back to indexWed Bible Study Ephesians Lesson 4
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Let's take a moment to read our passage together. 00:00:08.180 |
So please have that portion of the packet there with you. 00:00:14.720 |
And the scripture says, "For this reason, I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord 00:00:21.200 |
Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks 00:00:27.340 |
for you while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 00:00:32.940 |
the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and a revelation in the knowledge 00:00:39.120 |
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is 00:00:43.840 |
the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 00:00:49.240 |
and what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe. 00:00:53.480 |
These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he brought 00:00:58.080 |
about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the 00:01:05.120 |
Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named, 00:01:10.800 |
not only in this age but also in the one to come. 00:01:14.400 |
And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him as head over all things 00:01:20.000 |
to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. 00:01:27.520 |
It's a really beautiful passage of Apostle Paul essentially sharing his mentality about 00:01:35.960 |
Now as we come to this passage, we want to review that remember in the last section that 00:01:41.840 |
we took several weeks to cover, we reviewed and learned the massive blessings that exist 00:01:52.000 |
Everything was in him and through him, right? 00:01:55.200 |
And we saw that the incredible loving intentionality that God had towards us, right? 00:02:06.160 |
There was nothing in terms of last minute like, "Oops, Valentine's is Friday." 00:02:11.520 |
It just didn't creep up on him like, "Oh, shoot, I forgot all these little ones I made." 00:02:19.040 |
But rather it was meticulously planned from the creation of the world, right? 00:02:28.680 |
Everything was in accordance to his perfect will. 00:02:33.040 |
And so what we saw was an incredible list of not just simply things we receive, it was 00:02:38.640 |
an incredible list of God's intentional will. 00:02:43.480 |
Everything was by his own decision, his purpose, and we saw that repeated so many times. 00:02:49.400 |
And so therefore, all of that was to result in praise to God. 00:02:53.000 |
All of that was supposed to result in blessed be God, the Father of our Lord. 00:02:58.600 |
And so the challenge to you, application wasn't like, "Go out there and build the church," 00:03:03.920 |
or whatever, although that's something you should always be doing. 00:03:13.680 |
Check your heart to see if there's any part of you that's like, "Wah, boo-hoo, look at 00:03:21.040 |
After covering a section like that, we dare not have that kind of hurtful heart and mentality 00:03:28.360 |
inside our minds or inside our emotions when we think about the Lord. 00:03:33.640 |
Now when we just read this passage, moving from that long list of blessings, how are 00:03:38.960 |
we to move into this passage is the question, when Apostle Paul says the various things. 00:03:45.280 |
So in order to do that, I just want to challenge you guys to regularly summarize what you're 00:03:49.360 |
reading because it helps you kind of just remember and retain, but also to keep thinking 00:03:53.660 |
and thinking and thinking about all the stuff you saw. 00:03:56.520 |
What I like to do is read the passage again, but to read the passage on your packet on 00:04:02.920 |
the next page behind it in the kind of breakdown fashion that I like to do because that'll 00:04:12.720 |
He says in verse 15, "For this reason, I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord 00:04:20.720 |
Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks 00:04:27.360 |
for you while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, 00:04:33.320 |
the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge 00:04:38.720 |
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is 00:04:44.680 |
the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, 00:04:50.120 |
and what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe. 00:04:54.240 |
These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he brought 00:05:00.640 |
And he raised him from the dead and he seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places 00:05:04.600 |
far above all rule, authority, and power, dominion, every name that is named, not only 00:05:12.800 |
And he put all things in subjection under his feet and he gave him as head over all 00:05:18.280 |
things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." 00:05:25.840 |
As you take a look at that, man, you know, we ask this question and so we're going to 00:05:32.360 |
come back to this question, is how do you summarize this? 00:05:35.720 |
And what I like to say is, man, you see him connecting the thought of the blessings that 00:05:41.080 |
he has seen and praises God for, and he connects it to the people whom he sees faith in. 00:05:55.100 |
By way of kind of connecting the dots for us a little bit, again, I think Apostle Paul, 00:05:59.600 |
he doesn't just jump from one thought to another. 00:06:02.740 |
What he really is doing is he's seeing, yes, the long list of blessings that we went through 00:06:07.360 |
in the last passage and saying, "We have to really, really appreciate all of these blessings 00:06:16.100 |
So you notice the theme of this entire section, there's so much about knowledge, understanding, 00:06:30.920 |
Here, let's jump to the first section and take a look. 00:06:36.360 |
He's got this thought for this reason, but what he's saying is, "What I've heard is your 00:06:48.560 |
He sees genuine markers, evidences of true faith. 00:06:53.040 |
So in Paul's perspective, he's got one on one side in his mind, all of these incredible 00:06:58.700 |
blessings that come in Christ that are, for lack of better words, just incredible, right? 00:07:06.560 |
And so on this side, though, what he sees is that there is marks of genuine faith among 00:07:15.360 |
For example, imagine if you were a teacher, let's say in high school, a high school English 00:07:20.760 |
teacher or something like that, and you had a class of like 30 students. 00:07:24.720 |
And you find out, "Oh my goodness, that young man over there, he's a Christian." 00:07:30.880 |
Would you be like, "Ah, then I don't need to pay attention to him, because he's going 00:07:34.880 |
No, you'd be like, "Oh my goodness, you're a Christian?" 00:07:40.480 |
What's more, all of a sudden you feel more concern, because you know that he's going 00:07:43.520 |
to be perhaps walking a hard path, because he's going to have to contend for his faith, 00:07:48.400 |
because he is a minority in terms of just the culture of the day or whatever it may 00:07:53.760 |
And now all of a sudden you might even want to meet with him. 00:08:05.760 |
It's like once Apostle Paul sees that there is faith in these individuals, there is even 00:08:14.000 |
Perhaps some of us feel like, "He's Christian, he'll be fine." 00:08:17.080 |
Maybe you think some of the people around you, it's like, "They'll be okay. 00:08:22.920 |
Well actually, as a matter of fact, if you think about it in the right perspective, this 00:08:29.320 |
That Apostle Paul would be giving great thanks because all the great blessings that he just 00:08:45.180 |
And to one single worthy person, "I would love to give a million dollars." 00:08:50.300 |
And then imagine the next week, at the next Bible study, you see, I don't know, you see 00:08:54.460 |
Emily, she's just like happy and she's like, "Here, I love you." 00:09:00.000 |
Maybe she's just a lady, she's like happy the whole time. 00:09:02.820 |
Immediately you think like, "Oh my gosh, did he give it to you?" 00:09:08.820 |
Likewise, if he sees love for all the saints, if he sees faith filling an individual's heart, 00:09:15.660 |
a church, their hearts, I mean, he's so grateful for that. 00:09:21.140 |
So, all I'm saying is this, is here in the beginning, we think about what Apostle Paul 00:09:31.300 |
You would be just ecstatic for her, happy with her. 00:09:38.060 |
And then let's take a moment to just think and meditate, you know? 00:09:41.540 |
Because in these beginning portions of the book of Ephesians, a lot of it is not didactic 00:09:47.100 |
teaching and instruction about this is what you need to do. 00:09:50.300 |
A lot of it is think, remember, understand, and know. 00:09:57.780 |
In Apostle Paul's mind, the perspective and definitions of what are true blessings, then 00:10:06.900 |
contribute to you thinking about what are then true sources of joy for you. 00:10:13.020 |
If for him, the true blessings are all up in Christ, then that also then paints for 00:10:18.180 |
him what are those things that he's going to be most thankful for, most happy about, 00:10:23.820 |
most ecstatic, and therefore also most pressing on his prayer list. 00:10:33.660 |
Then are these the things that you give thanks unceasingly? 00:10:38.340 |
Are these the things that just make you keep worrying and make you keep thinking and motivating 00:10:43.980 |
Like, "I got that student who's a Christian and he's growing. 00:10:55.440 |
And the evidences of faith that Apostle Paul sees in this church then to him are absolutely 00:11:05.700 |
First Peter chapter one, verse six through seven, it says, "In this you greatly rejoice, 00:11:10.060 |
even though now for a little while it's necessary that you have been distressed by various trials." 00:11:20.460 |
"It's being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire 00:11:26.120 |
may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 00:11:34.820 |
I am saying to you, there was this question, why is Apostle Paul praying for a bunch of 00:11:45.460 |
Because there is a second thought that the ongoing perseverance and the evidence of that 00:11:53.660 |
And so, when you look at your friends, brothers and sisters at church, and you're praying 00:12:00.780 |
You can, it's totally okay and ecstatic, and good for you to be ecstatic that your friend 00:12:08.100 |
Or that they got out of that horrible, miserable situation, whatever it may be. 00:12:14.700 |
But there is that question of how you are interpreting what are true blessings, right? 00:12:20.480 |
There's a question you need to meditate about what are true things you're seeing as like 00:12:28.060 |
It's the evidence what he sees and what he hears that these individuals have true faith. 00:12:37.100 |
Let's take a look at this, and I ask you the question, right, for your Bible study, what 00:12:47.340 |
And what is the pattern that you see in his prayer? 00:12:53.980 |
And you saw it, it's like so, like again, he's so clear in his teaching, it's like that, 00:12:58.780 |
number one, God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit 00:13:05.140 |
of wisdom, of revelation, and the knowledge of him. 00:13:09.900 |
And he says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will 00:13:21.340 |
We see a pattern of the emphasis that Apostle Paul is clearly praying for and giving his 00:13:27.420 |
devoted time and energy, asking that God would constantly give them truth, right? 00:13:34.520 |
To give the church truth and true understanding. 00:13:38.380 |
Because we know it's not enough, it's absolutely not enough to just know some things. 00:13:43.860 |
It's not enough to have some fact toys in your brain. 00:13:46.580 |
It's not enough to have the intellectual knowledge. 00:13:51.680 |
And you need to have wisdom where you can skillfully apply truth, right? 00:13:59.380 |
This is very similar to what we studied long ago in Colossians chapter one, verses nine 00:14:04.980 |
For the sake of time, I'm gonna read it for us. 00:14:06.460 |
It says, "For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to 00:14:10.380 |
pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual 00:14:16.300 |
wisdom and understanding so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord." 00:14:23.820 |
So let's take a moment to meditate upon that too. 00:14:27.380 |
I mean, really fast, I could just ask you to meditate upon your life specifically now. 00:14:37.520 |
Are you growing in good student-based homework assignments? 00:14:42.780 |
And you've got binders full at home of all the assignments you did. 00:14:51.260 |
Depth of appreciation for the love of God, for the work of God, for the redemption that 00:14:58.780 |
Are you growing in such a wisdom where your consideration of God, you see him in greater 00:15:04.100 |
light, you see his everything, holiness to his mercies, to his righteousness, and not 00:15:09.720 |
only do you appreciate that, but being then in his presence as you see him, it's absolutely 00:15:15.800 |
affecting the way that you talk to him, it's affecting the way that you talk to others. 00:15:24.280 |
And so another way to apply this and meditate upon this is thinking about Apostle Paul's 00:15:34.820 |
I would ask, especially because our theme is like knowing God and then making him known, 00:15:40.020 |
every single one of you is like at some point or another going to be an older brother in 00:15:47.900 |
Can you take a moment to just imagine with me the person in front of you who you love 00:15:54.480 |
and you want them to come along in the faith? 00:15:57.560 |
And you wish that you could teach them some things? 00:16:00.640 |
Maybe you have a younger brother in the faith who's just like stubborn as can be, and they're 00:16:10.020 |
Or maybe you can imagine the person, maybe it's your own child, and I think about this, 00:16:14.500 |
how do I teach my sons to be godly, mature young men? 00:16:22.460 |
How do you get someone to move from point A to point B? 00:16:26.820 |
Lesson one to session 10 and actually grow from here to there. 00:16:30.840 |
If we're real, we all know that's a very difficult calling, right? 00:16:37.220 |
For us to try to teach and model and instruct and coach. 00:16:41.780 |
And there are times when we get all frustrated, it's like, "What are you doing?" 00:16:46.540 |
And there are days when you wish, like I wish I could just reach into your heart and just 00:16:54.380 |
And then there are moments when I start thinking even on my own kids. 00:16:59.580 |
I think about how do I make sure that they don't grow up to be unappreciative, just selfish, 00:17:09.900 |
And there are days when I start imagining, "You know what I'm going to do? 00:17:14.020 |
They're going to know what it means to not have. 00:17:17.180 |
And there are some times I sit my boys down and I'm like, "I'm going to be honest, you're 00:17:25.520 |
You have this amazing church where your friends are awesome. 00:17:28.300 |
You've got other uncles and aunties and you've got brothers and sisters above you. 00:17:35.580 |
And then I start sometimes comparing with them and then I get this inspiration, "I'm 00:17:41.620 |
So that they will know what it means to appreciate the stuff they have, right? 00:17:50.420 |
And then I want to share with you something really interesting. 00:17:53.940 |
There was a time when like, you guys have probably done this before. 00:17:58.340 |
If you've suffered in your life, you kind of have a little like, "That's right. 00:18:02.100 |
You have a silver spoon right up in your mouth, man. 00:18:05.660 |
And so you have this little bit of arrogance in you, right? 00:18:08.940 |
But we went to a conference where Dr. Steve Lawson was preaching. 00:18:16.900 |
This individual is just like, his passion to preach the gospel, see people saved, and 00:18:26.540 |
This conference was a conference where he preached eight sessions by himself, did Q&A 00:18:31.580 |
in between, and walked with people through questions the whole time. 00:18:39.140 |
The guy grew up as goody two-shoe as you could possibly think of. 00:18:43.380 |
He was wearing a suit since he was like six years old, okay? 00:18:46.700 |
His father made him like iron his pants and put on his blazer and wear a tie every Sunday 00:18:54.240 |
His father taught him everything there is to know, and he was talking about how he's 00:19:03.380 |
Like, I thought he'd gone to jail or something before." 00:19:06.820 |
Isn't that a prerequisite to be all passionate and stuff? 00:19:09.340 |
Brothers and sisters, why do I talk about that? 00:19:13.500 |
Like, why do I talk about the difficulty of training kids and then this other extreme 00:19:17.780 |
where you have some of the godliest men who've had an incredibly privileged life? 00:19:23.640 |
Because no human experience is going to teach what the Holy Spirit is going to teach. 00:19:30.380 |
The Word of God is absolutely sufficient for us. 00:19:35.540 |
And what that means is, yes, I might want to soul control and manipulate my children's 00:19:41.140 |
"You're not going to do this, and you're not going to see that, and you're not going to 00:19:43.740 |
And I might be tempted sometimes to scream in his face, like, "Just do it!" 00:19:49.540 |
But even my passions will not compare to the power of the Holy Spirit illuminating someone's 00:20:01.340 |
And that's why every single night when Bia and I put our boys to go to sleep, we pray 00:20:06.580 |
a friend and we say, "May the Lord bless you with wisdom and instruction so that you will 00:20:14.540 |
I'm going to be faithful to teach my kids, and I will model what the Bible looks like 00:20:20.420 |
in real life, and I will try to guard them and protect them. 00:20:24.740 |
But we should be praying regularly that people hear the voice of God for themselves and that 00:20:38.920 |
And some people may falsely think that only if I said this and did this and then manipulated 00:20:43.700 |
their lives so that you make this mold and you pour the child in and they come out perfect. 00:20:50.940 |
Scripture says we must pray, just as Apostle Paul. 00:20:57.040 |
You know, rather than writing on Christmas cards and yearbooks or whatever, it's like, 00:21:05.940 |
That God may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him. 00:21:21.260 |
What are some of the things that we really have to know? 00:21:24.700 |
Apostle Paul doesn't just stop at, "I want you to know stuff, guys," period, right? 00:21:30.180 |
He says, "No, we need to know what is the hope of His calling." 00:21:33.100 |
And because of the limitations of our Bible study, I'm not going to be able to extrapolate 00:21:38.220 |
But did you notice how, again, organized he is? 00:21:40.100 |
It's like, "I want you to have, you know, pray that God reveals to you, gives you the 00:21:48.420 |
And then he says that all of this is so that you would know what is the hope of His calling, 00:21:55.540 |
what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance, what is the surpassing greatness of His power 00:22:02.740 |
I want to ask you a really interesting question. 00:22:04.580 |
Every time you see a list, it's not always the case, but you should ask this question. 00:22:09.220 |
Like, how are these things in the list joined together, right? 00:22:15.460 |
Later on, when we talk about the power of God in Christ, you should ask that question. 00:22:19.180 |
Why are these examples cased together, right? 00:22:24.980 |
Are they all just a continuation of the many blessings that we have? 00:22:29.040 |
Are these all maybe resources for motivation for the believer? 00:22:33.100 |
Are these great summaries of what we learned in verses 3 through 14? 00:22:36.980 |
Are these the great foundations upon which we build our Christian lives? 00:22:45.700 |
In my mind, as I kind of like reflected and meditated, so I want you guys to take a moment 00:22:54.140 |
One of the greatest struggles in living life here is just to stay motivated. 00:23:00.700 |
Right now, I'm preparing a sermon series for the single adults for our retreat coming up, 00:23:07.720 |
Where life is mundane, where work is heavy and your life is dominated by one facet of 00:23:15.540 |
The reason why the grind is hard is because it's so hard to stay focused and motivated, 00:23:23.160 |
When I read this, there is nothing more motivating than this, right? 00:23:33.240 |
Now, someone, again, you can differ on that and people are like, "No, these are the blessings." 00:23:39.300 |
But I see nothing more motivating than to hear God has called you for an incredible 00:23:47.800 |
purpose, to be his reflection, to be holy and blameless, and then to be his great treasure 00:23:58.580 |
Think about motivations, I mean, that's amazing. 00:24:01.620 |
To have the riches of the glory of his inheritance, what motivation for us? 00:24:07.860 |
To see the surpassing greatness of his power? 00:24:12.460 |
Meditate with me and flip it around the other way. 00:24:14.060 |
If you did not have these motivations, what would you do, right? 00:24:19.720 |
If you did not have these motivations of hope, the riches of glory, and of his great power, 00:24:30.040 |
Our table started talking about, it is sad, it is sad that in recent past, there has been 00:24:36.900 |
stories of individuals taking their own lives, yet calling themselves followers of Christ. 00:24:48.400 |
If I have no point, if I have no hope, there is no direction. 00:24:54.920 |
If I have no riches in Christ, then I am valueless. 00:25:03.400 |
Even the stuff that I own, I can see it decay in my own lifetime. 00:25:11.160 |
If there is no strength, then I am left to my own wit, and I have already seen how weak 00:25:19.360 |
People who commit suicide are individuals who have seen their weakness and have given 00:25:25.940 |
Without these great motivations in your life, your life is absolutely feeble, right? 00:25:35.240 |
Now, with that said, we want to move to that last section because that last section, it 00:25:41.160 |
took a huge chunk of the space of a passage, right? 00:25:44.760 |
So the beginning portions of it basically had his thankfulness and prayer, "I want you 00:25:50.040 |
to have God's wisdom, His revelation and knowledge, and for you to know," right? 00:25:56.120 |
And then he started listening, "I want you to know the hope, I want you to know the riches, 00:26:01.900 |
And then right when he hit power, he stopped and pulled the brakes and said, "Let's talk 00:26:12.440 |
Now I found something really interesting about this because he uses synonymous terms, right? 00:26:17.860 |
There is this incredible, I love the way that NIV puts it, there's like this, he says, "Incomparably 00:26:24.440 |
greatness," like it's a weird way of saying it in the NIV if you have it. 00:26:28.480 |
There's a surpassing greatness of His power, and then synonymously it says, "All of this 00:26:33.220 |
in accordance with the working of the strength of His might." 00:26:40.120 |
God is a God who says a word and it is, but there is this exertion of His power that He 00:26:49.820 |
Let's read this section, it says, "These are in accordance with the working of the strength 00:26:53.140 |
of His might, which He brought about in Christ." 00:26:57.020 |
Now, notice how I put some of those He's in parentheses because I added that for emphasis, 00:27:03.080 |
And I also added it because, honestly, when I was doing my own Bible study, I was like, 00:27:09.720 |
I'm pretty sure you guys might have felt the same way. 00:27:13.560 |
So then I started listing it, it says, "Look at God's power He brought about in Christ 00:27:18.120 |
when He, He raised Him," that is Christ from the dead, "He seated Him at His right hand 00:27:24.720 |
in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every 00:27:30.400 |
name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. 00:27:35.040 |
And He put all things in subjection under His feet. 00:27:39.760 |
And He gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body and the fullness 00:27:48.040 |
Okay, there's a lot there, there is a lot there. 00:27:51.900 |
But as we think about that, I found something interesting. 00:27:54.800 |
Initially, you start thinking the might and power of God. 00:27:59.520 |
The Old Testament has so much to say about the might and power of God, right? 00:28:08.040 |
There is the power that God exerts where He brings into existence stuff out of nothing. 00:28:16.880 |
There is even sustaining power where He holds all the things in the universe. 00:28:23.280 |
He holds them in place, Scripture says, right? 00:28:27.920 |
Because if He so wishes, if He metaphorically just let go, right, things would absolutely 00:28:36.880 |
There is a rule, things do not go into order, they go into decay, right? 00:28:48.360 |
Now, these samples are just a sampling of God's power exerted. 00:28:53.820 |
So many times He'll say, "By my right hand, I've delivered you," right? 00:29:11.080 |
He could have quoted O.T. so many times about the incredible excellencies of God's power. 00:29:19.420 |
Because notice that when He is thinking about this power, that this power is God's power 00:29:31.800 |
There is this incredibly unique power that God is exercising. 00:29:38.040 |
I'm not sure if I can say that this is His greatest power, but this is an incredibly 00:29:43.840 |
precise power that God is exercising towards you and me. 00:29:49.320 |
For the individual who knows that he is a sinner apart from God, for the individual 00:29:56.040 |
who's read ahead and chapter two says, "And you're dead and your chest passes," right? 00:30:01.440 |
To hear that there is resurrection power, to hear that there is power to overcome, to 00:30:07.600 |
hear that there is power to overcome the authorities, the powers, and the dominions, and the enslaving 00:30:13.080 |
forces of your lusts of this world of Satan, your ears would perk, right? 00:30:22.440 |
Because this is power exercised towards me, the believer in Christ. 00:30:28.000 |
God exercises a unique power where through the work and person of Jesus, He is transforming 00:30:34.600 |
billions, literally changing the lives of billions. 00:30:46.200 |
Now as we meditate upon that then, we observe His, again, wise, incredibly meticulous, intentional, 00:31:01.360 |
To me, this is absolutely radical because I took a moment to kind of think about this, 00:31:09.000 |
like how are we supposed to appreciate power, you know? 00:31:13.800 |
And then for some odd reason, I started researching like how do you measure power? 00:31:17.840 |
And then I went into this rabbit trail where I started researching like solar power for 00:31:22.960 |
Did you know that watts is calculated by amperage in volts? 00:31:28.340 |
Now the really interesting thing about this is whenever you research power, any kind of 00:31:33.400 |
power, there are different measurements of power, whether it be watts, kilowatts. 00:31:39.440 |
If you're researching furnaces or heaters or whatever, there's BTUs, and did you know 00:31:46.560 |
Now the figures that you see typically with BTUs and all this stuff, it's crazy numbers. 00:31:53.760 |
It's like this furnace has 80,000 BTUs, you know? 00:32:00.560 |
But every one of those measurements for power are conditioned by something per hour. 00:32:09.320 |
What's really interesting to me was as I think about this, like within this first chapter, 00:32:15.180 |
one of the things that God highlighted within His like revelation of His acts and His works 00:32:20.280 |
and His will and His redemptive power towards us is how eternal it was, right? 00:32:29.400 |
I mean, our worldview is like this, like, "Did you think of me now? 00:32:34.840 |
And then He shatters that and says, "I had you. 00:32:38.440 |
I chose you before the foundation of the world." 00:32:44.640 |
If we're thinking and we're going to receive these blessings in Christ, when is that going 00:32:53.240 |
Like radically challenging how we view the power exerted towards us. 00:32:57.760 |
And I wanted to at least try, just try to help you appreciate that as well. 00:33:03.640 |
Now in the last section, there is this one aspect of His power that's really interesting. 00:33:09.600 |
And He says on top of overcoming, there was a resurrection, there was a seating, like 00:33:15.640 |
an authority, and then there was dominion over all powers and such. 00:33:20.200 |
And then there was this last portion when He says, "And He gave Him as head over all 00:33:24.160 |
things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." 00:33:31.840 |
I'm just going to tell you from the get-go, this is one jam-packed verse that there are 00:33:39.720 |
And He's going to expand upon it in the future times to come, but I did want to say some 00:33:44.840 |
things about it because you guys had some great questions. 00:33:48.080 |
I think it was essentially the question of, what does it mean, the fullness? 00:33:52.120 |
Because that term is a little bit interesting. 00:33:58.880 |
Believe it or not, when we see with our eyes, when we look at the church, we see a building 00:34:06.760 |
However, what Scripture is trying to say is that God has created this church, and over 00:34:20.440 |
God has established His church as a show of His power, right? 00:34:28.440 |
I want to highlight for you a passage in Ephesians chapter 3. 00:34:46.040 |
I'm going to actually start from verse 6 and go to verse 10. 00:34:52.240 |
He says, "To be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the 00:34:56.640 |
body, the fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which 00:35:03.400 |
I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me according 00:35:10.420 |
To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles 00:35:15.400 |
the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration 00:35:20.220 |
of the mystery, which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things. 00:35:26.380 |
So that," look at this, "the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the 00:35:32.160 |
church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 00:35:37.080 |
This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord." 00:35:53.440 |
And so what I'm saying is when the passage says to you, right, because this passage says 00:35:58.560 |
Christ is the head, He's ruling over, right, over all things in the church, and then there's 00:36:05.360 |
an appositive saying this is His body, which is His body, and another appositive, the fullness 00:36:10.800 |
The way I'm taking it is the church is His body, is the fullness of Christ. 00:36:17.160 |
Not so meaning the completion of Him or that Jesus is lacking anything, but it's one of 00:36:21.800 |
these ideas that's showing to you in marvelous fashion a representation of the great powers 00:36:33.600 |
We're just a bunch of people gathered together on a Wednesday night studying the Bible, but 00:36:38.320 |
if you think about it, the power of God to draw us together in one singular person and 00:36:45.720 |
It's an incredible power that He's displaying. 00:36:49.560 |
And the more and more is gonna be shown through the time, so we'll stop there. 00:36:53.720 |
Let's take a moment to pray and wrap up our session. 00:37:06.360 |
God, we recognize that Apostle Paul, he was praying so fervently, unceasingly, because 00:37:16.240 |
he saw the great value of the salvation we have in the Lord. 00:37:22.400 |
And what's more, Father God, he saw the importance that every believer would grow, would mature 00:37:30.520 |
And so I pray, Father God, that that would be also our earnest desire. 00:37:35.400 |
I pray, Father God, that also that that would be our heart's yearning, not just simply for 00:37:42.880 |
And I pray, Father God, that yes, if we are a church that's desiring to walk with you, 00:37:49.440 |
to live according to the gospel, help us, Father God, to begin with the right understanding 00:37:58.420 |
Help us, Father God, to begin with deep appreciation for the gospel and to keep growing in the 00:38:03.800 |
depth of the understanding that we would hold fast to the great treasure that we have. 00:38:12.800 |
I'm just going to take two minutes, because today I actually got a ton of messages from 00:38:20.380 |
And I wish that I was quick on my feet and I could just insert your questions into my 00:38:28.180 |
So I'm just going to take like two minutes at the end of the session to answer some of 00:38:31.680 |
the questions, and then we'll kind of go from there, okay? 00:38:36.760 |
I'm not going to say who the question's from, but I'll just ask the question. 00:38:42.880 |
Oh, there's difference of translation, spirit of wisdom. 00:38:47.080 |
Sometimes the spirit is capitalized, sometimes the spirit is not. 00:38:50.560 |
What's the difference and why is that important? 00:38:55.800 |
You know, if you look at the passage, when Apostle Paul prays in verse 18, and he says 00:39:04.080 |
that, oh, sorry, 17, that he may give you the spirit of wisdom. 00:39:10.920 |
I believe the only translation that says, oh, like, oh, sorry, that's not capitalized, 00:39:25.320 |
Now, the reason why there's a difference is because when you take a look at a passage, 00:39:30.560 |
remember that context is very important, and then the immediate contents of that passage 00:39:40.440 |
If you're looking at context, chapter one, that first section, had so much to say about 00:39:45.520 |
the trinity affecting our redemption and the blessings that we have. 00:39:49.680 |
And right before this, it mentioned that the Holy Spirit was your seal. 00:39:53.680 |
And what's more, in the immediate context, there's this idea of, like, praying that the 00:40:05.320 |
So by context, you can see why an interpreter would be like, the spirit, the pneuma, is 00:40:15.180 |
But if you're looking at immediate content, you're kind of thinking, well, Apostle Paul 00:40:23.600 |
The Spirit's already, like, full, right, in your life, and you're walking with him. 00:40:28.280 |
What needs to happen, though, is you need wisdom. 00:40:30.980 |
And so this could be more like the heart of wisdom. 00:40:33.200 |
This could be more like the essence of wisdom directing your life, right? 00:40:37.080 |
And so you could tell where somebody's thinking, like, okay, this is more so on the lines of 00:40:42.840 |
It's probably more so the spirit of wisdom on a general level, right? 00:40:49.160 |
Now is there a major difference between the two? 00:40:52.880 |
In terms of impact for us, I think the thrust is the same, right? 00:40:58.720 |
And so you don't have to think, like, oh, gosh, like, are we going to interpret something 00:41:03.720 |
In the reading of the passage, the thrust of this section, verses 15 through 23, is 00:41:09.320 |
a section on deep prayer, that our theology matters, our concept and view of God matters, 00:41:15.400 |
our beliefs is going to what's going to drive later chapters of our application. 00:41:20.320 |
And so we have to be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, okay? 00:41:28.800 |
If you guys have other questions, too, you guys can ask that kind of, okay, what is the 00:41:42.560 |
Come up, several of you asked the same thing. 00:41:47.800 |
I'll do this one and let you guys discuss, okay? 00:41:53.920 |
In verse 18, when he says, what is the hope of calling and what are the riches of the 00:42:01.640 |
If there was a comma right at what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance, I 00:42:05.360 |
think it wouldn't have been confusing, but then it says in the saints, okay? 00:42:09.640 |
What I mean is, when you guys do Bible interpretation, sometimes what's good is to lay down your 00:42:17.280 |
What I mean by that is, A, option A to read that is, okay, you should know the riches, 00:42:23.640 |
this is a wealth, and this wealth is glorious, and this wealth is the inheritance God is 00:42:31.760 |
God is going to give you his own possession as a father would give his son. 00:42:38.400 |
However, the passage says in the saints, and so someone might read the other option would 00:42:44.900 |
be the riches of the glory of his inheritance, which is God is getting his possession of 00:42:52.840 |
the saints, meaning the bucket of riches that is being gained is us, right? 00:43:00.600 |
There are passages in scripture in a larger, broader context that actually say, just like 00:43:05.280 |
Jesus says in the gospels, those that my father has given to me, apostle Paul is preparing 00:43:12.980 |
God is going to present us as a church, holy and blameless to Christ at the end of days. 00:43:21.440 |
Now, the way that I'm looking at this, though, is one part. 00:43:29.000 |
Should a Christian be super, super amazed and enriched that God would see you as his 00:43:40.680 |
That is like a truth that to me is mind baffling. 00:43:50.360 |
There are certain truths in the gospels, just like ridiculous, right? 00:43:53.600 |
It's like Ephesians 2 says, "You're children of wrath, lustful, wicked, walking with all 00:44:02.480 |
You're just like the most wicked thing in the world. 00:44:06.880 |
And then for God to say, "I want you to be my treasured possession," right? 00:44:16.900 |
I would say, again, it is consistent with the broader context of scripture, so okay. 00:44:23.200 |
But what makes more sense to me here is because I am seeing in context, it is pinched between 00:44:29.080 |
the hope of his calling, so he's calling us, the riches of his glory, and then so some 00:44:35.140 |
of the prepositions, although it says, "in the saints," and in the Greek it is, "in the 00:44:40.040 |
saints," and then what's more, the surpassing exercise of his power towards the believer, 00:44:45.880 |
it kind of still runs the line, I guess, benefits and motivations for the Christian, right? 00:44:53.520 |
And so I would like to translate it, or at least just take it as, this is the riches 00:44:56.980 |
of his glory that he has for the saints, right? 00:45:00.460 |
Now is that something I can put my foot down and say, "That's the right one"? 00:45:03.440 |
I just kind of explained to you, you can kind of see both angles, but in context, in the 00:45:09.560 |
immediate paragraph, it makes more sense that this is the inheritance that we receive, okay?