. But hope adds that element of I'm eager and excited and rejoicing. So we're hoping. What are we hoping for? And again, it's not wishful thinking, it's confident, eager expectation. And I think the answer to that, he's already given us in one sense. In Ephesians 1.4, he says that we would be holy and blameless before him. And in one seven, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace. So what is the hope of our calling? We've been called to be holy and blameless, and be given all these blessings that he just outlined in one through fourteen. So we're called to be his people, to be unfallen, undefiled, knowing right from wrong. And he's saying, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what it really means to be chosen by God and given this hope of being holy and blameless. And then the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, or the wealth of his glory, is another way it's translated. And I think what he's saying there is that you would understand the incredible value and extraordinary worth of what it is to be made holy. So he's called us, his calling starts us down the road of this journey toward faith, and the end, the fulfillment of that road is the inheritance. So if calling is the beginning of faith, inheritance is the end of faith. You when you actually obtain the holiness and righteousness promised us. So I think the nuance that he's adding, it's a little different than the hope of the calling, is not only does he want you to understand what the hope is, but how incredibly valuable it is, how and how it's beyond our wildest dreams, that the promise to be made holy and blameless, to be completely free from sin and death, to be the kind of person who brings joy in life, that if we could really glimpse it and understand it now, we would we would do anything to gain it. I think that's essentially the parable of the pearl of great price, that if we could just catch a glimpse of what our inheritance is going to look like, we would we would sell everything and do everything to gain it. Um and if you I mean you you kind of know this. Have you ever noticed you know life seems a little flat? You know, there's always something missing, and we're always kind of looking forward to the next thing. And no matter how good it is, there's always something we think. If I just had that, then then life would be good. You know, so when you're a child, you say, Oh, if only I can be a teenager. And when you're a teenager, you think, oh, if I can only I can't wait to go to college and be on my own. And then when you're in college, you think, oh, I can't wait to get out of here and and be married, and then you finally get married, and you think, oh, I can't wait to have kids, and then you have kids and you go, Why did I want these? You know. You know, so you're always kind of looking for the next thing of when will life get there? When will it finally be? So now I'm past the kids stage, and what am I doing? Grandkids. I can't wait for grandkids. You know, so there's always something where we're thinking, there's this little voice that says, Is this all there is? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not I'm basically happy in life, and God has blessed me in many ways. But and in fact, I love empty nesting because it's like being a newly wed again, only you have money. It's like, yeah, this is the best time. You don't have to be nervous and you have money. So but the I'm getting off drag here. The point is the difference between our expectations and reality. So we have this vision of what life would be like, and reality doesn't measure up because reality has problems and fights and misunderstandings and disappointment and endless work and things go wrong. And the promise of the gospel is one day all of that will be put right. We have this vision of what life will be like because that is the hope of our calling. That is what's coming. There is a day that is promised to us when we will have life without sin, life as it was intended to be lived, and as we suspect, we kind of think it's out there. Um, and that's the promise. And Paul's saying, I'm praying that your heart would be enlightened so that you would understand how incredibly valuable that is. That day is coming and it's worth it. Everything we go through now is worth it to grasp that. And then he adds, what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe in 19? So I think that what he's adding to the mix now is the certainty that God is able to deliver on that promise. So if the calling looks to the beginning and inheritance looks to the end, then the greatness of his power is the middle. It's the getting us to that point. Not only has God promised this incredible blessing of being made holy and blameless, and it's incredibly valuable, and it's the best thing we could ever imagine, and it will fill the desires of our heart. His power is sufficient. He is capable of delivering it. It will happen. It's his power is more than sufficient. And how do we know his power can do this? Because we've seen him do it in the resurrection. So, and that's what he goes on to next. We know that it's going to happen because we've already seen him deliver on this kind of promise when he brought which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead, which is the next thing he goes on to say. So before we get there, just to sum up, he's praying that we would understand the hope before us, and that is that we would be made holy and blameless in his sight, given all these blessings that he just outlined in 1 through 14, that we would fully comprehend how incredibly valuable that is and how it's worth more than everything else we could ask for, and then have the certainty and the confidence that God is able to deliver it. And that's pretty amazing. Now, I I promised you that that was practical. And I think that is a very practical thing to pray for. Understanding who we are as Christians, I think, in many ways is the key to understanding life. And I think that's why Paul is praying for it. Um, he's praying that you we understand what it means to be sealed, to be redeemed, to be chosen. And why is that practical? I mean, why is that not just like fluffy Christian jargon jargon that, you know, I I think it is really the nitty gritty, it's not fluffy jargon. And I think because the more we understand that, the more we can cope with what we're facing here and now, so the world here and now. And I I think that is the crucial information that can change our perspective and that can change our attitude, and that can make it so we can. Get through those really hard, rough days. So, do you know why British sailors are called limeys? Have you ever heard that? They would go out to sea for long periods of time and they got rickets, which is a disease caused by the deficiency in vitamin C. So they'd go on these long voyages, they wouldn't have vitamin C, and they'd get this rickets. And the key to solving that problem was learning about vitamin C. And once they knew had that, they discovered they could bring limes along because Lyme stayed fresh for a very long time. And they had a lot of vitamin C in it, and that's how they got the nickname Limeys. Now I bring that up because what I'm thinking, what I'm arguing is the knowing who you are as a Christian is the key to facing life in the same way knowing about vitamin C was the key to solving this problem of rickets. It's that crucial piece of information that once you have that, it unlocks understanding. So let me give you some examples of why I think this. So if I understand the hope of my calling, then it leads to the conclusion that having faith is more important than having an easy life. So if I understand how valuable righteousness is and how important it is that I gain a place in the kingdom of God and that I need a savior, and that that is the promise of the gospel, then I can kind of see why life is hard, because it's more important that I become a person of strong, mature faith than it is that I have an easy, smooth life. So when I ask for faith, for spiritual wisdom, for understanding, that is much more important than what I like to pray for, which is, you know, heal me, fix it, make my life easy. I may very well need all those hassles and disappointments and tragedies to teach me faith. So maybe we shouldn't be too quick to pray for an easy life because that hardship is often the tool in God's hand that He is using to make us more a person of faith, to strengthen that hope in us, to strengthen the maturity and trust. And maybe the best thing is not for that hurt to go away. Maybe the best thing is for me to continue to fall on my knees before God and to come to that place as Jesus did in the garden where I say, Not my will, but your will. So make it easy if that's what's best. And praying for faith to get you through is always important. So see how that changes your perspective on it. Answers some of those questions of why does God let this go on? Why, why should I, you know, why wouldn't he just make this easy? Well, maybe because it's more important that you have faith. The other, well, just to keep going, if I understand the hope of his calling, I may understand that gaining holiness is more important than having money, having health, having a good job, having fame or a career or whatever other things I'm I'm uh worried about. So imagine I'm worried about money, which is very easy to do. What does that change? Well how can that knowing who I am in Christ change that understanding? Well, if we understand what God is really after, that is making us people who are holy and blameless, he might let me do without money to get to that end. A few years ago we helped the church deliver Thanksgiving dinners, and one of the women we took a meal to was a believer and she was she was extremely poor, and being in her house and her surroundings made me ashamed that I ever worried about money because she had she really had nothing, and yet she was a Christian. So how might I understand that? How might it turn to God when He's given me all this stuff and so much? And then this other woman who's also his child had nothing. I mean, I don't do that with my children. What one gets the other usually gets. So it looks like God's playing favorites with his children, but he's not playing favorites with what's truly valuable. Because what's truly valuable is holiness, righteousness, faith, and being saved. And in that we are absolutely equal. She and I have the same inheritance, the same father, the same grace, the same holiness. There's no difference in that. And God, if God's perspective is it's more important that I become a person of faith than it is that I become rich in this world. And the hope of his calling is more important than wealth and glory now. So once I see that, once I understand what's truly valuable, it may I can begin to say, well, maybe God's got a bigger plan. And if it takes extreme poverty or extreme wealth to make me a person of faith, then so be it. Now, having said that, I am not in any way saying that's an excuse to say go warm, go be filled and be warm and do nothing to help her. I'm not, I'm so you've misunderstood me if you think that understanding that is now I'm it's okay for me to turn my back on someone in need. That's not what righteousness is about. So I'm not saying that. It may very well be that me seeing another's need is the tool God's using to break the idols in my life so that I become a generous person and a person who trusts him and not my bank account. So, okay, but it does kind of answer the question of why do Christians walk a different path? Why do some have health and some don't? Some have wealth and some don't, some are blessed with children and some aren't, and some have marriages that are great and some don't. And why are we all on this different journey toward faith? It's because what's truly valuable is holiness and righteousness and salvation, and in that we are fellow heirs of the grace of life. We've been given the same inheritance. Okay? Follow me on that. Okay. So we talked about money, health can be the same way. Um we may be we may struggle with health issues because that's the tool God's um using in our lives. And another thing is um if we understand the value of holiness and righteousness and forgiveness, it also means I should understand the place of forgiveness in my life. And that, you know, we ask the question, how do I forgive my neighbor? How many times should I forgive my husband? Um, and you know, I don't usually we always say how many times should I forgive my neighbor? But really it's not, it's our family we have trouble with, right? I mean, they're the ones we have trouble forgiving, and we want to keep score with them. Um and when you we start answering those questions, you know, when do I get to demand justice and fair treatment and recompense for all the hurts and the wrongs and misunderstandings? Um, well, if I understand the hope of God's calling that one day I will be made holy, then I must also understand that I am not holy now, and neither is anyone else. And it's hypocritical for me to ask for justice on someone else because there's no standard by which God could judge someone else that does not also condemn me. So again, understanding the value of holiness can lead to an understanding of forgiveness and how we need to extend it to others. Also, I'm I can we could probably go on all day. I'll give you one more. If I understand the hope of my calling, I should also understand that legalism is gonna get me nowhere, and neither is licentiousness. So the the old argument um I'm forgiven so I can sin all I want. It doesn't matter what I do now, it doesn't matter how I act, God's gonna forgive me so I can just be selfish and and thoughtless and whatever now. Um it does matter because holiness is the only thing worth having. And if that's what I value and that's what I long for, and that's what I'm I'm hoping and is my destiny, why would I go the other way now? Why would I choose a life that leads towards sin and death? So if I understand the value of righteousness, I can see that promiscuity, licentiousness is gonna get me nowhere. And the flip side of that is legalism. I should realize that it's the greatness of his power toward believers that is gonna get me there. It's not in me trying harder and harder and harder, not in me trying to prove myself somehow worthy to God. That question's settled. We've already proven that we're not worthy before God and we need Jesus to solve that problem. So there's no value in legalism either. And then I think one, well, I said one more, and then I'm gonna give you one more after that. I think the other thing that this gives us is confidence of how do I know that I'm saved? How do, you know, I I don't know about you, but there are those moments where you ask, you know, what if I give all this up in five years? What if I'm just fooling myself and I'm just playing at this and I don't really trust God? How do I know that I have really understood? And that again is understanding the greatness of his power because he has promised, he has said, I will I've called you, I've chosen you, I've saved you, I've redeemed you, and I will get you to your inheritance. So he is the one that said, I will make you righteous, it's not up to me. Now, if we keep thinking, we could probably come with lots more examples, but you see how understanding who you are as Christ begins to have these like domino effect of answering some of life's hardest and biggest questions. And I think that's the key. And that at those times when we fall on our knees before God because it's just too hard and it's just too painful, and we don't know what to pray for, this is something you can come back to. Um, to pray, make me understand who you are and what you've done for me, what it means to be your child. Um, that that's always it's kind of my fallback. This is where I go. Okay, so he's just said that our confidence rests on the power of God, and then he goes on to say, and we have seen this happen. Look at 19. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the one to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Essentially, I think he's saying, How do we know that God will do all this for us? How do we know that we can count on him? Because we've seen him deliver on this promise to Jesus. We've seen him do it already. We saw him raise Jesus from the dead, seat him in the heavenly places, and enthrone him and put all things under under his feet. And his promise is that we are dead in our sins and we will be freed from them, that we these bodies will be raised, and that we will sit with Jesus in heaven. And he says, we've seen him do do this, and he has promised to do the same for you. So you have an inheritance coming. Now, of course, our inheritance is different than Jesus. We're not going to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but I think the point he's making is you have no reason to doubt God because we've already seen him deliver on this promise. We've seen him conquer death through Jesus. And for us, the full ful the fulfillment for us is just a matter of time. So when you pray for spiritual wisdom and understanding and for the faith that your the eyes of your heart will be enlightened, do you think you'll get it? That's kind of the only question left, huh? I mean, do we believe him? That when we ask for this understanding, um, that he will give it to us, and I think he will. So, do you have that eager, joyous confidence that there is something truly worthwhile coming? And it's guaranteed. Um, nothing good will be held back from us in that sense. God's promised this inheritance that's beyond our wildest dreams and imaginations, better than all the desires of our earthly existence, and he is able to exceedingly and abundantly bring it about. So much better than a genie. Let me stop there and pray for us. Father, we pray like Paul that you would uh enlighten the eyes of our heart, that you would make these truths that we've talked about in Ephesians real to us in a in a way that makes our hearts catch fire and our souls sing praises to you, and that we would understand greater what it means to be called your child, to be freed from sin and to be made holy and blameless, that we would understand the promises of the inheritance that is coming in a real way such that we can face each day with its trials and tribulations, and that we would count on the greatness of your power to bring all this about, and not our own strength, not our own workings. I know in a room this size there are many struggling with many hard and very difficult things, uh, with loss, with grief, with uh all kinds of issues and relationships and problems, and I just pray that you would make these truths real so that those days are a little lighter and that we can face them with confidence in you, even though they're hard. In Jesus' name. Speaker: Amen. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. For notes and study questions related to this message, please visit our website, wednesdayintheword.com. Thank you for being with us, and we hope you'll join us again.