Pauls prayer for the Saints - Part 1

We're past this Ephesians passage here, Ephesians 3-14, which was such a great long run-on sentence and now we're picking up in 15-17. And Bob's scheduled to teach next week on the second half of this, so the I that was supposed to represent Part One just looks like I might have a grammatical error in the title of the handout there. It's Paul's Prayer Part One, not Paul's Prayer I, and then I forgot to finish the sentence.

So starting in verse 13, I'm going to go ahead and read out loud here. In Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who was given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him." And the prayer continues. in verse 18, but Bob gets to teach that next week. We'll look at the first half of this prayer.

Now this passage in particular is rather technical. There is some good practical stuff in there, but I just want to call out that we're going to talk about language constructs and things maybe a bit more than I normally try to do. But the good news is that it's going to set up a fuller context for the rest of the epistle to the Ephesians.

It's also worth noting that Paul tended to write list-style thoughts in his letters, and this is no exception. So we have Paul's list-style construction being manifested here. What was 3 through 14? It was a list of the blessings we have in Christ. If we're going to summarize it, there's more complexity than just the blessings we have in Christ. But Paul loves his lists. In part, that's a good way to describe things sequentially in a way that people can follow along. If it's too meandering, then it's a little harder to follow along. So Paul tends to use lists, and we're going to see that here as well.

So Paul starts out for this reason, I too, and I'm going to tell you right now we're not going to start out like Paul did. For this reason, I too, we're going to take a look at the reasons. and then we'll come back to, for this reason I too. So the structure of it being translated correctly, following the Greek structure as well, we're actually going to look at the reasons first and then we're going to come back to the things that he concludes from his reasons.

So he says, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you. we saw in verses 13 and 14 where Paul spoke specifically of the gospel and salvation. When we saw, and that's why I read it out there intentionally, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, the beginning of 13 there, the consequence of which was that we're sealed by the Holy Spirit.

In verse 15, having heard of the faith, in the Lord Jesus which exists among you." The church in Ephesus clearly had faith. What does verse 1-1 say about the church in Ephesus' faith? The saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus. So he started off, he opened up with this idea of their faith. He has heard of their faith. As we go through the rest of the book of Ephesians, we're actually going to find that he references faith and builds upon the doctrine of faith.

So while we're going to highlight what some of those doctrines are, we'll get into those more when we get to them. I won't pre-teach those lessons. But he talks about the relationship of faith to grace in chapter 2, verse 8. And we're going to get into that. That can be a sticky wicket passage.

I'm going to tell you right now, there's lots of theological debate on exactly what Paul meant by that. And if you look at commentaries across the spectrum, you will find a diverse set of opinions. We hope to exposit God's word carefully so that we can actually conclude what Paul And also the boldness we have to approach God because of our faith.

How many of you, the first time you read both Ephesians 3.12 or maybe Hebrews chapter 4, I think it's 4.11, where Paul talks about, in Ephesians here and the author of Hebrews, talks about boldly going before the throne. How many of you when you read through that thought, that's not me.

But Paul says, because we have faith, we can boldly approach it. So our faith has a relationship with our being able to boldly go before the throne. How faith makes us rooted and grounded in love. And so we're going to talk about love when we get to chapter 3.

I hope I get to teach that passage. I'm going to be honest with you. I taught it the last time we went through here. And it changed my whole perspective on body life. And so, I hope I get to teach it, but if Bob or Roger gets to teach it, that would be great too. I'll just give it to you.

Because that passage is just glorious. That's the whole chapter, right? Well, it's the last half of that chapter. It's just amazing. The unity of the faith. How many of you are having difficulty with somebody who, or have had difficulty maybe in the past, talking to somebody who goes to a different church? and they believe something else. I think that's most everybody, right? And that's challenging.

So how do we look at that from what the scripture says? And then faith as a defense against the lies of those who oppose us in chapter 6. So we're going to look at faith as we go through this whole book. and we're going to get to see different places where it impacts our doctrine. Today, when we look at it here, it's faith in the Lord Jesus. That's the foundation, the gospel, that we responded and we believed in the Lord Jesus as our Savior. So Paul starts with the recognition of faith and moves towards the development of the outcome of that faith. When we saw chapter 1 verses 3 through 14, what did Paul set up that he outlines and then he's going to go into in further depth?

And that's not entirely a trick question, but it's a list, right? But similarly, he's setting us up to hit the same topics in chapter 1 at the beginning of his letter, and he's going to go into further detail later. This reinforces for us the idea that God is in the business of maturing us and growing us, and it's rooted in the basis of our faith. And so that's an exciting starting point.

Now Paul says, having heard. Now how did Paul hear about Ephesus and the other churches? And I've got my answer there on the page after that, but maybe you have some answers off the top of your head. How did Paul hear about Ephesus and the other churches?

Okay, Timothy, so you have messengers. We'll make that more generic because Titus also went out. Maybe Barnabas, maybe others. Maybe even John Mark on his way to reform. So there were messengers that were involved. Paul went on his missionary journeys. When we look at Paul's missionary journeys, he hit Ephesus several times. And then we also get The idea that there were letters, this is one of them, but we get the impression, especially when we saw 1st and 2nd Corinthians, that there were even more exchanges that took place and God saw fit to only preserve a percentage of the letters that Paul wrote. I suspect that he went through a lot of ink and parchment, but we've only got a piece of that. Lastly, I also suspect that there were other messengers that the church has sent. Especially if they found out he was in prison in Rome, they may have sent messengers themselves.

Paul, having heard, we're not overly explicitly aware of how he heard in this case. I'm assuming that it was through a letter or a messenger in this case. But the idea is that Paul heard, but what did he hear? And what we see here is he's having heard of your love or, whoops, not your love, we don't want to get there quite yet.

He learned that they were faithful. He heard that they were faithful, that's right. And so Having heard that they had faith, he then continues on their saying that they had love for all the saints. Now what does it mean for them to have love for all the saints? What would be a practical application if we were trying to imagine what that is? Ephesus was a fairly wealthy area. Maybe they actually sent things, supplies, food, whatever, to other saints that were not as well off as they were. It's possible.

My next scripture calls it the law of Christ. In other words, the love is that unequivocal new nature that really, I don't have to like you, but I got to love you. I think that's a good kind of relationship. So the love is a deep-seated, unconditional kind of relationship. Sure.

The expression the Ephesians had, Paul doesn't outline specifically here, but there are some key things that I think we can count as logical outcomes. One, the financial well-being or maybe sending other material goods. Ephesus was wealthy. They were a port city. They were really critical. In fact, if you look at a geographical map when you see Colossae and Philippi, they actually follow through a natural valley along that area geographically and you enter in through Ephesus. So Ephesus would have been a key city just in general, geographically.

But there would have been a good chance of material help that they could have offered. They also would have been able to be praying. And I know that sometimes we think about prayer as the least you can do, right? But actually, we're going to get into prayer since this is section of a prayer, I think that there's actually a lot more value to prayer than sometimes we think of up front.

And he says, having heard of these things, he says, for this reason I too, and we're going to come back now, finally we've got the clause put together, I too do not cease giving thanks for you. So, Paul's having heard of their love for the saints because of their faith in Jesus led to the special apostolic care that comes out in this prayer. So, I too. There's an implication from this construct. In the Greek, the word kaigo would be translated, or the underpinning idea is I as well, and coming alongside in agreement with these things.

So Paul was not praying alone. I think that's kind of worth calling out there, that Paul was not just praying for the Ephesians by himself. Who else? We don't know for sure, but we have some guesses based on what's been revealed. Tychicus, and likely Luke would be good guesses for folks who were praying with Paul. We know they were likely with him in Rome, as we think he wrote this while in Rome. But we have this idea here that Paul was not praying alone. There were other believers that responded to the Gospel. When Paul shows up in Rome, the Jewish leaders all swarm him, because he's pretty divisive. They've heard of him, and they know who he is. And some of them were persuaded to the gospel.

So it's possible that they were part of the I too, as well as the household of Caesar. In Paul's letter to the Philippians, 422, he says, and the household of Caesar sends their greetings. So I too, praying for Ephesus, we don't know specifically. Paul doesn't list, but we have a general idea of who that might have been. So he says, they do not cease giving thanks for you. Now why is Paul and the other people praying with him, why are they thankful for the church in Ephesus? It's a sign that the Holy Spirit is at work and good things are happening. Okay, that's great. That's a good answer. The foundation he's presented to us already, right? Yeah.

Verses 3-14. Yeah, knowing those truths are true of them and being thankful for that. So as we kind of said earlier, from a geographical standpoint, there were some political and some geospatial values to who they were as a body location. But Paul's concern is not chiefly just geography, right? And so while he's established them there, he knows that God is using them. And that's really the key, is that they're brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now I want to ask this, what is required for thanks to happen? Okay, so this is a little pedantic and I'll own that. But whenever I run into words like grace, or thanks, or gospel, I find myself stopping and thinking, okay, what does this really mean? Because we use these words sometimes so often. What is the intent? So I've got my answer there, but what's your answer? What is required for thanks to happen?

A favor provided. Okay, a favor is provided. That's a good I'm going to say part of the answer but that is a key part of the answer. I think it indicates that you're receiving something or a situation that's better than you expected. Okay. It's a pleasant if not thrilling surprise. Yeah. So we have benevolence. I'm going to use my definition but tie those in with what you're saying. We have a party that is benevolent. We have a party that is a recipient. The recipient needs to recognize the kindness.

Have you ever been kind to somebody and not had them recognize it? And sometimes our egos get in the way and then it stops being a kindness, right? But then the other thing is the recipient needs to express that thankfulness. If you don't observe it, you're probably not going to express thankfulness. Have you noticed there are people in your life that are more thankful than others?

I have prayed many times for the Lord to prompt me and remind me to express that thankfulness. Sometimes I will notice something good has happened and it'll be like, that's really cool, but it stays inside my head. I have to have the Lord remind me to be vocal. I can be vocal in so many other places, but when it comes to thanks, that's an area that I say, Lord, conform me to your image in this.

But when we do something, we're not doing it to get thankfulness. Oh, correct. For God's glory. So he's the one that rewards us. Right, right. It is totally, when I say, when I'm talking about thankfulness in this context, it is in part to have a common definition, but not to build ourselves up.

So when we talk about thankfulness here, why is Paul thankful, we've asked that question, but thankfulness requires that you recognize. And so Paul recognizes the sovereign God of the universe having moved in the lives of the Ephesians. So the thankfulness is expressed to God for God's benevolence in benefit of the Ephesians and in benefit of Paul's ministry himself. and because they have loved all the saints, to the benefit beyond simply just their church or just Paul. So if you think about that, when we are abiding and we're walking in the Spirit and the Lord is doing things through us, we may not even know all of the places that that benefits.

But we can be thankful still. I think of thankfulness not always just good things that have happened but it's hard for us to realize that even through the trials we need to be thankful for that because God's doing something. Paul says to be thankful in all things. So that's why it's good to have a common definition of thankfulness in part because if we think thankfulness is only a response to when things look hunky-dory Then our attitude of gratitude, which I'm sorry that rhymes, but it's something that I think is worth putting that little earworm in there. The attitude of gratitude comes as a consequence of understanding what we can be grateful for. Not just, well, I won the lottery again kind of attitude.

So he says, while making mention of you in my prayers, and this is kind of an important clause here because this clause connects several subordinate clauses. And I told you we're going to be technical and I apologize for how nerdy this is. But the construct of this set of sentences is complex. And so it's just to unwind it, we have to make sure that we have the right context. So the previous sentence or clause is actually a subordinate clause.

He's thankful for, he doesn't cease giving thanks for them, and that's a subordinate clause to this idea of making mention of you in my prayers. And what else is he praying about? The things that are coming afterwards. So this is kind of a clean joiner clause. So why is it significant that we make mention of others in prayer? I said we're going to talk about prayer. Here we go, we're digging in.

For one thing, the thanks, many times, is to the Lord for those things. And maybe we don't have the opportunity to actually thank those people, i.e. the Ephesians or whatever, in person. But we can thank the Lord that the Lord has done these things in their body and that that's available now and that that has happened. The Lord is in control of all those things and in our own life it's the same way. And we know him as the source of those things and the worker in those things.

Prayer for others is common throughout the whole Bible. If we go back all the way into the Old Testament we find there's multiple mentions of prayer. What do we know about Job's prayer life? Does anybody remember what Job had as a routine at the beginning of Job?

He describes... He prayed for his children. He offered sacrifices and prayed for his whole family, his children and his whole family. That kind of prayer is a form of intercession. It's supplication on behalf of others. And Paul is praying to to the Heavenly Father on behalf of the others.

And if you weren't here when Roger taught Romans 8.26 in the main service, I don't know, this was sometime last year I believe, coming on about a year ago now, go back and listen to it on the website. It is incredibly good.

I've heard Romans 8.26 taught multiple times and that's where the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Roger highlighted something that I think is really worth calling out again and again.

I'm going to have to say it in the negative because I think it exaggerates. what he was trying to say. How stupid would it be for the Holy Spirit to intercede for us if God did not want to answer prayer? So if I say that in the negative, I think that exaggerates the intensity of it. But Roger said it in the positive.

He goes, God wants to answer prayer. Otherwise, the Holy Spirit would be wasting his time. But God wants to answer prayer. He wants us to be aware of that and participating in it. It's reflective of a relationship between ourselves as well as a relationship and time for the Lord. I've heard people with a Calvinistic background in theology where God is super-sovereign say, why should we pray? God already knows what we need and He already knows what's there.

And the best answer they could come up with from that what I'm going to consider a negative attitude about prayer is that the scriptures tell us to so we must be obedient. I think if we stay there that's a sad place for our hearts. So I'm going to encourage you not to think that way. God does know what we need and the Holy Spirit is interceding for us because he knows more deeply than we could know.

But the prayer is a relationship element. It's not just It's not just asking for stuff. Carol? We're told in the Bible that God created us because he wanted our company. And it seems to me that we need him and his company so much more. You can't even see the difference on the horizon. It goes so far. Yeah, we definitely need him. And we benefit from the prayer. It's not just we're doing it for God because he wants to hear from us. It's that we feel better. And that's true.

And are better. interesting thing here is that we never ceased but then to mention you and mention you kind of implies well maybe I'll throw it out there once in a while the idea is that the remembrance is really of the Lord's birth Holy Spirit led to pray effectively right? and the prayer is really we're praying for something or someone or some circumstance but the prayer is to conform us to the image of the sun right? and having that reflected so this idea of You know, we never cease to pray for you on remembrance is the idea that that should be occurring pretty frequently. But it's not a prayer list, is it? I mean, it's not kind of a self-righteous turn to a list to pray.

I mean, it's a relationship, isn't it? Yeah. And I always thought of prayer as just an ongoing conversation with the Lord. Yeah. As if you were having a conversation with your very best friend. about your life and what's going on and I mean that that's how I look at prayer I don't think of a I know so many people I know have a set time they pray and they you know yeah it's very methodical and that's not how I pray I pray kind of on during the day. I'm just having a conversation. It's not that I sit there and I do this. That's not what it is.

It's an actual relationship Yeah, constant. It's kind of like the Lord Jesus Christ had a constant relationship with his heavenly father, right? When we're in Christ, that relationship's there whether we're consciously thinking about praying. You know what I'm saying?

We're not getting credit for how often we pray. Yeah, and I think that the relationship aspect of it is critical to highlighting the purpose of prayer. It's not that we are getting credit. It's not that we are doing something because we're told we should do something. It is because we recognize the value of the relationship and we're walking in that.

The other thing about prayer that I found to be fascinating in my own life is sometimes when we pray and we are looking to express the depth of what we're praying about, sometimes our hearts are heavy, sometimes circumstances are heavy, God changes our mind. and he changes our perspective about it in prayer. And so sometimes prayer is surprisingly a teaching and reframing scenario where it's like, oh, this is terrible. And God reminds us of something.

Sometimes it'll be a Romans 8.28 thing where he says, you know, I always said I can use all things. This terrible thing that you're freaking out about, I'm going to use that. Oh, I guess I can't tell you not to use that. I guess you've changed my mind, Lord."

So sometimes the prayer has a side effect of changing our attitudes. So Paul says he's praying for all the churches. He indicates that he's praying for all the churches, not just the Ephesian church. It doesn't mean he's not having specific prayers, but his prayers are for the churches and they're ongoing and they're consistent. Now, I realized something when I got to this next clause here.

He says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, why does Paul describe God the Father in more detail here in the midst of a prayer? So he says, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom. Why does he describe, do you think he's trying to butter God up?

Is that what he's doing? He's expressing reality. As I was pondering this, because it seemed a little long-winded. Why is Paul being long-winded here? Why is he being more descriptive here? Probably one breakthrough moment in his whole life was when he was changed suddenly by the flash of light on the way to Damascus. On the way to Damascus.

That was a telling point for the rest of his ministry. Yeah, that was important. That supports the tribe and God here, right? All three members that God had mentioned. Maybe it just exemplifies the spirit-led new nature we are from heavenly places. Yeah.

So as I was thinking about this, I came up with a... I didn't come up with that. Wow, that sounds self-aggrandizing. I had a realization. We'll say it that way. I didn't come up with this. Paul grew up a Jew. And he grew up a Jew's Jew. and he grew up super well-educated. And so what I've got here is one of the things that Paul would have been trained up on, and that is the names and the attributes of God as a Jew. These are all descriptions of God in the Old Testament.

We're not going to cross-reference all these, but I'm going to read them out loud. And just take a moment to meditate on them. These are the names of God, and I've seen this list in various forms, but this is one that we actually have. Jessica made this list with the help of one of our old church pastors and printed it out specially. We have this framed in our house. So this is one I've looked at many, many times. But I realized that Paul would have had this first nature, or second nature, right at the front of his mind.

So God is El Roy in Genesis 16, verses 7 through 16, the God who sees. And he's El Shaddai, the God of more than enough. And El Alam, the everlasting God. And Yahweh Jireh or Yahweh Yareh, the God who provides. Yahweh Rapha, the God who heals. Yahweh Kadash, the God who sanctifies or makes us holy. Elohim Chaim, the God who lives. El Nimen, the God who is faithful. El Kadash, Yahweh Shalom, the God of Peace, Yahweh Rohi, the God of My Shepherd, Yahweh Tzidkenu, the Lord Our Righteousness, and Yahweh Shammah, the God Who Is Here. So Paul would have known God as having these attributes and having these characteristics. And so when you say the name of God in the Jewish Old Testament, you often link it to a characteristic that describes God in a deeper way.

We tend to, in modern English constructs, link ideas together and use a handle with those linked ideas. Wherein the Hebrew might, not uncommonly, intentionally call those out and join them together. And so Paul, remember there was a contingency of Jews in Ephesus because remember that Rome offered them some tax benefits if they were willing to colonize there. So you either come from a Roman vet background because Romans wanted to colonize Ephesus. So you had military vets and you had immigrants that you gave tax benefit to that you brought in. So there's a heavy Jewish contingency. there in Ephesus. So Paul is calling this stuff out because as a Jewish student of God's Word, that would have been where he operated for decades.

And so this is not just praise the God of our Lord Jesus. and moving on. This is praise the God of our Lord Jesus and tying into all of the glory that came earlier in verses 6, 12, and 14. The Father of glory is here. And so as I thought about that, I thought, okay, maybe Paul wasn't just running a little long-winded. I might be running long-winded this morning, but Paul isn't. Paul was specific about using the vocabulary that he used there.

So what is God's glory, since he is the God of glory, or the Father of glory? Back to Hal's notes here. What's our working definition of glory? Do we have a good working definition? Go ahead, Tom. The radiant essence of who God is. It's the expression of the character of who he is, it shows wealth and splendor and is part of why we show fear and reverence to God. So the God of glory, all creation belongs to him. That's a pretty big deal. He spoke the heavens into existence and mankind with our modern technology has been trying to figure out where the outer boundaries of the universe are. Have you noticed that we haven't found it yet?

My favorite thing, and this is a little bit of a rabbit trail, but my favorite thing in reading about the universe is that they've asked scientists, how big do you think the universe is? And they were boldly willing to give an estimate. There's no science, this is just like a winging it kind of a number, and they were like five billion light years wide.

No way in our lifetime could we even begin to conceive of how we would be able to put together something to measure that. And God created it. We can't control the weather and they've been trying to do that. We can't even predict it. They're convinced they're going to figure this out, how to control the weather. Good luck with that. The start of Warm Earth hasn't changed its impending orbit.

The thing is that when we take in the richness of what's here, we kind of realize, I think in part, that beseeching a weak or poor God would be absurd. If you were a Roman soldier and you were a vet and you came in and you've been following the mythology of the Romans or the Greeks, those are weak and frail and definitely not impartial gods.

And God is calling on the God of the universe. And is that God of glory? So then we're actually going to get into the prayer. We're finally there to the first part of the prayer that Bob gets to finish. So he says that this God of glory, this Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom. And while we tend to think of the spirit every time we walk into a passage and we see spirit, this is not the Holy Spirit. This is speaking of an expression of something that is dominating the thoughts and behaviors of the saints there.

So he says in 1 Corinthians 4.21 and Galatians 6.1 and 1 Timothy 5.21 and 2 Timothy 1.7 the same sort of phrase where he says that he would give you a spirit.

It's not the spirit. There's not a definite article in the Greek. Sometimes the translators skip out on the definite article. This is not one of those times. And it's pneuma, which sometimes we translate as breath. Paul is praying for a manifestation to take place which means the Holy Spirit must be involved. So the Holy Spirit will still be involved, but it's not the Spirit. So what does the Spirit of Wisdom look like? We want to put ourselves in the shoes of the Ephesians.

How many of them do you think had a collection of the New Testament at the time of this writing? Well, zero, because this was part of that collection, right? We know the canon of the New Testament was not completed yet. Revelation hadn't been written. The New Testament, they might have had some of Paul's writings. They might have had James. So they would have had parts of the New Testament, but not the whole of the New Testament.

So Paul is praying, because you remember this is a church that's being established. They've been faithful. That's awesome. You're already ahead of the game there. And Paul is praying for their continued growth and development. So he's praying for a spirit of wisdom There were lots of difficult situations. Not everybody in this class was in our 1 Corinthians class, but in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, we run into the church in Corinth having basically, it looks like, turned the other way and not looked as a young man was sleeping with his father's wife, which is worded in a way that lets us know that it's not his mom, which is a lot better. He's having an adulterous relationship and the church has turned and looked the other way. That's gross sin.

And it seems to be lacking wisdom, wouldn't you say? That they're doing that. But people weren't sure how to deal with it. Because how would they deal with that in the law? Any quick recollections? How do we deal with that in the law? They'd stone it. And that problem would go away pretty quickly.

You'd probably stone both of them and the dad would have one less son and apparently one less wife and the church would have dealt with it if they were in the Old Testament. But you can see they weren't sure what to do with it and so they did nothing, which was also bad. But Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus because they're dealing with, they're just like Corinth, they're a trading center. People are coming from inland to bring goods in, a down river, and then people are coming in from the Mediterranean Sea to bring goods in to go in river. All of that is multicultural diversity garbage that as it turns out we just get over the internet now instead of through trading centers or the news media, right? But those things are coming together and Paul wants them to have wisdom.

Now what's wisdom? God's wisdom. Okay, God's wisdom. But how do we want to define the word wisdom? I don't have a working definition that's as complicated as thanks. My definition for wisdom is knowledge applied. Truth applied or knowledge and truth applied in a practical way. Correct knowledge. Correct.

And that's why it needs to come from God. It needs to be God's wisdom. And that's why Paul's praying for it. He goes, I want a spirit of wisdom which reflects God's thoughts after him applied as you guys try to do church. As you try to be the living representation of Jesus Christ on the planet. And don't you think that's why he's already gone through all of these things of who they are?

Absolutely. So that he can say the wisdom in Revelation and they understand that it's who they are because of their faith. How do you know it's true? How do you know it's wise? Because it aligns up with what God has revealed through the apostles. So it's very important.

Receiving this letter they would have gotten more wisdom than they had had previously probably. Especially, let's be honest, Ephesians is such a rich book with so much truth about what Christian life looks like as we walk in the Spirit and as we walk together. This is one of my favorite books and I've got it handily. Imagine you don't have it and suddenly you receive it. That would have been a rich thing.

So the spirit of wisdom looks like the body coming together and the Holy Spirit directing their thoughts and directing their lives in a way that reflects God's thoughts after him, as they interacted with one another. And then he says, may God give you a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him. And this, this is one we're maybe more familiar with, although maybe not with this wording.

When we read 2 Peter 3.18, how does Peter close the second letter? Growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus. This is the same idea, that you grow in these things. But he's saying in Revelation, and now we hear Revelation, and of course today with the charismatic movement being prominent, we go, oh sweet!

I want a special revelation of Jesus. That's not what he's talking about here. This was for the church. Again, they did not have the whole New Testament, and he was praying for them to fully understand through revelation, through the Holy Spirit opening their eyes, what was true of them in Christ. Now again, this letter that we have, this epistle, is going to reveal things about who they are in Christ that in a few places are only in the book that we have to the Ephesians. So they're going to get special revelation already through Paul. This is not for us to look for some new extended definition as we are today, 2,000 years later, learning about who we are in Christ. This is not the Holy Spirit coming to you.

Listen, I grew up in the Charismatic Church through my teen years, and I can tell you right now that most of the garbage that I heard during that time, and when I say garbage, not everything that was said to me was garbage. There were things that were said that were very woo-woo. That's a technical term. I still have yet to figure out what the guy meant when he prophesied over me that I would have broad shoulders. I don't know what that means.

But the idea here, when we see the idea of revelation, it's for this church at the time when God is establishing the foundation of the church, before the whole New Testament is written, and their understanding needs to be in the growth of who they are in Christ. And so that's what he means with this idea of the spirit of revelation.

So we're just about out of time here. But in conclusion, we're halfway through Paul's prayer. Like I said, Bob gets to finish this up next week. And we see he's packed a lot in there. We see why he's praying. We see who he's praying to. And we also see a little bit of what the church in Ephesus needed. We're going to find out a lot more what the church in Ephesus needed as we continue to study through the book, as Paul tells them what they needed to hear. Paul was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write the words in this letter and that revealed some of the need that the Church of Ephesus had. They needed to know about being the bride. They also needed to know about love. Do you remember what is said in Revelation about the Church in Ephesus? What did they forget?

First love. And what we see in chapter 3, and this is why I want to teach it because I think it's so awesome. What we see in 14 through the end of the chapter is this depth of love and a width of love and a height of love and a breadth of love. It uses all four dimensional terms all together that the church needs to grow and learn in together. And yet by the time the book of Revelation is written, they have forgotten. Because all that geometry was rooted in the love of Christ. So the church needed that and it turns out they still needed it by the time the book of Revelation was written.

They were being bombarded with all the paganism and Ephesus was just a hotbed. It was a tough place. It was really a tough place. But as it turns out, that's not just for Ephesus. We need that too. It turns out God knew that we would need the same life. And he preserved it. And we also need a spirit of wisdom. If you look at the culture around us today, the stuff that's being promoted as being okay is the same stuff that is being promoted as okay then. If we had a time of reprieve, that's a blessing. The Adam nature never changes. That's right. And so we need that same wisdom and we still need to understand the revelation of who Christ is. Just the same today.

So that we're not drawn away from the Father of Glory. And so I've got the last few questions here. What can we do to combat these things that would pull us away? I think the obvious answer to that is to be praying and to be together and encouraging one another and teaching one another. And who can we be praying for and how often? I think we've answered that already. We can be praying for one another.

And the other churches, even the churches that we don't know about that are around the world. We don't have an address we can send stuff to. I guarantee you there's a church or two in Iran and Iraq that would probably really love it if we would pray for them. And all the other places.

So, let's close in prayer. Then we have the excitement of continuing next week. It's like the old Batman show. Same bat channel, right? Heavenly Father, we ask that you would be focusing our hearts and minds on things above throughout the rest of the week as we await your return. We do pray that you would prompt us regularly to be in communication through prayer with you, praying for one another. Lord, we just thank you that we can understand more deeply who you are and the attributes as a glorious father. And we just thank you and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.