NEXT: Praying For My Next Step

Next 1 Praying For My Next Step

Text: Ephesians 1:15-23

Intro: Psalms 92:12-13 Those who place themselves in a flourishing environment are more likely to experience growth than those who don’t. You can place yourself in a place where life is almost impossible. In Death Valley, nothing grows because there is no rain (show pic). Three times in the last 28 years, Death Valley experienced a super bloom: in 1998, 2005, and most recently in 2016. In the winter of 2015, 7 inches of rain fell, and in the spring of 2016, there were wildflowers all over the valley. Death Valley is not dead, but it is dormant. Life existed beneath the surface, but had to be activated so the surface would move from dormant to active. (Show Engel’s scale) Wherever you are on the spiritual continuum, the goal is for you to move further towards God and take your next step, whatever that is. You can find much of what God desires for your next step in Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesians 1

• Paul notes that the Ephesian church was a church of faith; they trusted in the Lord during hard times and loved each other. 1:15
• Paul begins his prayer in 1:16 by asking that their eyes open to what they need to see about their current condition. Paul desires that they have the spirit of wisdom and revelation; truth would be revealed to them.1:17
• We currently live in the Information Age. But where is wisdom found? Great question – where is wisdom to be found? Google it. I did. You can do it too. Guess what came up as the top answer? In fact, as I type into Google, “Where is wisdom to be found?” I scroll down and just keep rolling – and every answer, the first 25 at least – comes from the Bible.

Google can’t tell you the answer, but it can tell you where to find it, in God’s Word.

1. Paul’s Four Prayer Requests
   1. Know God 1:17b
      1. To know Christ is one of the best ways to describe saving faith. God desires us to know Him.
      2. Paul uses a word meaning to know in an intimate, personal way. This word is the spiritual equivalent of sexual intimacy. Paul prays that believers have a real, deep, full knowledge of God, not simply a surface-level understanding of who God is.

• “How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each Truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.” J.I. Packer Knowing God

1. The idea that man can know God in an intimate, personal way was mind-blowing to the Ephesians. For them, God was one that you had to perform for, sacrifice for, and hope that the facts you thought you knew about god were being satisfied.
2. Many people know facts about God, but they do not know God. Jer. 9:23-24
3. Focused Life 1:18a
   1. Paul uses language that encourages the Ephesian believers to live with clear sight, or, in other words, to live with 100% focus.
   2. In scripture, the heart is the center of our true decisions, desires, and plans. Pro. 4:23
   3. Our heart refers to a person’s personality or complete identity.
   4. We do not look at life through our eyes but through our hearts. We look through our pains, our prejudices, and our past. We experience life to some degree through our family history and the culture that we experienced in childhood,
   5. We do not need more truth or better truth, but we need to be able to see and understand the truth that God has given us.
   6. We need to be able to get past our past so “that” we can move on to the rest of God’s plan. Many of us get stuck in not knowing God and in living in our past, and we do not enjoy the blessings God desires for us to experience.
   7. If we do not get the first two, we will never be able to fulfill our calling or understand our worth as God desires.
4. Fulfill Your Calling 1:18b
   1. What is the hope to which he has called you? God has called every believer to something.
   2. Our hope is in the past, as we have been called to salvation:
      1. Our hope is rooted in our salvation and in Jesus, but it will one day be fully realized when we are in God’s presence and removed from the presence of sin.
      2. Every day, we should spend time thinking about the hope we have in Jesus.
   3. Paul connects the words "hope" and "calling".
      1. The more we live for the hope of the gospel and the hope of Jesus, the more we will see and understand the calling that God places on our lives.
      2. Our hope and calling is in the present as we have been called to alife of sanctification.
      3. When we find our calling in the hope of Jesus, we don't lose our calling or our hope, even when life's circumstances are poor because of bad politics or our family is acting crazy, because our focus and eyes are on Jesus. (This is hard.) Phil. 3:20
   4. Often, the church uses the word "calling" to refer to those called into the ministry, and I would say that God has called some of you to work for Toyota, for the city of Evansville, or as a nurse or a mechanic.
   5. You can’t see what God has for you tomorrow if you are looking through the lens of yesterday.
   6. Our hope and calling point to the future, as we have been called to be in Jesus’ presence.
5. Understand Your Worth 1:18c
   1. When we follow the pronouns in this passage, we find a crazy truth - You are God’s inheritance.
   2. One day, we will stand with Jesus at the final press conference of the universe, and in that final picture of the universe, we will look like him. Kent Hughes
   3. God looks forward to the day that you are in His presence. You are His inheritance. We often think about heaven as what we get, but God is more excited about getting us as His inheritance than we are about heaven. God looks forward to an eternity with you.
   4. God gives us his power through His Spirit to protect us and empower us to accomplish His will every day. Paul reminds us that we face spiritual battles every day and that God is greater. 1:19-21
6. Where are you in the continuum?
   1. Know God Matt. 7:21-23
      1. Some will call Jesus “Lord,” some will have effectively done powerful religious acts, yet not know Jesus. (Engel’s scale)
      2. Romans 10:9-10, 13
         1. Call on Jesus as Lord, but the implication is that we are not ascribing a name to Jesus, but giving Him control of our lives.

• It’s like at the beginning of the film The Princess Bride. When Princess Buttercup would ask Wesley to do something, all Wesley would say was, “As you wish.” And soon Buttercup realized that what Wesley was really saying was, “I love you.” His joyful obedience to her commands flowed out of his great love for her.

It’s the same way with Jesus. The more you love him, the more you want to obey him. The more you will say, “As you wish.”

1. Knowing Jesus in your life is not about what you do for Jesus, how much you know about Jesus, or how much you have been around Jesus, but whether you’ve honestly met Jesus.
2. Are you in a relationship with a real, alive, and living God who knows you, and you for sure know Him? If not, you can meet Him today. Romans 10:9-10
3. Find Freedom
   1. What areas are you unwilling to deal with that you know need to be addressed?
      1. A sin that you need help with experiencing freedom from
      2. A burden you need help bearing
      3. A memory or a past situation that you need help getting past.
      4. A secret that you have not told anyone else.
   2. The church is to be a place where the “one anothers” of scripture come alive.
      1. Love one another Jn. 13:34-35
      2. Live in harmony with one another Rom. 12:16
      3. Bear with one another Col. 3:13a
      4. Bear one another’s burdens Gal. 6:2
      5. Comfort one another 2 Cor. 13:11a
      6. Encourage one another Heb. 10:25. These “one anothers” can only be done in person and can’t be done online.
4. Fulfill your calling
   1. Most people in the church don’t know, with 100% certainty, what they are supposed to do with their lives. There are certain things that every believer is supposed to do out of pure obedience to Christ, which is 100% God’s will.
      1. 1 Thess. 5:16-18 rejoice, pray, and give thanks
      2. 1 Peter 2:13-15 Do good as a Christian citizen and by doing so put to silence the ignorance of foolish people (implied government officials).
      3. I Thess. 4:3-5 stay away from sexual sin, pursue holiness and your own sanctification.
   2. What would it be like if our body parts didn’t know their proper functional designs? 1 Cor. 12:12, 14, 18-19, the church is described as a body with each part having a specific function.

• When John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was a young Christian, a "serious man" advised him, "Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven? Remember, you cannot serve him alone. You must therefore find companions or make them. The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion." In the light of the relational nature of personhood, that is good advice for every Christian, especially those involved in full-time ministry.

Wesley took that advice to heart both for himself and in shepherding the fledgling Methodist movement. Convinced that the pursuit of personal holiness was impossible apart from Christian community, he carefully organized the Methodists into societies (similar to congregations), classes (small groups of eight to twelve), and bands (cell groups of three to five).

1. The Holy Spirit has gifted every believer to serve for the benefit of the church. Rom. 12:16 Charis is a grace gift that you are good at, and it makes a difference within the body of Christ.
2. Understanding your gifts and how to use them for the sake of the body of Christ is crucial to your spiritual growth and the spiritual health of the church.
3. The church is not as healthy when your part of the body that God designed for you to function, isn’t functioning.
4. Ways to explore serving
   1. Take a step towards something. God often works in the lives of those who are active, not in the lives sitting.
   2. Serve in a service and attend a service.
   3. Decide to serve and follow Jesus, and as you do, choose a specific ministry.
5. John 15: 8, 11 God’s plan for your life is for you to bear fruit so that the joy of Jesus would be in us. Bearing fruit brings the joy of Christ in us.
6. Make a difference
7. Understand Your Worth
   1. Do you live your life as the inheritance that Jesus is anticipating to receive one day?
   2. Do you live your life proving your worth to God, to yourself, and to others through your actions, proving you are worthy.
   3. What if we live understanding that God’s power is available for us as we deal with the troubles of life? 1:19 Paul uses synonyms on top of synonyms to describe God’s power and plan to utilize His same resurrection power for our victory over personal sin.
   4. Paul reveals the authority of Christ by noting that He sat down at the right hand of the Father after conquering death, and we can live without fear of what people or demons do in our lives.
   5. Everything that comes into our lives comes through the filter of God, who loves us and will care for us as we are His inheritance. We are His treasure. 1:20-22
   6. God’s choice to reveal Himself to the world is not through just the believer individually but through the church as a whole. 1:22-23, 3:3–6, 9-10, 5:31-33
      1. Have you joined a local church?
      2. Are you committed to a local church?
      3. Are you connected to a local church through serving or a gathering table?

Conclusion:

Being a church member is a vocation, a way of life. It means participation in an intricate web of hospitality, living at the intersection of human need and God's grace, inhabiting a community where men and women who don't fit are welcomed, where neglected children are noticed, where the stories of Jesus are told, and people who have no stories find that they do have stories, stories that are part of the Jesus story. Being a church member places us strategically yet unobtrusively at a heavily trafficked intersection between heaven and earth. Eugene Peterson’s wife

In an interview shortly before his death, Dallas Willard, a philosophy professor who wrote widely on spiritual formation in the church, was asked about the challenges facing the church. Dr. Willard spent much of his life addressing the problem of why the church isn't raising up more people who look and act like Jesus. At the end of that two-hour interview, Willard was asked this pointed question: "When you look at how off track the church is, do you ever just throw up your hands in despair?"

Willard smiled and said, "Never."

"But how can you not?" the interviewer asked.

"Because," he said, "I know Christ is the head of his church and he knows what he's doing."

Go Back to the continuum.