“Know Christ: His Calling, Inheritance, Power, and Authority” Ephesians 1:15-23
- Senior Pastor Robert Dennison preached this message on January 22, 2023
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Audio Transcript
Thank you, Kelly Jo, for leading us in worship today with the rest of the worship team. If you’ll take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter one, be reading verses 15 through 23 today, Ephesians chapter one, Beginning in verse 15. This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I never stopped giving thanks for you. As I remember you in my prayers, I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Glorious Father, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the mighty working of his strength.
He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion and every title given not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And he subjected everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church which is his body, the fullness of the One who fills all things in every way. May we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We have your written revelation that tells us how to obtain salvation and how to live a life.
Father, that pleases you. As we look at the Scripture today, we ask that your spirit would give us understanding not only of what it means, but also, Father, that you would help us to grasp it in our hearts and look for ways that we need to change our own thinking or our ways that we might live in more conformity with your Word. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Verse 15.
Paul here is praying for believers and we talked about the last two weeks that the book of Ephesians was written to believers and there are two distinct things here that he points out about believers that were to be an encouragement, saying if you have these things in your life, then you are a believer. They’re evidences, they’re encouragement when we have doubts that maybe we’re not truly saved. But it’s also a warning to people that if you don’t have these things in your life, maybe what you think is faith isn’t true saving faith because you haven’t really given your life to the Lord. He says here that this is why since I heard about first your faith in the Lord Jesus and secondly your love for all the saints for this reason I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. There are two characteristics here that are true of true believers.
They have faith and they have love for all the saints. Let’s first talk about saving faith. I have a definition up here by Marvin Rosenthal. It says, faith is believing in the finished work of Jesus Christ. That is, believing that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross fully satisfied God’s required payment for our personal debt in sin.
True believers in Jesus Christ have saving faith, and I want us to focus on those two phrases there, but particularly the words finished and fully when we talk about faith. Some believers have weak faith and other people just seem to have really strong faith. You know, it’s great to have strong faith, but the faith part isn’t as important as what is the object of your faith, whether you have weak faith or you have strong faith. If your faith is in Jesus Christ and nothing else, then that is saving faith. Paul makes it clear here that saving faith is in Jesus Christ alone.
And with that statement in mind, there’s a mistake that some people make and they place their faith in something other than Jesus Christ. They believe that they’re saved because of their multiplicity of good works or because of their regular church attendance, or they give to the church and they give to good causes. Or they may examine themselves, well, I’m better than the person on my right, and I’m better than the person on my left. If your faith is in any of those things, it’s not in Jesus Christ and it’s not saving faith. Jesus Christ finished the work on the cross for us.
There is no need for anything else to put our faith in. Paul also makes it clear that saving faith is in Jesus complete work. His sacrifice on the cross fully satisfied God’s demand for justice. And because of the sin in our life, there was a required punishment that had to be paid. And Scripture says that it required the shedding of blood.
So Jesus Christ came and he lived among us, and he died on the cross, shedding his blood so that he could not just partially satisfy God’s requirement for payment, but he fully satisfied God’s requirement for payment. So the first mistake was that people put their faith in something other than the finished work of Christ. But there’s a second mistake. Some people don’t grasp the faith concept that Jesus fully satisfied God’s requirement for payment. And they have what I call split faith.
They say, yes, Jesus died on the cross for my sins, but I need to have a plus in here where I add something else to what he’s done. And again, that plus could be works, church attendance, giving money, being better than other people. But what it tells us here in the Scripture is that we can’t add anything to what Jesus Christ did. There’s absolutely no need for us to add anything because he fully satisfied God’s required payment. And to even think that you could add something to what Jesus did is to say you don’t believe that he was sufficient in his death on his cross.
And when we start saying that Jesus is not sufficient in some way, then we’re questioning whether he really is God. And we know that for certain that he is God. He’s completely sufficient. What he has done for us is all that is needed so that we can have a right relationship with God. Paul makes it clear that saving faith is in Jesus Christ alone and that he fully satisfied what God required.
John 1:12, as many as received Him. To those who believed in his name, he gave the right to to become children of God. It doesn’t say anything about us doing anything. It just says that we receive him and we believed in him. Titus 3:5 is even more specific.
It gives the other side. It says it is not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy alone, he has saved us. True believers have saving faith. But the second thing is that Paul tells us is that true believers have genuine love for one another. And the Ephesian church was known for that.
Jesus told his disciples, by this everyone will know that you are My disciples. If you love one another, it should be an encouragement to you that if you love believers, that you truly have placed your faith in Jesus Christ. True believers that have genuine love for one another, they love the company of other believers. They desire to worship together, they make time in their schedules to be with believers, and they genuinely care for and do for other believers through acts of service, words of kindness and encouragement, gifts and prayers. All of these things are evidences of for us that we truly are saved.
But Jesus tells us it’s also the evidence to the world that we are his disciples. If we go to First John 4 2021, we read this warning. If anyone says I love God and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from Him.
The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister. If you have genuine faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation through his work on the cross, and you have genuine Love for other believers that is showing up in this way in your life, that’s an encouragement to you that, yes, your faith is real, but it’s also a warning to anyone here today that if you don’t have love for believers, if you don’t want to be together with them and worship in their company, that you need to question yourself, have I really placed my faith in Jesus Christ?
Going to verse 17, I think Paul gives us the crux of this passage here, and that’s knowing Jesus Christ, because this is what his prayer is for the Ephesians. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in this, the knowledge of him. Last week we saw how Paul was encouraging the believers at Ephesus, and he was saying, God has given you all of these extravagant blessings. And then he kept saying that every single one of them was either in Christ, from Christ, through Christ, because of Christ. And in all of this, we might focus on the blessings, but Paul is wanting us to focus on the source of all this.
So he comes now to this second part here, and he answers a question that some of us might have. And that question is, is Jesus really able to do all this for me? I mean, all these blessings are so extravagant and wonderful and they’re eternal. Is he really the best resource for all these gifts? I would like to liken it to this.
If someone told you today that you were about to receive a million dollars, how many of you would be thrilled? Just a couple of you. Some of you could care less. Well, I thought if somebody said, you know, Robert, you’re going to get a million dollars today, my first question would be, well, who’s going to give it to me? Would that cross your mind?
And depending on who is going to give the million dollars to me, it’s going to make a big difference of whether I really put my hope in whether that million dollars is coming. So, Tom Gillis, if I told you today that I was going to give you a million dollars, might you have a little doubt? I accept. All right. But if I had a notarized form here from Elon Musk that he’s going to give you a million dollars, which you would have a little more certainty in that, right?
Well, that’s what Paul is trying to say here. He’s saying God has promised all these things and Jesus is the best resource for them. That’s what he’s trying to show us in this passage. He wants us to have a full understanding of Jesus he wants to have us to have full confidence in Jesus, and he wants us to have a full appreciation of Him.
And for this reason, he wants us to do what? He wants us to know Christ. And Paul is praying this because he knows that the Father also wants us to fully know His Son. And we can be certain that whatever God wants, whatever he requires of us, whatever he asks us to do, it is going to be happened that he will help us to receive that. So if God wants us to know His Son, we can know for certain that we can know His Son.
And the way to know Jesus, the first step is we ask God for wisdom. James 1:5 says, now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to Him. How does the Father give us knowledge of His Son? If we look back up at the text, it says, I praise the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. The glorious Father would give you the spirit of wisdom.
And here we’re talking about the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, giving us wisdom. And wisdom isn’t just understanding, but it’s knowing how to apply God’s Word to the situations in our life. And secondly, not only the spirit of wisdom and revelation. And here we have God’s written word that he has revealed to us. We know Christ better by the Holy Spirit working in us, but we also know Christ better when we spend time in the written word of God.
And it all starts with God, help me to understand your word, God, allow your spirit to teach me wisdom with the goal that I’ll know your Son better.
Paul gives us four things in the passage that he wants us specifically to know about Jesus Christ. He wants us to know Christ’s calling. He wants us to know Christ’s inheritance. He wants us to know Christ’s power. And he also wants us to know Christ’s authority.
And all of these things, once we know these and we’re certain about them, and it makes us more hopeful and more certain that God is going to do for us what he’s promised. Paul says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know. Did you know you have eyes on your heart? Has your heart, doctor, ever told you that? What does that mean there?
It doesn’t just mean seeing with your physical eyes and knowing Christ intellectually. It means knowing where, knowing him in your heart. It’s like you see someone, you meet them at work or at church, and you think, you know, I’d like to be Friends with that person, you have this kind of head knowledge that there’s something about that person that attracts you to them. So you start to develop a relationship. And eventually, if you spend enough time and you get to know them well enough, that head knowledge moves to your heart.
And there’s a sense of commitment there. There’s a sense of understanding and warmth. That’s the type of knowledge of Jesus Christ. It goes beyond our head. Paul and the Lord.
Godfather wants us to know him in our hearts. Let’s look at Know Christ calling verse 18. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling. Hope is the expectation of receiving something awful. Would you give it that definition?
No. At Christmas time, your kids, they’re hopeful about getting what kind of presents. Things that are good, things, things that are wonderful. That’s what we are promised here, that Jesus Christ gives us hope. When we get to Ephesians 2:12, we’re going to learn that there is no hope without Christ.
And when we get To Ephesians chapter 4, there is only one hope, and that is in Jesus. The only reason why hope exists is because of Jesus Christ. But you know, it’s possible for believers to lose their sight of our hope in Christ. Devastating things happen. We look at how things are moving forward in the world and we could start to get frustrated and then lose our hope.
But Jesus has called us to hope through all of this, that we know that something wonderful is coming. The next thing you need to think about here is we don’t have this hope because we asked for it. We had this hope because of what Jesus Christ has called us.
We have nothing of value to offer Him. But yet he called us in our sin when we were antagonistic against him, he called us. So our hope is not based in what we desire. It’s based in what who desires what Jesus desires for us. It’s not concocted by us.
It’s not a request that we make that God may or may not answer. We have hope because Jesus Christ in all certainty has called us to hope. Hope originates with him. And anything based in Jesus Christ is always going to be certain. Once again, he wanted us before we wanted Him.
He wanted us when we were sinful. So our hope is based not on us, but. But it’s based in Jesus Christ, his calling. The next thing that Paul points out is that we need to know about Christ’s inheritance. What is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints?
God owns everything. There is no wealth that does not belong to him. Everything that he has, he can move it wherever he needs to by his will. And when we think about what Jesus is preparing for us in heaven, we can’t fathom what it’s going to be like. I mean, I don’t.
It may take six months to build a wonderful house here. Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. And he told that to his disciples over 2,000 years ago. He’s been preparing a place for us in the Father’s home. What it will be like, we cannot imagine.
Whatever we think is spectacular or wonderful or beautiful on this earth, it’s no comparison to what Christ is preparing for us. And because of his inheritance that he owns everything, we can be certain that he’s going to provide this for us. I mean, we all plan for retirement. We think we need this much money. Whether we think we’re going to be retired for 5, 10, or 15, 15 years.
Do you ever stop to think how much planning would it take to provide for yourself throughout all of eternity? And that’s what God is going to do for us. Not just for me, and not just here, but every believer, because of his great wealth, he can provide everything we need throughout eternity. We read in 1st Corinthians 2, 8, 9 what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived. God has prepared these things for those who love him.
I would say the greatest artist cannot paint a picture as beautiful as heaven. The greatest composer cannot pen a melody or write a piece of music that is as beautiful as heaven. And even with all of our good eating that we have here and all the great cooks in the church, there isn’t a cook who can prepare a meal that’s going to be as wonderful as what as what is going to be provided for us one day. And we can have full confidence in our inheritance because it’s not based on our planning. It’s not based on us setting anything aside.
It’s all based on the inheritance that Jesus Christ has. The third thing that Paul wants us to know about Christ is he wants us to understand how powerful he is.
So that you may know. He goes on to say in verse 19, what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the mighty working of his strength? You know, if I am in need of someone to come and help me, I want them to be equipped and powerful. If I go off a ledge and my vehicle is hanging by a guardrail and it’s a mile drop down I don’t know. There are places like in this world.
I want someone to come that has a big truck and strong arms. I don’t want a little wimp to show up with a golf cart to try and rescue me. Well, you know, that’s how it is with Jesus Christ. We can be certain he is completely powerful to do all of these things that he has promised to us.
In John, chapter 10, Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. And my Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all.
No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. We have a powerful Savior. We are in his hand, and he is in the hand of the Father. So we know because of that great power he can work everything out for us.
And it should alleviate any fear in our life that something can pull us away from God. Doesn’t matter how much we’re holding on to Him. What’s important is that he is holding on to us. And we have these encouraging words in Romans 8, verses 31 through 39, that talks about what this great power is doing and holding us. Verse 31 in Romans 8 says, what then are we to say about these things?
If God is for us, who can be against us? Because there’s no one more powerful than Him. He did not even spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. How will he also not with him grant us everything? Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect?
God is the one who justifies, who is the One who condemns Christ. Jesus is the one who died, but even more, he was raised. He also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us because of his great power. We read in verse 35, who can separate us from the love of God? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
And then we read in verse 38, for I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from. From the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus Christ has the power to hold us. And this list, it could go on and on. There’s nothing that can remove us from his hand.
The fourth thing that Paul wants us to know about Jesus Christ is His authority. Is there somebody greater? That’s going to come along and say, well, that’s what he said, but I’m the boss here. No, that’s not the way it’s going to be. Jesus Christ has complete authority.
And we find in verse 20 that God showed that. He demonstrated to us physically that Jesus Christ has authority by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens. This is the evidence that was visual that everybody could see when Jesus was Christ was raised and that over five people at one time, 500 people at one time saw him. It was evidence that he was in authority. And then when God took him to heaven in the cloud, we see that he was seated at God’s right hand.
In Acts chapter seven, Stephen again testified that he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father. And that means that he has authority. There is no one above Him. What is the extent of his authority? Verse 21 further tells us the extent of his authority is far above every ruler in authority, power and dominion.
And every title given that means every earthly person, every unseen person being that has any power. Jesus Christ authority is over all of these things. We have nothing to fear. None of these things can take us out of his hand or undo what he has promised to us. What is the length of his authority?
He goes on to say. And it’s not only in this age, but also in the one to come when we enter the eternal state. Jesus authority is never going to come to an end. What is the position of his authority? Paul says in verse 22 that everything is subjected under his feet and appointed Him.
He’s the head over everything for the Church, which is his body, the fullness of the One who fills all things in every way. What is the position of Christ? Everything is under his feet. There’s not even anything at his knees that compares to him because he is so far above all things in his authority. So what does this mean for us today?
Why does God want us to know Christ’s calling? He wants us to remember it’s not what we’ve done. We’ve only accepted the invitation that Jesus Christ has given to us. And you should grow to fully appreciate. He invited you when you were nothing.
He invited you when you were sinful. He invited you when you were against Him. So when your feelings change towards the Lord, when you fall to sin and temptation, it all goes back to it’s not based on us, but because of his calling. I have confidence he invited me. No Christ inheritance.
What that means for me is that he provides everything I need because he owns all things. And thank the Lord, beyond my retirement, he’s figuring out how to take care of me for all eternity. And I can know with certainty as I grow in my understanding of what Christ has in his inheritance, that he is truly able to provide all those things for me. Know Christ’s power. As we grow in understanding of that, it increases our understanding that my salvation is certain.
It’s all based on Him. There is nothing that can undo it. There is nothing that can take it away from me. There’s nothing I can do myself. And when I understand Christ’s power, my salvation to me is all the more certain.
And lastly, to know Christ’s authority that tells me that there is. There’s no one more powerful than my Savior. There’s no one that can command Him. Everything that is written is the way it is going to be. No one else is ever going to step in and change the rules.
No one else is ever going to step in and say they have authority over Him. He is the ultimate authority in our life. And again, it gives us this hope that all these extravagant blessings that God has promised to us indeed are going to come to pass. So in conclusion today with these statements for believers, I also just want to make an appeal that maybe going back to the beginning of Server and you say, you know, I could care less about coming to church. I just come for whatever reason, my grandmother asked me to come today, or I come because I feel obligated to.
And you don’t care to get together with believers, you need to examine yourself. If you don’t love being with believers, are you really a true believer? And if you don’t really understand that faith is something that’s in your heart, that you’re fully relying on Jesus Christ alone for your salvation and not anything that you do, not based on baptism, not based on giving, not based on who your parents or your grandparents were for, whether you helped to build this building or some other church, all of those things, if that’s what you’re looking to for your hope, none of that is going to last. So I just want to say that if you haven’t ever come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, Scripture says all we have to do is believe in our heart that he died on the cross and he rose from the dead, and we then speak with our mouth that he is now the Lord. I understand that he’s over all creation and I want him to be the Lord of my life.
It’s that understanding in your heart, not just your head. And it’s that proclamation of truth which you’re willing to follow for the rest of your life that at that point we have Jesus Christ give us the gift of salvation that he’s promised to us. We have people throughout the church that have these little tags on most of us that have these tags on know something about some things and if you have a question about salvation or anything else, ask one of us and we will start. Certainly lead you to someone that can share more about that. Would you bow with me in prayer?
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the encouragement to know your son more. And Father, we know that you want us to know him better. So we come before your presence today, Father, asking give us wisdom and revelation through your word to know him better so that our hope will increase, our confidence will increase, but most importantly that our love and appreciation for your son would increase. In his name we pray. Amen.