Our Enlightenment in Christ

Good morning, church. It’s good to see all of you here this morning. We’re continuing our series through the book of Ephesians called Life in Christ, and we’re going verse by verse through the book of Ephesians. And over these 6 weeks, we’ll cover the first 3 chapters, and then we’ll take a little break for the holidays, and we’ll come back in 2027 and cover the last 3 chapters of the book of Ephesians. The key phrase in the book of Ephesians is in Christ, in Christ.

Some form of this phrase is repeated 36 times in the book of Ephesians, in Christ, in Him, in the Beloved. The key according to Paul is that being a Christ follower, being a Christian means that you are living your life in Christ and Christ in you. And so the book of Ephesians is really very naturally and evenly divided between the first 3 and the last 3 chapters. The first 3 chapters, Paul gives us our position in Christ. Who we are in Christ, our identity, our possessions, our position in Christ.

And then in the last 3 chapters, he gives us the practices of what it looks like to live that out. And so it very naturally falls in these 2 ways. And when he describes the Christian life, he doesn’t talk about it in this way. He does not say it’s merely a life for Christ, nor is it a life living like Christ, but it’s a life lived in Christ and Christ in you. And he wants to be clear about that distinction.

Now the Apostle Paul is writing this letter to a group of believers, a church in the city of Ephesus, and he spent about 3 years there as we read in the book of Acts chapter 19 and 20. And a good way to read the letter to the believers in Ephesus would be to go and read the book of Acts chapter 19 and 20 so you get the context of the people that he’s writing to. But he spends longer there than probably any other city where he planted a church. So we see that he refers to being there about 3 years and establishing that church. But now he’s writing this letter to the believers there 7 or 8 years later from a Roman prison.

And so he’s writing to the people that he knows, although the church has grown, And he’s writing to the people that he loves there, this letter to the believers in Ephesus. Now, Ephesus is a real place, and I’m always reminding us of this, that the Bible’s about real places, real people, and real events. It’s not a book of myths, it’s a real book, a historical book, and Christianity is a historical faith. It’s not just something dreamed up, but it’s something that’s based and in history. And so for that reason, that’s why I love maps and charts and all this stuff.

So it’s just to give you the reality of it. And so here’s a map of the ancient world during Paul’s time. And Ephesus at that time was one of the 4 largest cities in the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire took in all of the land really around the Mediterranean Sea. And Ephesus was probably among the 4 largest cities.

It had about a population around 200,000, 250,000 people. It’s a big city. It was also where the Roman proconsul, it was the seat of the Roman proconsul, and it was a very wealthy city in Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey. Now Paul’s from this area, he was born in Tarsus, and he was born a Roman citizen, the Scripture teaches us. He was born with the name, given name Saul from the tribe of Benjamin, Saul being the first king of Israel, Saul a Benjamite, and so he was given a royal name.

But he changed his name after he became a believer and he was known as Paulus, which is the idea of little one. He went from royal name to saying, I’m the least of the apostles, I’m one untimely born. So this is Paul and he’s writing this from Rome to the church at Ephesus. Go to the next slide. This slide shows the ruins of Ephesus today.

And so my wife and I visited there some years ago and the photographs here are photographs I took. And so this is going down one of the major, streets in Ephesus down to the Library of Celsus, which was one of the most amazing libraries in the ancient world. In the distance, you can see a valley that would have been the Mediterranean Sea during Paul’s time, but the river, the silt in the river kept going out, there was an earthquake, and the port that had been here dried up. And so the wealth of the city dried up with it and the people left. And so today it’s one of the most amazing ruins in, in the world to go and see what first-century times looked like.

Go to the next slide. I just put that in there so you’d know I was really there, okay? And this is Robin and I standing in front of the Library of Celsus. Go to the next slide. And so the next slide is— this is a picture of the 25,000-seat theater or stadium where we read about in Acts chapter 19 where a riot broke out.

And Demetrius, who was one of the leaders of the silversmith guild, was very upset because their business was drying up. They were known for making little figures of Artemis. And by the way, that’s where one of the 7 Wonders of the World was during Paul’s time. That was the temple to Artemis or to Diana. And so an earthquake caused that to fall, but it would’ve been amazing, this white marble that you would’ve seen atop the mountain overlooking Ephesus and over top of the city, this 25,000-seat stadium, and that’s where Demetrius led a riot that broke out against Christians, and he was saying, Great is Artemis of the Ephesians, and Paul wanted to go in there and preach, and his people kept him out of there.

But you can read about that in Acts chapter 19. This street would have gone out from that stadium to the port where all the marketing goods came in and out of that city. So this is a real place, You can go and visit there today. And so Paul is writing a letter. He opens up with a wonderful salutation.

Then he takes a little break, verses 3 through 14, and gives us what we studied last week, a eulogy, if you will, a doxology of the amazing things that we have in Christ Jesus, that we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Now we hear the word eulogy, we usually think of a funeral, But it literally just means good word. He has a good word about what we have, the possessions we have, our identity in Christ. But now in verse 15, he’s going to get back to what he normally does in a letter, and that is after the salutation, normally he talks about how he’s thankful and what he’s praying for us. And that’s where we’ll be today.

He’s praying that we will be enlightened to know that list of blessings that he had just prayed over us in 3rd, or just taught us in 3 through 14. Now he’s praying that we will really know the reality of it, not just head knowledge, but like it would really sink into our hearts. And so he begins to pray that out, that we will fully understand what we possess in Christ. Now I remember some years ago when I was a college student, I had the privilege of hearing Bill Bright speak. Bill Bright was the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Now known as Cru. And so I was hearing him speak and I remember he talked about telling the story of Ira Yates. Ira Yates was a sheep rancher in West Texas and his ranch was about to go under. His family was living on government assistance. He was about to go bankrupt and lose the ranch when some people came and offered to do a study of his land to see if they could find oil there.

And it just so happened that they drilled and they struck oil and it became the famous Yates Oil Field, one of the most large reservoirs of oil so that even today they’re still pumping oil from the Yates Oil Field in the Permian Basin of West Texas. But here’s what makes that story so powerful. He always had that oil. When he owned that land, he owned that oil. He just didn’t know that he owned it.

It was already his, but he was living in poverty while wealth lay just below the surface. And many Christians today are living in spiritual poverty.

They’ve received Christ, they’re a Christ follower, but their hearts have not been enlightened to know the reality of what they have and what they’ve been given. So Paul writes this to the people of Ephesus from a Roman prison. He goes, I love you and you’ve got all of this, but I’m praying that it would move from just intellectual knowledge to where it’s in your heart. I’m praying that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened so that you know what you have in Christ. Many Christians today are living spiritually impoverished lives because they don’t know what they have in Christ.

As we look at the text today, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, prayed that God would enlighten their eyes of their hearts so that they could know what they have in Christ. And I believe today we can know, we can have our hearts enlightened so that we know the reality. And as we look at the text, we’ll see 3 realities that we can understand about what God has given us in Christ. So put your seatbelts on, we’re getting ready to pull out from the bus stop, okay? Getting ready to pull out, starting at verse 15, and we’re going to be talking about what we have in Christ.

For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that 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, having 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 that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far 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. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. This is God’s Word, amen, amen.

So we’re looking for 3 realities of what God has given us in Christ Jesus. Here’s the first reality, it’s the reality of our hope in Christ. It’s the reality of our hope in Christ. Now, I’m going to explain where that’s at in the Scripture, but first I need to do a little background because he starts at verse 15 with what he normally does in his other letters immediately after the salutation. If you read Paul’s letters, they always begin with Paul identifying himself and then identifying who the letter is to, which we see in verses 1 and 2, he’s done that.

But then he did something unusual in the book of Ephesians. He inserts this new thing here, verses 3 through 14, this eulogy and this list of blessings. It’s kind of unusual. I think his letter to the church of Ephesus is unique in that he was giving a blueprint to the church at Ephesus, the place he spent the most time of any church he planted, the church I believe that was so important in Asia Minor that other churches were being planted out of it. It was one of those lighthouse churches that was affecting the whole world.

He gave them really a blueprint of what the church is.

That the church is this mystery revealed, the secret that God kept in His heart that is now revealed, and he’s giving this to us. And so he gives us this insert of this doxology, if you will, and then he gets back to his normal practice in verse 15, and he says, for this reason, What reason for this list of that you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places? Because you have all this, and also because I’ve heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus. How’s he hearing it? Well, he’s probably hearing it when he’s writing during this same time, he’s writing letters to Timothy, he’s writing letters to Titus from a Roman prison, he’s getting word back from Timothy, people are traveling back and forth and keeping him up to date.

He’s heard how not only the ones he led to Christ, but more people are coming to Christ. He’s heard about it. Because I’ve heard, because God’s given you all this and because I’ve heard about your faith, and then I’ve also heard the proof of your faith, the evidence of your faith. And what’s the evidence of their faith? That they love the saints.

I’ve heard about how you love each other. You hear this today, you ever hear this? I love Jesus, but but I don’t like the church very much. You ever? It’s a modern, kind of a popular thing for people to say today.

Yeah, I love Jesus, but I don’t think that much of the church. And that’s not how Paul thinks. Paul says, I see your faith in Jesus, that you love Jesus, and it’s evidenced by the fact that you love His people. Notice it’s love toward all the saints. Now look, I love most of you, but some of you are harder to love.

And some days you might run into me and you might think, well, he’s kind of hard to love today because I’m just one of you, right? But it says all the saints, that they’d learned to love all the saints. Oh Lord, may that be true of us. And be careful about saying, I love Jesus, but I don’t think much of the church because we see later on in verse 22 and 23 that the church is His body, His bride. If you talk bad about my wife, now look, you can talk bad about me and I’ll turn the other cheek.

Jesus told me to. But you talk bad about my wife, I’m liable to slap you upside the head.

Right? Okay, I don’t know if that’s Christian, but that’s the way I’d probably roll with it. Because I don’t want you talking bad about my wife. So be careful about talking about the bride of Jesus, the love of the saints. He says, for this reason, because of this great, this great doxology that he’s already listed, because of your faith, because of your love for the saints, I give thanks.

I don’t cease giving thanks for you and praying for you. And that’s kind of usually where he lands right after the salutation. This is unique that it finally lands here. And then he gives 3 prayer requests. Okay, I’m getting there.

I’m finally getting to point 1 here. He gives 3 prayer requests, but it really begins with this purpose statement. This is how I pray. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, so he prays to the Father through the Son, that the Spirit, okay, so we see a Trinitarian prayer here in verse 17. I pray to the Father in the name of the Son that the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, and so that’s kind of a name for the Spirit here, the Holy Spirit, that He’s the Spirit of wisdom, He’s the Spirit of revelation.

We see some names revealed here about who the Holy Spirit is and what He does for us. So I’m praying to the Father in the name of the Son that the power of the Holy Spirit, and then verse 18, he finally gets to his prayer request. The key prayer request is, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened. Unusual language. My heart has eyes?

Well, he’s not talking about the one beating in your chest, he’s talking about the center, the driver’s seat of your life. He’s talking about the seat of your will, your intellect, and your emotions. If you talk about who you are, that’s that, that who you are, the center. And he says, before, and you can read about this as we keep getting into Ephesians farther, before our hearts were darkened, the eyes of our hearts was dark and we lived in darkness and we were in rebellion against God. But now that you’re in Christ, and the light has come on, I pray that your eyes are wide open so that your hearts are enlightened.

The word has the idea of to be illuminated.

For what? And then he gives the 3 prayer requests. I told you I’d finally get here.

That you may know what, what, what? Well, 3 whats. That you may know what is the hope, what are the riches, what is the power. Let’s deal with hope first. I told you I’d get there.

Paul lists 3 whats, 3 realities that he’s praying for the believers in Ephesus. You have all this, he says in verses 3 through 14, you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, but you don’t live like it. You own all the spiritual oil in heaven, but you’re living spiritually impoverished lives. You’re living by your own strength. You’re living as if what you’re living with in your circumstances is all that’s real, but there’s so much more.

So he says, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you. You’ve been called to hope.

Hope is, it’s confident expectation. It’s not a wish, it’s not, well, I hope it doesn’t rain today. I hope my team wins today. Those are wishes without any power or object of making that happen. It’s just like you’re throwing a wish out there, but that’s not biblical hope.

Biblical hope’s confident expectation based on the promises of God and the reality of what He’s already done. And so He’s called you to that kind of hope. That kind of hope is not a pessimistic hope. Frame of mind. To have your heart enlightened with the hope to which you’ve been called means you put away pessimism.

You have a joy, you have a certain kind of the cup is not only half full, it runneth over, rather than going around with a rain cloud over your head all the time.

And so the mark of one who’s had their heart enlightened, you might be going through hard times, you might be going through suffering, not be going through difficulty, but because you know the reality of the hope that you have in Christ to which you’ve been called, you live with a confident expectation that all things are well, all things will be well.

Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ underneath, Christ above me, Christ in the face of those who greet me. All things are well, all things will be well.

So Christians should be marked by this confident expectation of good, this not— I’m not talking about positive thinking, something like you’ve worked up in your own self, I’m talking about Christian hope, living hope, resurrection hope, confident hope in Christ. You’ve heard me talk about this before, but hope is like a rope, biblical hope is like a rope. Let me read some verses to you and then I’ll explain what I mean. 1 Peter 1:3 says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So our Christian hope is anchored, it’s tied off at the empty tomb, the resurrection of Jesus.

So it’s not just flopping in the breeze. Christian hope is like a rope, it’s anchored in the empty tomb. And then we see in Titus 2, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. So it’s anchored on the other end in His return, His promised return. So we have these 2, we have the historical reality, it’s already happened, it’s a promise kept that He’s overcome sin, death, and the grave, and our hope is tied off there.

And then we have His promise that’s not yet been realized, but it’s anchored, and our hope is anchored on both ends that He’s coming again. And so we have a past hope and a future hope. And then we have, it says in Hebrews chapter 6, this hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. So we have a present hope that it passes through the curtain to where Jesus is seated now.

And so this hope is a confident expectation. Do you know this? Do you possess it? Have your eyes, has Paul’s prayer been answered in you. And so across the centuries, we hear this prayer that God is calling us to have this kind of confident expectation of hope in Jesus.

This hope means that we stop interpreting our future through our present circumstances, and instead we interpret our present circumstances according to our future. So we set our Hope on things, we set our minds, we set our hearts, Colossians 3:1-3, we set our hearts and our minds on Christ Jesus. We set our hearts and minds on things that are above, not things here, and this is our hope. And so when we are discouraged, we can say, this is not the end of my story. When we are facing loss or we are facing grief and loss, my hope is a living hope in the resurrection.

When the world seems uncertain and the news is continually bad, we go, my future’s anchored in the living Christ. We can live in joyful and confident expectation, having our hearts enlightened with this hope to which we’ve been called. Come on, Christian, come on, believer, have this hope. This confident expectation in Christ. Here’s the second reality, the reality of our inheritance in Christ.

We’re still in verse 18. This is the second what that he prays, having 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. There’s something wonderfully rich about Paul’s language here. He seems to be searching for words big enough to describe what belongs to us. He says, what is the riches?

What are the riches? The wealth of His glorious, magnificent, excellent inheritance in the saints. He seems to be searching for wonderful words to describe this. Now grammatically speaking, this little section might surprise you. I wanna slow down and lean into it a little bit.

What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints? Unusual. Not for the saints, in the saints. And so you might’ve missed this. It might mean, and I believe it does, that the inheritance He’s not speaking primarily here of that which we have, but that we are Christ’s inheritance.

Now stay with me. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which, what are the riches of His glorious, His, speaking of Christ, glorious inheritance in the saints. Is that possible? That Christ went to a cross, died for our sins, and paid for a people, that we would be His inheritance, His possession?

Forgive me for a minute, but I feel like He got the short end of the stick here, that He who had all, created all, all things are We were His, but we rebelled against our Creator. And so He sent His Son and He bought us back out of our sin, back out of our slavery, back out of our rebellion and made us children of God. And so we are His inheritance. Seems to be saying that. Let you get your mind around that, that He loved us so much that He would do this for us, that we would be His inheritance, but it also means what we first think when we read it, I think, I think it’s both and, but in Him, everything that belongs to Him belongs to us.

So we are His and He is ours, it’s both. It’s both, it’s glorious, it’s magnificent, it’s riches, spiritual riches beyond anything worldly. And so Peter writes, we have a priceless inheritance. You can’t put a price tag on it, it’s priceless. It’s an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay.

Everything here runs down, entropy is active in this universe, everything is running down.

Some of us are running down.

A lot of us, our 401s look more like a 101, right? The stock market.

But our heavenly inheritance is priceless and it’s kept perpetually for you.

Possessions in this world are temporary, but our spiritual inheritance is priceless and eternal.

Most clearly we see in Romans chapter 8 that we are adopted as children and we’re now co-heirs with Christ. Look what it says, now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. There it is, whatever belongs to Jesus belongs to us and whatever, and we belong to Him. And so that every, how much? Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places is ours.

Because it belongs to Jesus and we belong to him and he belongs to us. That’s a wonderful thing. Some years ago, a man named Bud Post won $16.2 million in the Pennsylvania lottery. Overnight, he possessed enormous wealth, but within a few years, the money was gone and he declared bankruptcy. His problem was not that he lacked riches, His problem was that possessing riches did not automatically give him wisdom to match, and so he blew it all.

That helps us understand Paul’s prayer. He’s not praying for us to have an inheritance, we already have one. He’s praying that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened so that we know it.

That’s his prayer, that we would have the wisdom and revelation, that the Spirit of wisdom and revelation would help us to realize the reality of what we already have so that we would begin to live like we already have it. That helps us understand his prayer better. It’s not enough just to possess the riches of Christ, we need the wisdom to live in light of So Paul is able to write in his letter to the Philippians, and this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.

How many of your needs? Most of them, right? He’ll supply most of your needs. Some of your needs? All your needs.

Not your greeds, doesn’t say greeds. ‘Cause some of us are in trouble because we’ve bowed down to the idolatry of materialism and we’ve spent more than we should. We probably have to deal with that. You know, be sure your sin will find you out. But He’s there to forgive you and help you and meet all your needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus.

Oh my goodness. That’s not just book knowledge for me. I’ve experienced this. I remember in the early days when we planted the church, I was— I planted the church and I was still finishing seminary at the time. I just felt like I’d waited too long to give my life to Jesus, so I was just trying to get it all done.

Something about a young 30-something guy, that’s how— that’s how when we’re young we think. That’s how I was thinking at least. And so I’m driving my little Subaru to Wake Forest, going over to Southeastern Seminary, and I would leave some mornings with the gas on E, and I would be like, I don’t know how I’m gonna get there, but I’m gonna go. I’ve got an 8 o’clock class, don’t have any money, just planted this new church, I don’t get paid regular, but Lord, you said in your Word that you’d meet all my needs in Christ Jesus, and you said that he owns the cattle on 1,000 hills, I hadn’t been seeing any at stake lately, but I’m believing it. My Subaru’s on E and I drive to seminary and you might think I’m, this is just true, I drive home on E. Happened more than once.

I mean, that’s fear and trembling there, boy. But I had kind of decided, well, if it runs out, I’ll pull over and stick my thumb out, but I’m going to just walk by faith. Sometimes you have to go down to where you don’t have anything before you’ll trust Him with everything. And little by little, He made sure this preacher didn’t just have book knowledge, but he had real eyes of his heart enlightened so that you could recognize that He never lets His children go begging bread.

He will meet all your needs. This leads to the third reality that Paul prays for, the third what, it’s in verse 19. He said, what is the hope? What is the inheritance? And then in verse 19, he says, what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe?

What is the immeasurable greatness? If you think Paul was running out of words to describe earlier the hope and the inheritance, man, he just piles on when he starts talking about God’s power in Christ Jesus Toward us who believe, the immeasurable greatness. Oh, I wish you could read it in the in the Greek original. It’s it’s just this list of these these amazing words like hupo hyperbalo, hyperbalo. Hyper is where we get the word hyper or super, and balo.

This is perfect. It means to throw, right? And so hyperbalo means to throw it so far it’s out of sight. Like that. And so he says that’s the word immeasurable, huperballo.

And then he says the greatness, which is megathos, the megathos. So the huperballo megathos dunamis, dunamis, that’s where we get the word dynamite, dynamic. It’s explosive power, it’s resurrection power. He’s just piling on the power words here, immeasurable greatness, power, working is energia. Energy, great, mighty.

He just keeps going. He’s saying, look, do you realize that the power in Christ is toward you who believe? That you have that kind of— and then he illustrates it like this with 5 quick moves here of the supreme demonstration of that power which God exercised When He raised Christ from the dead, verse 20, when He seated Him at the right hand of the Father, verse 20, placed Christ above every spiritual power and authority, verse 21, put all things under Christ’s feet, verse 22, gave Christ the head over everything to the church, verse 22. He just keeps going. This is what the power demonstrated looks like.

So the measure of God’s power toward us is nothing less than the exaltation, the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus.

That power that raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of the Father and put Him over all things is now available to us in Christ.

Well, wow, what do I do with that kind of power? Well, I want you to open your eyes. I want the Holy Spirit to open your eyes so you recognize that this power that raised Him from the dead is yours. It worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead. It seated Him at the right hand far above every rule and authority and power and dominion, that His name is higher than any name.

Not only in this age, Jesus is not only the highest name in this age, but forever in the age to come. His name will always be the highest. That’s what His power has done in Christ. And He’s put all things under His feet and He made Him head of the church, which is His body, and His fullness, His Spirit, fills His body. Oh man, I pray that that would be our church, that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ would so fill us, fill me, fill you, fill our body so that when people drive onto the parking lot, when they drive onto the property, they go, what is that?

So that the glory of the Lord is present in our church.

This power’s available. This is why when Jesus is teaching about the vine and the branches. He says in John chapter 15, apart from me you can do nothing. Oh, you can do stuff apart from Him, but it amounts to nothing. But to bear the fruit that’s everlasting, that’s eternal, it’s in Christ, that power to do that, to find that strength in Christ.

And so God never intended for us to live spiritually impoverished life. But to live powerful lives, not in our own strength, but in the strength of Jesus. And so Paul says this in Philippians, he says, I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. How many things can I do? I can do all things, I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength, Paul says.

Think about the Ephesians who are receiving this letter, think about where they were coming from. This wealthy city. Some were formerly caught up in magic and astrology and witchcraft.

That was then, we don’t have that problem today, right? No, that’s just as prevalent today, maybe more so.

They were caught up in the Artemis cult of this pornographic— if you ever saw an image of Artemis during that time, it’s a pornographic image.

They worshiped by, the sailors loved coming to Ephesus because they’d go up to the Temple of Artemis, the Temple of Diana, with the temple prostitutes, the priestesses, and they would worship that way. It was a pornographic, it was a sexually messed up world that they lived in.

And emperor worship. I showed last week a photo of the arch that was built to honor Caesar. And so they worshiped politics and the king, and that doesn’t sound like today, does it?

Yeah, we really haven’t changed. Think about where they were coming from, and here’s Paul saying, you used to live dark and perverted lives, but now you’ve Come into the light and let the light shine in your heart so that you know the hope, so that you know the inheritance, so that you know the power that raised Christ from the dead now lives in you.

So when we say, I can’t forgive that person, you don’t know what they’ve done to me, I say, And the Word says, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. When I say, I can’t go through this, I can’t go through this word I’ve heard from the doctor, I can’t go through this suffering, yet in the midst of it, the One who suffered for us, I can say, ’cause He lives in us, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. When we say, I can’t endure this trial, I can’t overcome this addiction, this temptation, I can say, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

When I say, I can’t change, or I can’t do this, every time I say I can’t, we need to hear the prayer of Paul.

That the Spirit would open the eyes of your heart so that you recognize, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

But when I face that my marriage is in trouble, when I have a rebellious teen, when I have a— well, it’s the end of the month, isn’t it, Gary? I mean, there’s a mortgage payment coming, a car payment coming here in a few days.

I can. Jesus, that’s your house, your mortgage is due.

You know, we give it all to him and say, I can do all things through Christ. Paul wants us to have our eyes open to the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. Maybe our greatest need today is not to pray for some new thing from God, We’re always praying, hey God, give me this, hey God, give me that. Maybe our greatest need is not to ask God to give us something more, but to open our eyes to what He’s already given us now, that we already have. It’s already right there below the surface, the spiritual riches that is already ours in Christ Jesus.

If only our eyes would be open to see what we already possess. Our hope is secure in Christ. Our inheritance is glorious in Christ. Our power is immeasurable in Christ. He’s risen and reigning and returning, and He’s at work in us if only we would open the eyes of our heart and know.

At the cross, Jesus paid for everything that separated us from God. In the resurrection, He conquered the grave, and now He’s seated at the Father’s right hand far above every power and dominion dominion and ready for the day when He will return. So church, let’s stop living like paupers in spiritual impoverishment.

We have been made rich in Christ. Let’s pray with Paul. Father, open the eyes of my heart that I may see all that belongs to me in Christ. Father, open the eyes of my heart And if you’re here today and you’ve never given your life to Jesus, you’ve never trusted Him, these riches are only available in Him.

So repent of your sin, come to the cross, put your faith in the crucified and risen Savior, and ask Him to take your life over as your Lord and Savior and receive the life that’s found in Christ. Let’s pray.

Lord, I first humbly pray for myself, Lord, that I would grow in being enlightened in my heart to know the reality of Your hope, of Your inheritance, of Your power, not to live according to my circumstances, but according to my position according to my identity in Christ. Lord, start with me.

And Lord, I pray that for everyone here. Start with this church, start with us, start with this people that have put their faith in Jesus, this people to love all the saints. I pray, Lord, that You would enlighten the eyes of our heart So that we would know what we have in Jesus.

And Lord, I pray for that one that’s arrived here today far from you. They came in on a thin thread. Someone invited them. They’ve been looking for something. Would you admit right now that you’re a sinner and that you need a Savior right where you are?

You can talk to Jesus about it. The Bible says if you confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart God raised Him from the dead, you’ll be saved. Why not talk to Him right now? You can follow with me. Dear Lord Jesus, I’m a sinner.

I repent of my sin and I just turn my life to You now. I believe You died on the cross for me, that You were raised from the grave, that You live today. Come and live in me by Your Spirit.

Adopt me into your family. I wanna be a child of God. I wanna follow you all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior. If you’re praying that prayer of faith believing, he’ll save you.

Oh Lord, enlighten the eyes of our hearts that we may know what we have in Jesus. Amen.