In this episode, Pastor Marvin and Carolyn have a conversation about Ephesians 1:15-23.
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The Believe Podcast
Ep. 168 | Thanksgiving and Prayer
[music] Welcome to The Believe Podcast, a conversation between friends over a passage of Scripture. I'm Carolyn Kirsten. And I'm Arpene Williams. And today is episode 168, continuing taking a look at Ephesians chapter 1. We'll finish chapter 1 today. Absolutely. So a question for the beginning of this one. How does your family celebrate Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving. We are typically with my side of the family. Okay. Kind of happened because historically Steve's sister lived out of state and his parents would travel to visit them now that they're in town, you know, we're just the roadless trap or like it's something the road will travel to so we typically and my mom loves to host. I've only made a turkey, made the turkey one time when they were returning from a trip. But and now we really do like everybody typically brings the same things. Jill brings this kale salad, I'm the mashed potatoes person in the pumpkin pie, my sister makes a pecan pie. So we all know our own little things that we do and just enjoy the day together. Okay. All right. For sure. Watching the football game. That's part of it. Yes. Well, we, again, our lives are a little different now. This past Thanksgiving, two individuals or three individuals or individuals, including Malia. They were absent because Michaela was in California, Micah and Megan. They went and Malia, they went to Texas because Megan's grandfather. He was kind of, he was ill and this might be the last time they see him. And so it was a smaller, but still meaningful, but typically, typically everyone is together. And we have the normal, you know, turkey dressing, macaroni and cheese has to have the macaroni and cheese. And then obviously we watched, we watched the football game as well. So and then we sleep. We nap. That's also usually part of it. But or we, or, and or we play, we play games because everyone is present and, and that's what our family loves to do for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, holidays where we gather together. We play some sort of game that where everyone has to participate. And so, so anyway, that's, those are, those are some characteristics of our, our Thanksgiving. Now, now the reason why we bring that up because Paul actually prays a prayer for the Ephesians and, and really that prayer is him thanking God for at least initially for some things that were very obvious about them. And then he goes on to pray, he prays a prayer that, that, that they would experience a level of fullness of their, the spiritual blessings that we talked about in the previous episode. And so let's jump in to see what we can, insights we can gather from, from this section of the scripture. Yeah. So I noticed in verse 15, first one there, Paul says, what he heard about them. Yeah. I love that. And what he heard was he heard about their faith in the Lord Jesus and their love for all the saints. And I thought, Oh, good job, Ephesians, who are known for loving God and loving others. Yeah. Because their reputation, he had heard it. And, and remember, this is the days of letters and people walking. I mean, this isn't, he saw it on social media or even got an email or a phone call. Like this word had traveled, it was so significant, their reputation for loving God and loving others. And that definitely made me think, what am I known for? Yeah. Or as a church family, what are we known for? Absolutely. When people think, Oh, Trinity church. Oh, yeah. They're the ones. Yeah. Or Carolyn or Marvin, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Carolyn, she's, what am I known for? Yeah. What do you, what are you consistently hearing about these individuals? And again, this is, this is one of those questions I hope to linger with and, and not that I'm, I'm, I'm walking out of my house every day or interacting with people so that I can manage an image so people can say, Oh, they're known for this. But that just simply, I think the Ephesians were just simply living their lives. And as a result, they, this is what people were hearing about them. And as you mentioned, for to travel so quickly and for Paul to hear this and receive this is truly, is truly a blessing. And so let's, let's, you know, again, they're known for their love for God, they're known for their love for, for other people. But then Paul begins to actually pray a kind of a special prayer. And I think this is a prayer we can adopt in our own lives for other people. What are some of the things that he's praying for them? Yeah. So 17 to 19 is what we're talking about. He prays, first of all, that the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge, praise it, that Jesus would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, which I loved, you know, several different aspects of that phrase of the spirit of wisdom and revelation made me think like, if we thought that wisdom was like a set of a closed set of ideas, I don't think that would be accurate, but having it be wisdom and revelation, it's like a constant ongoing, growing, understanding, and that is what he is praying for them, that they would, the spirit of wisdom and revelation, this ongoing, increasing understanding in the knowledge of Jesus. Yeah. And, and, and again, I love, I love that concept of consistently re unfolding something about God, unfolding something about Jesus, unfolding something about the spiritual, the spiritual blessings that God has given us because in him, you know, we have all spiritual blessings. So I think this is kind of one of those areas where God has given us wisdom, he's given us unfolding revelation, I know we don't define words with the same words, but we are finding out something new about God, we're finding out something new about Jesus, we're even finding out something new about what it means to be chosen, about what it means to be redeemed, our inheritance, and to be sealed by the, by the Holy Spirit. And so, so I love this idea that, that there's an unfolding of the knowledge of God. Notice Paul didn't say the knowledge about God, but the knowledge of God. So anybody, I mean, we, people can read the Bible and we can do Bible study after Bible study and we can have knowledge about God and can glibly quote, oh, God is this, God is that. But when you get, begin to ask the question, do you know God that carries a little bit more, that carries more intimacy that I have a, I have experience with God. I know him as a provider, I know him as a healer, I know him as a comforter, because I've been in all of those situations and he's shown up in that way. Person that knows about God doesn't have that intimate knowledge. Um, so, so I think I love the way Paul talks about the knowledge of God versus the knowledge about God. And this is what he's praying that they would have revelation. They would have knowledge, um, about, uh, about this God who has blessed them with all kinds of spiritual blessings. Mm hmm. And then he goes on to pray that the eyes of their heart, I love that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know several different things, but you want to add some more about the eyes of eyes of the heart. Yeah. It's just, it's a great metaphor is that, that, um, you know, we even sing a song, open the eyes of my heart that I might see you. And so. Well, I guess this is on YouTube. I was going to say, if you could see me, I could do motions from my children's ministry days to that. Yeah. So, so there's this, there's a sense that our, our hearts can either either be blind or that our hearts can be, um, have insight into who God is and what he's given us in Jesus Christ. Yeah. And then he describes some of those things so that you may know the hope of his calling, the wealth of your inheritance, which we talked some about that last episode and the immeasurable, immeasurable greatness of his power. And I love just all three of those. Again, we could just talk on and on about each one, but just the hope of his calling, the wealth of your inheritance and the immeasurable greatness of his power. That's me summarizing the language that he uses there, but such encouraging words, such ones that help us get an eternal perspective of, you know, maybe our circumstances aren't what we hoped right now, sure, but praying that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so that we would understand, okay, even if this isn't going so great, I can know the hope of my calling or the inheritance that I have, or and the inheritance and the immeasurable greatness of his power, which I can see in this situation that I'm experiencing right now. And this is, again, I think this is such number one, great language. And so what I try to do in my mind, I try to take the opposite because if I'm experiencing the opposite, I need my eyes open to see the reality that that's not my, that is not my, that's not my hope or that's not my reality. So for instance, the opposite of hope is despair. And so there are times where you and I get, we've become despaired, we become despairing or we become despondent, even in our walk with Jesus and maybe we don't feel like all of those things are true of us. But Paul says, wait a minute, I'm asking God to open your eyes so you might see the hope that you have of your calling, number one, your calling into a relationship with God, but also your calling, maybe even your vocational calling into helping other people come to know Jesus. The opposite of inheritance is poverty. And sometimes we feel like, man, I don't have an inheritance. I do feel like a spiritual pauper. And God says, no, I want your eyes to be open to see how rich you really are. And then sometimes we can feel weak, weak in our relationship with God, we're giving into temptation or whatever it might be. And he says, I want your eyes to be open until you might see that you are truly powerful in the Holy Spirit. And so I love like just kind of playing these mental gymnastics, taking the opposite. And so God, would you please open my eyes so that you can let me know that I am hopeful, that I am rich and that I am powerful in Jesus. And so this is the prayer that Paul is praying for the Ephesians. And this is the prayer I think we can pray for ourselves, but also for other people as well. Yeah, for sure. And then verse 20, actually my Bible separates, has a different heading starting with verse 20, but I've seen it where it just runs right into it, which I think it actually makes more sense because verse 19 talks about the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe. And then number 20 reminds us with the incredible truth. He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seeding him at his right hand in the heaven. So that immeasurable greatness of his power that he offers to us is that same power that raised Christ from the dead. Yeah. Wow. It's really incredible that we do have resurrection power living inside of us to live the life that Jesus died for. And again, I find that hard to believe, hard to grasp and embrace, and yet it is true of us that we have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, living inside of us as followers of Jesus. And it is up to us to be able to access that power, to believe that that power is there. Again, talk about believe. Yep. And this is our podcast name. That out in verse 19, where what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe way back at the beginning when we were talking about John, we talked about how believe, which is true in this case too, it's not just a one time, okay, I believe in Jesus. I believe he died for me. It's an ongoing, very similar to the revelation idea that we talked about earlier. It is an ongoing believing. It is believing, yes, I can have a relationship with God through Christ. And I can have access to his immeasurable, the immeasurable greatness of his power right now on this Tuesday. And two years down the road when this is happening, like it is an ongoing believing. We access that faith or we access that power by faith and by believing. And again, we won't know the reality of that power until we trust that God is present with us in every aspect of our lives. And so I love again, love, love, love that imagery of the power of God living inside of us. Yeah. Any other things that we want to highlight? Well, I think just as it, this chapter ends, I think it's also just good to note 22 and 23 where he is talking about the church, God subjected everything under Christ's 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. So the church is the body of Christ, Christ has returned to heaven. We are now his representatives. We are his body. All of us together, we'll talk about that a lot, like together, we, this isn't me as an individual, it's together with other believers, I am the body of Christ. And I love, actually I love how NIV finishes out verse 23. It says, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Yeah. So, again, every spiritual blessing, we don't have to wonder, is God going to come through, is he going to help me do this? That is who he is to us as the church, he fills everything in every way or the fullness of him who fills all in all. He has the authority over, again, we see the authority literally over everything. Everything has been placed under his feet, the authority, he has authority over our lives and he has authority over his body, the church, pastors, elders, staff members, don't, Jesus has all authority. And we submit to him, we submit our plans to him, we submit our future to him. We submit who we are as a church to him because it's his authority, his authority over his own body and that's not, I'm submitting, oh my goodness, it should be a joyful submission because he knows best for his body and I love the way that chapter ends. Yep. So, what can we believe about God, ourselves and others from this section of Ephesians 1? Yeah, I think what we can believe about God is that he wants to reveal himself to us. So it's not God playing hide and seek. He wants to reveal himself to us so that we might know him intimately and not just know about him. So I think he wants, he desires to reveal himself to us. And I think for me, I'm asking myself the question, what am I known for? And what do people know me as or know me for? And I think that in the very beginning, that was a very arresting question, said, I've heard of your life, what am I consistently known for as a follower of Jesus Christ? That is a good challenge. What jumps out to me, I think it's actually what you said about God in the last episode, his generosity, just that he gives us the spirit of wisdom and revelation that we can know the hope of our calling and our inheritance and the immeasurable greatness of his power. Like that's just incredibly generous and that's who he is. And for myself, I really love this prayer versus 17th or 19th. I have on the margin of my Bible, which I wrote at some point, my prayer for my family and my church, and I'd actually like to have that be more significant than when I just happen upon Ephesians chapter one, but really doing that on a regular basis, praying those words. Because it is, that is what I want for the people I love. That's good. That's good stuff. Friends, thank you for joining us. Share this episode with someone. Be sure you're subscribed on your podcast players so that you get those notifications when an episode drops and then listen, share with a friend, and have a spiritual conversation yourself this week. [music] [BLANK_AUDIO]