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PAUL BREAKS-OUT INTO PRAYER!

One of the stories coming out of Iraq is that of a rescue mission that took place long before the United States, Britain, and a few other nations took it upon themselves to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. As reporters have pieced the story together, it appears that a child, who at the time was living in Iowa, was kidnapped, taken to Baghdad, and sold into slavery.

It took the parents, with the help of the FBI, well over a year to ascertain that their son, along with a few other boys, was shipped to Baghdad as cargo. He was then put on the open market, literally, and sold into slavery. The parents, devastated and broken, tried to negotiate with the embassy for their child’s release. But they were met with endless red tape and dishonest bureaucrats who refused to even admit the existence of child slave labor in their country.

After two years of frustration they were no closer to gaining their son’s release than when they first tackled the bureaucratic system. Finally, they conceived the most daring of plans. They planned to sneak into Iraq disguised as traditional muslims, they would stay as long as necessary to locate the whereabouts of their son, and then they would pay whatever they needed to buy him back.
The plan was bold, and as you can imagine, very dangerous. If their neighbors had known of it, they would have classified it first as preposterous, second as idiotic, and then when they realized the parents were really serious, as doomed. But the parents had to try it and, as reporters are discovering, they can now tell the world of how these courageous parents rescued their own son.

And, what about the son? Do you think he will ever doubt that he is loved? Do you think he will ever doubt that he is wanted in the deepest way? Of course not, for here was a young boy who was sought after, found, and bought back at great personal cost to his parents.

If you do not recognize the gospel in that story, if you do not see yourself as the one who was kidnapped and sold into slavery, then the old old story has lost its power as well as its appeal. Somehow, for whatever reasons, the story of God’s rescue operation has lost its edge.

On a practical note what this means is that the story of God’s love for us doesn’t shape our self-image with nearly the same force as our most devastating moments in childhood. And that’s a shame for if we are ever going to become ourselves, if we are ever going to be set free from past injuries, then we need to be given a radically different view of ourselves. We need to see that we are worth a great deal to someone, and that someone turns out to be the Father of all glory. Of course, that is not going to happen unless we see afresh the power and wonder of the old old story.

This loss of the story’s power, this loss of its appeal, was what concerned Paul as he wrote the Ephesians. So for the sake of the real story, and because he knew they were genuine believers, he remembered them in his prayer life. In vv. 15 - 23 of Ephesians 1, we read:
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 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. 18 I pray also 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, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 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. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fulness of him who fills everything in every way.

You will note that Paul began with the words “For this reason,” words that look back at God’s saving grace. This includes; being chosen, being made whole, being predestined to be like his son, being redeemed, being forgiven of our sins, being set free, being included in his work, and being sealed by the Holy Spirit. “For this reason,” in light of these realities, Paul prayed for the Ephesians. He prayed that they would fully understand, that they would really appreciate, that they would know not only with their minds but with their hearts, what God had done for them.

What makes this interesting is that Paul had just spelled it all out for them. As with all his letters, he had laid the truth out before them. In this case, in Ephesians, in one well-written sentence he had covered from beginning to end all of what anybody really needs to know about history. He had put God’s story, His story, in plain Greek. He then prayed for them as if he had not spelled it out for them. Or perhaps, his prayers prompted him to write a letter to them.

So what’s the point? The point is that teaching truth is never enough, no matter how well it is presented. We who teach, can teach until others are able to pass an exam with flying colors, but that is never the point of the lesson. For truth to take, for instruction to bear fruit, it must grip us. It must change us in some manner. If must affect not only our own life, but those around us. It must fill our hearts as well as our minds; it is for this reason that Paul prayed for the saints. After all, even truth, when not well understood, can be dull, so Paul prayed that their hearts might be stirred by a deeper understanding of it. He didn’t take it for granted that it would happen. He knew it wasn’t something that happened automatically.

The second thing to take note of is how he described the saints, or rather how he knew they were believers. He knew they were believers for he had heard about their “faith in the Lord Jesus and (their) love for all the saints.” As to hearing about their faith, I take this to mean that he had received reports back that they were no longer walking in the ways of Ephesus. That is, they were no longer involved in the local cult, no longer engaged with the temple prostitutes, and were no longer spending their hard-earned money on trinkets that supported sorcery.

As to their love, well, they loved all the saints. ALL the saints? Yes, that’s what Scripture says about the Ephesian believers. Now, if you’re like me you’re wishing that Paul hadn’t described them in that manner. I mean, I find that some saints are easier to love than others. For whatever reason, I just find some of them are easy to get along with and even when they do mess up I discover that I’m quick to overlook their offense or forgive it. I guess it’s because I just naturally like them. I’d like them even if they weren’t saints.
Others, well loving them is going to take more in me than is naturally within me. With them, the Holy Spirit is going to have to remind me that they too are members of God’s family, that I probably rub them the wrong way just as they rub me the wrong way, that they give me opportunity to practice I Corinthians 13, and that for some good reason God, who doesn’t seem inclined to pamper me, has placed these “people of the sandpaper” in my life.

The third thing to take note of is that Paul directs his prayer to “the glorious Father” or as some translations put it, “the Father of glory.” All of us have undoubtedly attended some glorious weddings followed by an equally glorious reception. The vows, though not really heard by those it is aimed at, are worth hearing again, or for the very first time. The radiant bride is beautifully decked out in her wedding gown and the bridegroom looks great in his tux. Then, at the reception there is often a scrumptious spread of food to be followed by an appropriately decorated cake that stands three, four, or five tiers tall. And, of course, everyone is in a festive mood.
All of this, the wedding and the reception, is normally at the expense of the father of the bride. He, in a very real sense, is the father of the present glory. He is the one paying the bills. He is the one who produced the glory of the occasion. And yet, he is usually the one standing off to one side while the happy couple takes center stage. At the reception, in order to thank him, we may have to put down our fork and seek him out.

This is the idea conveyed by the title, “the glorious Father.” When we pray to “the Father of glory” about fully understanding the truth with all wisdom we’re asking him to glorify the truth within us. We’re asking him to make it vivid, to make it come alive in our hearts, to let it have real weight in our lives. We’re asking him to reveal himself to us. We’re asking that the eyes of our heart, our whole soul, be enlightened that we may know him better.

Now somewhere between verses seventeen and eighteen a change in Paul took place. Up to verse eighteen (v. 18) he had been telling the Ephesians what he had been up to in regards to them. He told them why he had been and how he had been praying for them. But, beginning with the eighteenth verse he shifted from talking about his prayers for them to actually praying for them.
In doing so, he prayed that the recipients of the letter, which now includes us, would know:
– the nature and value of the hope which we are now authorized, by the call of God, to bank on day-in and day-out.
– that we are God’s glorious possession, that we are His inheritance.
OR
– the inheritance that God intends to bestow on us as co-heirs with Christ.
– the immeasurable greatness of his power in those who believe in Him.
The blessed hope is that you and I will one day be transformed to be like Him. In fact, God is already at work within us and within the world to bring about the fulfillment of our hope even though it is sometimes very dark at the foot of the lighthouse. But that is exactly when we need hope, when it is dark, for hope is the belief that the Father of all glory is working out everything for our good. It is the belief that as citizens of the heavenly realms we, in fact, have a bright future.

The inheritance of which Paul speaks is not our inheritance, but it is God’s and it is we who are God’s inheritance. It is hard to imagine but we are the richness of God’s kingdom. To God, we are like a child’s rag doll or teddy bear that, for whatever reasons, is a treasured possession. We may be dirty and threadbare but, in Christ, we are more precious than gold.

OR, for verse eighteen could be interpreted either way, it is the inheritance that God has laid up for us as co-heirs of Christ. It is the inheritance that will never fade, never rust, and is never in jeopardy of being stolen for it is kept in heaven for us. We know, for example, that a place is being prepared for us. What this place is like is probably beyond our wildest imagination. Nevertheless, Scripture does not discourage us from anticipating with joy and gratitude what God wishes to bestow upon his children.

And the power that is within us, is the power of the resurrection. It is the power that can overcome any and every obstacle. The Greek word for “power” gives us a picture of throwing an object over a barrier. It is power that goes far beyond any problem, change, or barrier that confronts us. That same Greek word gives us our English word “dynamite.” This explosive power of God is at work within us enabling us to rightly handle any and every circumstance.

This same power which is at work within us motivates us and gives us the energy to live for God in a mighty way. And when Paul lacked words to describe it, he told how God demonstrated this wonder-working power to the world by not only raising Jesus Christ from the dead but in lifting him up above anyone and everyone, on earth and in heaven, and seating Him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.

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