Preached in Markham Baptist Church, October 2, 2005

BECOME WHAT YOU ARE! PART 3: OPEN THE EYES OF OUR HEARTS

Who would you say was the greatest enemy of the ancient Israelites? The Ammorites, the Philistines, the Cannanites, the Edomites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians? All of them were terrifying enemies of the Israelites. But early in their history the greatest enemy to the Israelites were none of these great armies. It was instead that awful, ruthless enemy called complacency. After the Israelites were rescued from Egypt by God’s mighty hand and they were brought to the mountain of the Lord called Horeb and they received all these great promises from God about possessing a land flowing with milk and honey. The promise that no enemy could stand in their way. What did they do? They pitched their tents and had a picnic. All the land that God had promised them was theirs and instead of possessing it they fell under the rule of their greatest enemy and settled for the “dictatorship of the customary, the psychology of the usual.”¹

Until finally God had to say to them, “you have stayed here long enough, it’s time for you to move on.”

And if we were to bring Israel’s experience into perspective for our day we see that the mountain represents a spiritual experience, a spiritual state of affairs. The people had all the land God had promised them but they failed to possess it. They had become satisfied with going around in circles and camping in nice comfortable places and it kept them from the riches that God had promised them. “They had reached the place where what has been determines what is, and what is determines what will be.”²

Last week we learned that those who are in Christ have been blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing. You are the richest people in the world. There are many who think that Bill Gates is the richest person in the world. There are others who think that Warren Buffet is the richest person in the world. But in reality, you are the richest person in the world! Your riches in Christ are so great that they make Bill Gates look absolutely impoverished – 46 billion? You call that wealth? It is a mere trifle compared to what is yours in Christ. You have been chosen, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, lavished with grace, been let in on God’s plan for the world, AND been given the Holy Spirit, marking you as a believer and as a deposit for guaranteeing your inheritance.

We are richly blessed with eternal riches that will neither rust nor rot. We have been given everything we need to live the Christian life. And it is all yours without cost to you - it cost Jesus Christ His life but it cost you nothing and it is all yours.

The question for this morning is - do you possess these riches? Have you claimed them for your own? Perhaps you haven’t. Perhaps like the Israelites long ago, you have settled for an experience of God you had last summer, perhaps an experience of God that happened two years ago. Perhaps your understanding of God is no fresher than your baptism all those years ago. “Yes, that was the time when I experienced God. I knew I had been cleansed of all of my sin and that He was my redeemer.”

Is that where you have rested? While that is a wonderful understanding to have and very needful, is that as far as you have got? Have you not moved on to that which is deeper, all that is richer, all the spiritual blessings He has for you? Maybe, you feel spiritually poor and like the Israelites you have made your spiritual camp comfortable and not moved further.

This morning we are going to learn a prayer together that is for you and for me. It is a prayer that will help move us out of complacency and possess all that God has for us. As we open our study this morning we discover Paul being moved from praise to prayer. Verse 15 and 16: “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”

For this reason – this takes us back to the first number of verses of chapter one. Because of all the riches that God has given to those who are in Christ, I am so thankful that those riches now belong to you, to Ephesian Christians and to all those who are in Christ. We know that the Ephesian faith is real because they demonstrate it through their faith in Christ and their love for other Christians, for all the saints.

And Paul continues, verse 17: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.”

That’s how the NIV reads. The word “Spirit” is capitalized, but it shouldn’t be. The NRSV is closer to the Greek, it translates, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom.”

You see, we already have the Holy Spirit - we discovered that last week in verse 13 and 14. What Paul is praying is that we would have the disposition of wisdom. It’s like Jesus saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. That is, blessed are those who have the disposition of spiritual poverty because then it is possible for them to recognize their need for God.

I think the NIV is trying to do some homework for us. The NIV has capitalized the word Spirit because they are trying to help us understand that wisdom and revelation come from the Holy Spirit. So we read in Isaiah 11:2 of the Spirit at work in the life of God’s chosen one: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding. The Spirit of counsel and of power.” So we pray for a disposition of wisdom and revelation which is given to us by the Holy Spirit.

But isn’t that a wonderful prayer? That you may have a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. It is the prayer of a pastor for his congregation. It is the prayer of a Sunday School teacher for her class; it is the prayer of the CORE group leader for their CORE group; it is the prayer of a parent for his child; it is the prayer of a Christian for her fellow Christian. If you have ever wondered how to pray for others and are at a loss for how to pray for fellow Christians, turn to this passage and pray it out loud.

It is a prayer for everyone of us, it is a prayer we should pray for others, it is prayer we should pray for ourselves. O Lord, give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation that I may know you better!

Do you know that famous line from Oliver Twist? “Please sir, I want some more.”

And more is not always better, a second helping can sometimes spoil the first. Have you ever been to a buffet and eaten so much that you felt sick? Sometimes more is not always better and knowing when to say “enough” is a healthy discipline. But when it comes to our relationship with God, my friends, more is always better. None of us can have too much grace, none of us can ever learn too much about the majestic magnificence of Christ, none of us who have tasted the goodness of God can say that we have had enough it.

There is so much more, and the prayer we need to offer for one another, for ourselves is, “Please God, we want some more, help me to know you better. Grant me a spirit of wisdom and revelation.”

It is the prayer that awakens us out of our spiritual complacency. That enables us to break out of the idea that what was determining what is and what is determining what will be.

Look at the substance of this prayer. The prayer we pray does not need to end there. Let us go further – verse 18: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. In our day the heart has become the symbolic place for our emotions. But in the New Testament times, the heart was the symbolic place for knowledge, understanding and thinking and wisdom. When they talked about emotions, especially in the Old Testament, they didn’t talk about the heart, they talked about the bowels. Aren’t you glad that got changed in our day? It would ruin Valentine’s Day for me, if the symbol was bowels!

No, he’s not talking about emotions, he is talking about our understanding. May the eyes of your understanding be opened. May we spiritually perceive all that is ours in Christ.

There was a group of people living at the time of Jesus called the Pharisees. They were religious leaders of the day and they saw Jesus work miracles. They saw Jesus perform acts of kindness and compassion; they heard the very words of Jesus; they saw Jesus rise the dead! But they failed to believe in Jesus, and so Jesus says of them, “They see, but they don’t really see. They hear, but they don’t really hear or understand.” What they saw was what they wanted to see.

That’s what Paul is praying, that’s what we need to pray for ourselves. O Lord help us to see with the spiritual set of eyes that is within us. Sometimes this world is so easy to see, because it is what we can see, touch and feel. And yet there is another world that we need to be aware of – it is the spiritual world. And this world is far more real, for more enduring, far superior to the material world and we neglect it to our peril. WE need spiritual eyes to perceive it.

In the Old Testament there is a story about Elisha. (2 Kings 6). He is being chased by they army of the king of Aram who wants him dead. Elisha is living in the city of Dothan. And this great army lays siege to the city. And the servant of Elisha is terrified and asks with a fearful voice, “What shall we do?” Elisha is a man of God, a man of peace, and Elisha prays a prayer for his servant, which is essentially the words of this text, “O Lord open the eyes of my servant that he may see.” And what does the servant see? He sees all around that mighty army there is a greater army, a spiritual army, God’s armed forces. Elisha had seen them all the time so that he was able to say, “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” (2 Kings 6:16)

O Lord, open the eyes of our heart. That is what Paul is praying, and that is what we need to pray. O Lord help us to see the spiritual realities that are all around us. And it is a prayer that we need to act on. You know when we pray this prayer or we sing this beautiful chorus, “Open the eyes of our heart, Lord, open the eyes of my heart, we want to see you.” But then if you leave this place and for six days a week never open your Bible, never fall on your knees to God in prayer, I can tell you that the eyes of your heart will never be opened. God uses means to open the eyes of our heart and the means He uses is His Word, prayer, fellowship with other Christians, worship. We need to use the means by which He can open the eyes of our heart.

Understand that that prayer “open the eyes of my heart” is most often answered by God as we take the practical steps of taking time to be with God.

What awaits us as we take those steps and pray that prayer? The rest of verse 18: “That the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know” – notice he doesn’t say feel – “but that you may know the hope to which he has called you.”

O, that we would have the spiritual eyes to see the hope to which we have been called.

God has called us not to denial – we see the world in need and we see the hurt of this world and we do not deny it but respond with the grace of God.

Nor has God called us to despair. H.G. Wells who wrote War of the Worlds and The Time Machine once said, “Man who began in a cave behind a windbreak will end up in a disease soaked ruins of a slum.” ³ Wouldn’t he be fun at parties?? That’s how many people feel today.

But not the Christian. The problem with H.G. Wells was he didn’t know where man began and he didn’t know where man’s headed. We didn’t begin in a cave. We began in the mind of God. “Chosen in Christ before the creation of the world,” He created us in His image! And we’re not going to end up in a disease soaked ruins of a slum. Those who come to Jesus Christ are going to end up in eternity with God in glory! That’s the hope that is ours.

And this is not wishful thinking - it is founded upon the reality of a risen Saviour and a reigning Lord and the truth of his Word. It is a sure and certain hope.

This encourages us to break out of the ordinary, it encourages us to break out of the customary, the routine. We do not need to fear the unknown. As we realize the hope that is ours in Christ we are child of God, an heir of the kingdom of God. Doesn’t that take away fear?

Yes, we weep for this world; yes, we love this world and seek to bring the good news of Christ to it in word and deed, but we do so because we have a living hope that death is not the end but there is life - life everlasting through faith in Christ.

But more - may the eyes of our heart be opened to the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.” This is the truth that we spoke of last week. We are rich! Warren Weirsbe tells the story of the late newspaper publisher, William Randolph Hearst, who invested a fortune collecting art treasures from around the world. One day Mr. Hearst found a description of some valuable items that he felt he must own, so he sent his agent abroad to find them. After months of searching the agent reported that he had finally found the treasures. They were in Mr. Hearst’s warehouse. Hearst had been searching frantically for treasures he always owned! Had he read the catalogue of his treasures, he would have saved himself a great deal of money and trouble. ⁴

Open the eyes of our heart that we may see the spiritual wealth that is ours, and look what the text says, “the riches of HIS glorious inheritance.” As I said last week, we are God’s inheritance. You are of immense worth because you make God rich. There is a lot in life that doesn’t make us feel very valuable. But God looks at you and says, “it’s not true!” You are a rich and glorious inheritance to God. That’s who you are.

The last truth we need to grasp is that we have at our disposal incomparable great power. That’s what he says in verse 19. O, how often we forget that we have this great power available to us. We often think we don’t have the power to forgive those who hurt me. I can’t do it. Or we think we don’t have the power to walk through the death of a loved one. We are sure we are going to swallowed up by grief. Or we think we don’t have the power to stand up for Christ in the midst of a hostile world. We don’t have the power to make it through a difficult situation.

And Scripture says in verse 19 you do have the power available to you. What is that power like? The verse continues - it is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead - it is death-defying power. Do you know any power like it? We know power that can jet a crew into space. We know power that blow up a nation, but we know no power that can bring the dead to life. It is the greatest power in the world. And that’s the power that is available to you.

So when we are hurt we can forgive because we have been forgiven by the one who reigns forever. So when we go through the valley of the shadow of death we do have the power to walk through it because we know the one who has defeated death. And when we need power to stand for Christ in a hostile world, we can do it because we know the one who has overcome the world.

We need to realize that this power is in Christ. Verse 21: “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”

So, name any power you like - the power of a nation, the power of the dollar, the power of free speech, the power of the pen, the power of a dictatorship, the power of death, the power of the majority, the power of Satan himself and God has placed Jesus Christ above all those powers. And has given to you His incomparably great power.

I’ll look at verse 22 and 23 next week, but for now isn’t that a wonderful prayer? O that we would pray it – for it is sure cure for complacency. We fall too easily into the trap of allowing what has been to determine what is and what is to determine what will be.

And God breaks in and says I have given you every spiritual blessing in Christ – don’t settle for spiritually camping in an experience of God that is years old. Move on. There is so much more of God to experience, so much more for you to possess, so much more of His grace to taste, so much more of His power to be at work in your life and through your life.

Truly everything Jesus Christ did for us, we can have in this age. Victorious living, hopeful living without fear, holy living, fruitful living - all of this is ours. Power we never knew before, the ability to live this Christian life and make a difference in this world – this is ours if we will but take it!

ENDNOTES:

A.W. Tozer, Rut, Rot or Revival, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: Christian Publications, 1992, page 6.
Ibid page 6.
Quoted in a sermon by Tom Holladay in a sermon delivered November 2, 1994, Purpose Driven Publishing. Copyright 2004.
Warren Wiersbe Be Rich, Wheaton Illinois: Victor Books, 1980, page 30.