Well, when you get up in the morning and you face your week, what is it that you see? Do you see a frenetic schedule where it seems impossible to do all the things that are on your plate? Do you see a marriage that may not be what you envision that it could be? Do you see parenting that has become more exhausting and more difficult than you thought it would be? Do you see a job that seems so demanding and so difficult day after day after day? Do you see friendships that, in ways, have disappointed you and, moments, left you wondering if it's worth it?
An Alien Culture
Do you see a life at your university that is hard for a person of faith? Seems like you're in an alien culture? Do you see weakness in your body that scares you and makes you wonder what you're facing next? When you open your eyes in the morning, what is it that you see? I have a dear friend by the name of George, who's blind. George has taught me a lot about vision and one of the things that George has taught me is that the most important vision system of a human being is not the physical eyes. The most important vision system of a human being is the eyes of the heart.
I've learned from George that you can be blind and live quite well, but you can't be spiritually blind and live well. What is it that you see? Are your eyes open to the glories of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that alters the way that you live every day? This is true, that what the eyes of your heart see will determine how you live in that place where God has placed you. The vision of the eyes of your heart will determine the way that you live. Now, here's what happens in ways to all of us that the physical realities of this fallen world in all of their daily drama and responsibility can loom so large before us that we lose sight of the wonders of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and perhaps we live more blindly than we actually think.
Well, I'd like you to turn with me to Ephesians 1, beginning with verse 15. Wonderful, pastoral prayer by the apostle Paul, a prayer for spiritual sightedness. Follow along in your Bibles as I read beginning with verse 15. 15For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might 20that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
22And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. What is it - as you live in the midst of the life that God has chosen for you - what is it that fills the eyes of your heart? This is the prayer of Paul that the people in Ephesus - and by God's grace preserved for us and a prayer for us - would live with eyes wide open to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.= Notice what he says here, verse 17, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18having the eyes of your hearts enlightened...
Paul's prayer is because your eyes are wide open to God's grace, that you would live with wisdom and understanding, a wisdom that only comes when you look at your life from the vantage point of the present realities of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that the vision that fills your heart as you think about the things that are on your plate every day? Are your eyes wide open? That's Paul's prayer. Look at what he says again, verse 18, 18having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you...
In Christ, you've been given hope. Now, when you hear that word, you shouldn't think some cloudy fantasy or some dreamy wish over which you have no control. Here's a biblical definition of hope. It is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result. Let me say that again, suitable for your refrigerator. It's a confident expectation of a guaranteed result. All of the promises, all of the provisions, all of the glories of the presence of Christ with you are sure in Him. Do you believe that? You have been given hope in Christ and so, you can live in the middle of a marriage that's flawed but you can live there with hope.
You can live in the difficulty of parenting with hope. You can live in the workplace with hope. You can live as you face those temptations that all of us face in the secret world of our own thoughts and minds with hope, not because you're strong, and not because you're knowledgeable, and not because you're wise, but because you've been given hope in Christ. Do you live with that sense of hope or do you live with a timidity and a fear that comes from wondering if you really have hope? I love what Paul says about this hope in Romans 5.
He says it's a hope that will never put you to shame. It's a hope that will never catch you up short. It's a hope that will never have a nasty, unexpected turn at the end of it. It's a hope that is absolutely sure. Now, here's what this means. It means this morning, brothers and sisters, if your hope is disappointing you, it's because it's the wrong hope. You see, in our blindness to the hope that we've been given in Christ, what we unwittingly do is we begin to seek hope horizontally. We place our identity and meaning and purpose in the hands of another flawed human being.
And that person, as much as they may love you, they do not have the capacity to be your own personal messiah. We put our hope in circumstances over which we have no control, and that are twisted and bent by the fallenness of our world. They can't deliver. We put our hope in inanimate objects that have no ability to satisfy our hearts. And we grow disappointed and confused and desperate, when we have been given sure hope in Christ. You could not make a better investment than to invest in that hope.
Right Where God Has Placed You
And where do you do that? You do that right where God has placed you. Wives, do you live as a wife of hope? Husbands, do you live as a husband of hope? Parents, do you live as parents of hope? Children, do you live as children of hope? Friends, do you live as friends of hope? Are you embracing the hope that is yours in Christ? While Paul goes on in the rest of this passage to detail what that hope is actually about, notice what he says here. 18... what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints...
I love how Paul just layers the words one upon the another, trying to help us to understand the extent to which we've been made rich in Christ. It's not enough for Paul to say you're rich. It's not enough for him to say you have an inheritance. He talks about the riches of the glorious inheritance that you have in Christ. Now you hear those words and you may be tempted to think that Paul is talking about something in the distant future. The language sort of has that feel to it. But he's not actually doing that.
He's actually talking about the here and now. Hear the Gospel, Jesus came and lived for you. He died for you. He rose again for you. He ascended for you and left you with an inheritance. And you don't know who you are unless you have in your heart a vision of the awesome and glorious and in measurable inheritance you've been given. You've been given an inheritance that you cannot put measurement on. I love how the glory of God is talked about in Psalm 145. It says it's a glory that no one can fathom.
The word itself as a metaphor. A fathom is a measurement of depth. If you think of the fathoms of the ocean, what it says is that God's glory is fathomless. You can go down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down and down, and you will never reach its bottom. God's glory has no bottom. Are you living out of the riches that you've been given in Christ Jesus? I have such an affection for the way that Peter talks about this in 2 Peter 1. He says we have already been given everything, all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Or as the NIV says, we've been given everything we need for life and godliness. Now, why does Peter use two words? I think he uses two words there because Peter knows his audience. He knows our tendency. If he had said we had been given everything we need for life, we would tend to supplant the word "eternal" and we'd say, "Isn't that wonderful? We've been given everything we need to someday have eternity with our Lord." That's an awesome and wonderful thing. It just doesn't happen to be what Peter's talking about and so, he adds a second word.
We've been given everything we need - hear this - for godliness. What is godliness? It's a God-honoring life between the time you come to Christ and the time you go home to be with Him. Let your heart embrace this this morning. You have already been given in Christ everything you'd need to be what you're supposed to be and to do what you're supposed to do in the particular place where God, in His sovereignty, has placed you. How amazing is that? That supply has been made for you, parent. That supply has been made for you, husband.
That supply has been made for you, friend. That supply has been made for you, worker. That supply has been made for you, student. It's already been placed in your warehouse. That's not a promise of a "could-be". That's an "is". Now, I'm afraid that in our poor spiritual sightedness, even though we're rich, we live like we're poor. There's a tendency to do that. Think of that homeless person on the street. What is the only thing in his mind? I will tell you: survival. He hopes he will have a place to lay his head where he won't be accosted.
He hopes he'll find some food in his belly. He hopes that no act of violence will be done to him throughout the night. You have not been given the grace of Christ, so you would settle for survival. Husbands and wives, don't settle for surviving your marriage. Don't settle for something that's way less than what God has called for you to live. Parents, don't settle for survival with your children. Believe that you can experience what God's grace has called you to. Workers, don't be settled. Don't settle for surviving the workplace but be a light of the kingdom of God in that place.
Don't settle for survival. Don't settle for surviving friendships and you careen from friendship to friendship with a legacy of broken relationships behind you. Don't settle for survival. Don't settle for living poor, when really, you are rich. Embrace the riches, live out of the riches that you've been given in Christ. Pretend with me this morning that I get a call from Citizens Bank and they tell me that my great-great-uncle, Elmo Snodgrass Tripp, has left me $500 million. Now, I have no ability in my small-minded economics to embrace what $500 million is, but I know enough, as I'm on the phone, that I'm a fairly wealthy man.
We're Rich!
And I get off the phone and I'm quasi-excited and I run to find Luella, and I tell her, "We're rich, we're rich! We're rich beyond anything we've ever, ever imagined!" And I try to imagine how many times around the world dollar bills would go to make up $500 million. And I get the requisite documents, I go down to Citizens Bank, I take out $10,000.00, and take Luella out to eat. Paris. And we have this awesome Parisian weekend, a weekend like we've never ever had before, like we thought we would never have.
And we get home and Luella does the finances in our family, and she notices in six or eight weeks, things start to go back to normal. We're still trying to stretch our finances and make money more elastic than it actually ever is. And she comes to me one day and she says Paul, "I don't understand what's going on here. We're rich. We're rich beyond the ability of either one of us to conceive. I don't understand why we're living like we're poor." Imagine me saying to her, "Do you know how hard it is to go down to that bank?
"Well, if you drive, you know, and you can't find a place to park, Philadelphia has one-way streets and you just get further and further away from your destination. If you choose to ride public transportation, then you got that money in your pocket and you know what's going to happen to you on the bus on the way home. "If you park your car in one of those lots, you don't actually know what they do with your car when you give it to that man. And then you stand in that Disney World line and when you get up to the counter, they treat you like a criminal even though that money belongs to you."
If you're my wife, at this point, what would you be saying? "You're rich, you're rich, you're rich! Why would anything keep you from experiencing the riches that are yours?" What gets in the way for you of grabbing a hold of and living out of the riches that you've been given in Christ? Are you $500 million poor? And you don't even know it. Are your eyes open to the awesome and measurable riches that you've been given in Christ? Well, Paul's not done and neither am I. Verse 19, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might 20that He worked in Christ [Jesus] when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places...
Now again, notice how Paul layers the words according to "the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe". Again, an amazing, amazing statement. You have been given power, power that, again, you can't put a measuring stick to, power that is beyond your ability to conceive. Now, notice, if you would, if you would scan over to chapter 3:20. You may be asking, "Well, where is that power, Paul? Where's that power that the apostle Paul is talking about?" Notice what Paul says at this doxology that ends chapter 3.
20Now [un]to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. According to the power that is at work where? In us. That immeasurable power, that power that is greater than you and your human capacity can imagine. That power is now operating inside of you if you are one of God's children. Now, hear the Gospel. It's not just that God has forgiven you.
What an awesome gift His forgiveness is, that he would forgive us for all the wrongs that we have done in the past, we would do in the present, and we would do in the future! That is a beautiful and wonderful thing. But there's something more that God understood as He looked at our condition as sinners. It's not enough just to forgive us because sin leaves us lame. Sin leaves us weak. Sin leaves us unable. So God knew how deep and pervasive our struggle with sin is and so, He literally got inside of us by His Spirit and He makes us the place where He now lives.
Do you actually envision that God, in the glory of His powerful Grace, lives inside of you? Wow! I love Galatians 2:20, it says, "I've been crucified with Christ. And I no longer live but Christ lives in me and the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." Paul is saying, "The life that now energizes this life is not my life. It's the life of Christ. Christ lives in me." And then he makes this commitment. "The life I live, I will live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."
New Potential in Christ
I will live out of an active sense of the new potential that I have in Christ. Husbands and wives, you've been given power for those difficult moments that you will invariably face as you're married to another sinner. Parents, you will have power for those difficult moments where your children push you beyond the limits of your character and your wisdom. Friends, you have power for those moments of disappointment when someone who seems to be your friend has turned their back on you. Student, you have power for those moments when it seems like you're the only one around you who believes.
Worker, you have power for that place where you work, where it seems like an alien culture to the one that has become precious to you in Christ. If you have power to face those difficulties of the weakness and the suffering of the body, you have power to step out in moments of ministry and make an impact in your community. You have power and that power lives inside of you. And a person of the Spirit of God, you have power. And I am persuaded that one of the cruel lies of the enemy is to whisper in your ear, "You don't have enough.
You're way too weak to face this. You're way too inadequate for what's on your plate." Or, "Maybe if you're like so and so, but you're not. You don't have it." And so, as we listen to those ugly lies, we begin to live in timidity and fear. We begin to back away from the call of God. We begin to doubt our ability to do what He's called for us to do. And we settle, as we do that, for much less than the glories of the life that He's called us to. Paul says, "You've been given immeasurably great power."
That power is like the power that was exhibited when Christ was raised from the dead. I think that is probably the best definition of power - for Jesus to be in that tomb and for God to speak this word: "Awake!" And that dead man stands up and walks away from death. There's power! And that's the very same power that is now resident in you by His Spirit. Are you living with a sense of the power that you have been given in Christ? Or have you listened to the cruel lies of an enemy who wants you to believe you're weak?
But Paul continues. Verse 20, talking about that power, he says, 20that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. That has to be one of the most content-packed, theology-packed two verses in scripture.
I would love to unpack every phrase of that verse for you, but it would take us 'til Wednesday. But I want to want to focus on this one thing. Not only is your hope rooted in awesome riches and your hope rooted in that ever-present power of the filling of the Holy Spirit, but your hope is attached to the awesome rule of Christ. Once again, notice how the phrases layer on one another. He is the one who is seated at the right hand and heavenly places. He stands and rules above every rule and authority and power and dominion.
He stands above every name that can be named, not only in this one, but the age to come and all things have been placed under His feet. He is sovereign over it all. He is Lord. You will never enter a location, you will never enter a situation, you will never exist in a relationship, you will never be in a place that is not ruled by Sovereign King Christ. He's Lord. He's Lord. He's Lord. That relationship that confuses you, He's Lord over. That child that doesn't seem to do what you want him to do, He's Lord over.
That boss that you don't understand, He's Lord over. That neighborhood that sometimes scares you, He's Lord over. Far above all authority, far above all power, far above all dominion, far above every name that can be named, everything has been placed under the feet of King Christ. He is Lord. Now why can I have hope? Why can I embrace those riches? Why can I embrace that power? Because I serve an awesome Lord. He is in control of it all, and He has the power and authority to guarantee every provision and every promise.
He's Lord. Now, that would be enough to say and you could celebrate that for the rest of eternity, in case you hadn't figured that out. But He says something here that is just incredible. It says, 22And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church... He rules over all things for the sake of the church. This is how great His grace is. It's not enough to say that He rules. He does do that. It's not enough to say that He's Lord over everything. It's not enough to say that you will never enter a situation or relationship or circumstance or location that isn't ruled by Christ.
He Rules for Your Sake
That's glorious to say. But hear this, He rules over all of that for your sake. That's how great His love is. That's how great His grace is. In His sovereignty, He considers your struggle. In His sovereignty, He's just considers your weakness. In His sovereignty, He considers that relationship. In His sovereignty, He embraces the difficulties of that location and He rules those things for your sake, so that in His rule, He would deliver to you everything that He's promised. Tim Keller says that the reason we need to embrace the theology of the sovereignty of God is not because it will make life make sense.
We need to embrace the sovereignty of God precisely because life won't make sense to us. And our trust is not in our understanding. Our trust is in a Person who rules it all. I know that you're like me and I know there are mysteries in your life that you don't understand. I know there are circumstances that confuse you. I know there are moments where you look at your world and it doesn't seem like it's under a rule. It seems like it's chaos. There are times when it's hard for you to see the sovereign hand of God in your personal circumstances.
It's hard to scan the world and think that this world is under careful rule of a God of ultimate wisdom. But that's exactly what the eyes of your heart need to embrace this morning -- that your world is under the absolute rule of your Savior for your sake. Praise Him! That's Christianity. That's the gospel. That's hope. Are the eyes of your heart wide open? When you get up in the morning, what is it that fills your eyes? Now, lest you misunderstand, I'm not calling you this morning to some mystical act of spiritual denial where you deny the difficult realities of your life.
You shouldn't do that. I have [an] appreciation so much for the way these things are characterized in Romans 4 as Paul talks about Abraham. Abraham was in a difficult situation. A promise had been made to him of a son and from that son, many nations. And Abraham was an old man. His wife was an old woman. It didn't look like that promise could happen, but Abraham didn't play spiritualistic mental games with himself. The Bible says that Abraham considered his old age and he considered the deadness of Sarah's womb.
She was way beyond her child-rearing years. And then it says that he grew strong in faith because he was fully persuaded that the One who made the promise was faithful. Abraham grew strong in faith because his eyes were wide open. He looked at that impossible situation, not from the vantage point of his ability or his wisdom or his strength, he looked at it from the vantage point of the presence and power and promises of God. And as he meditated, as his eyes embraced the glory of that vision, rather than weakening year by year, his heart grew strong in faith.
That's what we're talking about this morning. Are you able to look at the difficult realities of life in a fallen world and grow strong in faith because your eyes see your hope, your eyes see your riches, your eyes see your power, your eyes see the glorious sovereign rule of Christ? And no, you may not know exactly what you're going to do tomorrow. You don't know everything the day we'll face, but you step out with hope and courage with confidence and expectancy because you've been given hope, you've been given riches, you've been given power.
There is a rule for your sake. Are your eyes shut? And because they're shut, do you live poor and weak and timid and afraid? My prayer for you as your pastor is the prayer of Apostle Paul. I pray for each one of you that your eyes would be wide open. What an amazing army the people in this room could be if we lived with eyes wide open to the glories of the present grace of the Lord Jesus Christ! May your eyes be wide, wide open. Let's pray. Lord, the words "thank you" seem so inadequate in this moment.
We are amazed that such riches have been bestowed on us. And yet with all that we've considered, we recognize our capacity to be blind, to forget, and to settle for the poverty culture of survival and weakness. Lord, I pray that you would open the eyes of our hearts, that we would see with clarity what we've been given in Christ, not just this morning, but as we course our way throughout the days and weeks and months and years of our lives, that we would embrace who we are in Christ, and that we would live with confidence and hope and courage, with the expectancy that comes from spiritual sightedness.
Oh, we would pray this for the furtherance of Your kingdom and for the honor of the glory that is due You today. In Jesus name, amen.
