========================================================================
  (EPHESIANS) THE HOPE OF HIS CALLING
  by Brian Brodersen
========================================================================

Summary: The sermon emphasizes the importance of knowing God better
through prayer, meditation, and the work of the Holy Spirit, and
encourages believers to live each day with the hope of their future
glory and inheritance in mind.

Duration: 49:16 Topics: "Gods Power", "Christian Hope"
Scripture References: Matthew 6:33, Ephesians 1:3-15, Ephesians 1:17-20, Ephesians 1:22-23

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the need for individuals to
experience the reality of God's revelation. While nature reveals the
existence and power of God, it is not sufficient to truly know Him. The
word of God provides a more complete understanding of God's character,
including His power and His love. The speaker highlights the
resurrection of Christ as the greatest demonstration of God's power,
surpassing even the creation of the universe. The sermon concludes with
the assurance that God's power is always present and faithful,
especially in times of weakness.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 1. Now as Paul began this epistle, after
his brief introduction, he then went on to give sort of an overview of
the blessings. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Now Paul didn't list
every spiritual blessing, but he did list a number of them.

And in verses 3 through 14, we studied those blessings that Paul did
mention. The blessing of election, the blessing of adoption, the
blessing of acceptance, the blessing of redemption, the blessing of
forgiveness, the blessing of illumination, and then finally the blessing
of assurance. And so after giving us an overview of what he meant by God
blessing us with every spiritual blessing, he then immediately goes into
prayer, praying for his readers that they might now be able to
comprehend everything that he's been communicating to them, that they
would have divine insight into these things.

And boy, we need that. We need the Spirit of God to come upon us and to
bring these things home to us, to make them real in our own personal
experience. And so Paul in verse 15, he says, therefore, I also after I
heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and of your love for all the
saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my
prayers.

We find this frequently in Paul's epistles. He was not only an apostle
and a prophet and evangelist, a pastor, teacher, church planter. He was
also a man of prayer and he was constantly in prayer.

You know, Paul would travel from place to place and sometimes he would
travel by foot. Sometimes he would travel by ship, but he spent a lot of
time on the road traveling. But it wasn't wasted time as he was
traveling.

He would meditate on the scriptures, but it's obvious that he would also
spend a lot of time praying for those that he had been ministering to,
those that he had been able to lead to Christ, those that. Were part of
new churches that had been planted, Paul must have had a prayer list a
mile long and he would just spend his time praying for the people as he
would journey from place to place. You know, sometimes I think we get
into a mindset.

That we can only pray under certain circumstances or at certain times or
in certain locations, and we really miss out on a lot when we get caught
up in that mentality. You know, I've had times before where, you know,
you're not consciously doing it, but it just happens. I've had times
where I'm driving down the road and I'm burdened and I've got a lot on
my mind and I'm thinking about a number of things.

And in my mind, I'm thinking, you know, when I get to my prayer time
tonight, I'm really going to pray about all this stuff. You know, I'm
going to tell the Lord all these things and then it'll dawn on me. Wait
a second.

Why don't I just tell him right now? You know, he's not going to be any
more attentive to me this evening when I'm, you know, in my room or in
my office or whatever than he is going to be right now when I'm driving
down the road. And I think as God's people, if we got that understanding
that we can pray any time, any place, all the time, it doesn't matter.
We can take whatever we're doing and we can turn it into a prayer time.

Case in point, yesterday I went out for a surf and haven't surfed in
quite a while. Haven't done anything, you know, by way of physical
exercise. I've just been busy with so many other things.

And, you know, sometimes you just get to that point where you feel like
I've got to do something. I've got to get my blood circulating. I've got
to get some fresh air.

And, you know, I wanted to just get out and do something. But yet
there's so many things going on and so many things pressing. And I
didn't really have a good prayer time in the morning yet.

But, you know, I went down and got down to the beach. And as I was
paddling out, I just said, Lord, I want this to be not just a good time
for me physically, but Lord, I want it to be a good time spiritually. I
want to commune with you while I'm out here.

And, of course, Lord, if there's someone out here that you'd like me to
share the gospel with, then I'd love to do that, too. But the Lord just
really blessed the time. And I found that, you know, I got some good
waves.

I had fun, but I had a lot of time where I was just sitting out by
myself with the dolphins and the seagulls. And I was able to pray around
the globe because it was my day for praying for missions. And so I
picked up on prayer in Europe and in the couple of hours that I served,
I was able to go around the whole globe in prayer.

And, you know, it was one of those times where when I finished my surf
session, I walked away feeling like, you know, I did not just waste
time. The time was redeemed. It was a good time and we can do that.

It doesn't have to be at the designated prayer meeting, although prayer
meetings are great. It doesn't have to be. You know, that particular
place where, you know, I've got to pray.

We can pray anywhere and everywhere. And that's the example that the
apostle Paul left with us because he said, I make mention of you in my
prayers. And he said that to every one of the churches that he wrote to.

And so we know that a lot of that prayer took place while he was on his
journey. Now, he said to them in verse 15, he said that he had heard of
their faith in the Lord Jesus and of their love for all the saints.
Faith and love, love is really the outworking of faith.

Paul, in writing to Timothy, he said the end of the commandment, the
purpose of it, the goal of the commandment of God is love from a pure
heart and genuine faith. And so here, Paul, he mentions how their faith
had manifested itself in love. It was their faith in the Lord Jesus that
worked itself out in their love for all the saints.

Now he goes on and he basically tells them what he's been praying for
them. And it's interesting when we look at Paul's prayers, Paul rarely
prayed for the things that loom so large in our prayers, things like
better health or more money or a job situation or a family problems or
the world crisis, whatever it might be at the particular time. He rarely
prayed for those kinds of things.

Paul prayed primarily that people might know God better. As you look at
his prayers, that's really the gist of each and every one of his prayers
that we have recorded, that they might know God better, that they might
become better acquainted with Jesus. Paul's answer to life's problems
was really quite simple.

He said, get to know God better, and I think that's the best advice that
could have ever been given. Getting to know God better. So many of the
things that trouble us, so many of the difficulties we experience, so
many of the things that send us off to a counselor or something like
that could be.

Resolved if we really just spent time getting to know the Lord better,
and that's what Paul's prayer life was all about, praying for the people
that he knew that they would get to know God in a better way. You know,
sometimes we struggle in prayer because we don't know what to pray for.
You know, somebody comes to me and says, I've got this problem in my
life, could you pray that it'll go away? And, you know, I can understand
the desire for the problem to go away, but I don't know for sure that
God really wants the thing to go away because maybe he's using it to
teach him something.

So, you know, we struggle with that even for the current situation that
we have going on nationally speaking, I struggle a little bit of my
prayer about this because on the one hand, I want to see justice and I
want to see us as a nation. I want to see us be victorious in all of
that. And I want this to end as swiftly as possible.

But then on the other hand, I realize that we are a wicked nation. We're
a proud nation. We're a rebellious nation.

We're a nation that needs chastisement. And I think, well, you know, if
I just pray that this will all go away real quickly, is that going to be
beneficial for us nationally? Spiritually speaking, is that going to
result in us turning back to God as a nation? So, you know, we have that
dilemma sometimes when we're praying. And really.

It comes down to praying for the will of God, God, we want your will to
be done and we know on a personal level that God's will is that people
know him. And we know on a personal level for people who know God, that
God's will is that we know him better because that's the best thing in
all the world. That's the solution to every difficulty we face, getting
to know the Lord, knowing him better all the time.

And as I said, that's really the gist of Paul's prayer here in Ephesians
chapter one. There's another prayer in the third chapter of Ephesians
that's different in content, but yet the gist of it is very similar in
Philippians chapter one. We have a similar sort of a prayer in
Colossians chapter one.

We have a similar sort of prayer. We see over and over again these
prayers of the apostle that the gist of those prayers was that we would
come to know God in a greater way. And so let's look at the prayer
itself here.

Verse 17, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory.
May give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of
him. So this is where Paul starts with this prayer.

Remember, he's already told him about all of these blessings, the great
things that the father has done, the son has done, the spirit has done.
And now he says, father. Father, give.

Give the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of yourself to
these your people, God, break through and drive these points home, let
them experience the reality of what I've been telling them about. That's
what Paul's really crying out for right here, that they would be granted
the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. We cannot
know God unless God revealed himself and thank God he has revealed
himself.

He's revealed himself. Through nature, but that revelation is not
complete or sufficient. The revelation through nature tells me there is
a God and that he is powerful, but I need to know more than that.

So God has revealed himself through his word. And the word of God tells
me that God. Is that he is powerful, but it also tells me that he's
loving, he's compassionate.

It it tells me that he's merciful, it tells me that he's just. It tells
me that he's holy and it also tells me how I'm supposed to live in light
of who he is and it tells me all that he's done. And then we have one
further revelation from God, and that is in the incarnation.

Jesus Christ himself came. And when men had received the written
revelation of God, some of them misunderstood it, some of them
misinterpreted it, and then the Lord came, the word became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the
father, full of grace and truth. And so that revelation.

Has come to us through the word, both the written word and the incarnate
word. Jesus, but now the things that God has declared and the things
that God has done for us, these things need to be brought home to us in
a fresh, personal, experiential manner through the work of the Holy
Spirit. And that's what the Holy Spirit does.

Jesus said the spirit will take that which is mine and he will give it
to you. And that's what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit takes the
word of God and takes the person of Christ and he brings these things to
us and he makes these things a reality to us.

He breaks through our dullness, he breaks through our sinful callousness
and he comes and he meets us and he reveals. The Lord to us, and so we
experience what Paul requested that we would experience that spirit of
wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him, the eyes of your
understanding being enlightened. The eyes of your understanding being
enlightened, the word translated understanding is actually heart.

It's the Greek word we translate heart normally. The eyes of your heart,
isn't that interesting that you have eyes in your heart, did you know
that? We can see with our eyes physically. We can see with the eyes of
our mind.

But that deepest sort of. Seeing that deepest revelation comes in the
realm of the heart, and when the Bible speaks of the heart, it's
speaking of the innermost. Depth of the human soul.

So Paul is praying that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened, that
in the innermost depth of our human soul, we might have enlightenment,
that we might have that illumination come upon us. Now, I'll tell you,
if you want to know how to pray for me, this prayer will be just fine.
And I'll be happy to pray this prayer for you as well.

This is a great prayer and this is the kind of stuff we need. This is I
need the eyes of my heart to be enlightened so that when I come to the
word of God, it's not merely words on a page. But it's an encounter with
the Lord himself.

You know, many times as we come to the word, it is unfortunately like
words on a page. We read a chapter or two and, you know, we finish up
and we walk away. And sometimes we then think to ourselves, what did I
read? That is because we're dull of heart.

It's just part of our condition as human beings. It's not anything that
we can necessarily change ourselves, but it can be changed through
prayer. And that's what Paul's asking for here, so that when we approach
the things of God and the things of the spirit, rather than that
dullness sort of blocking the glory of God.

There's an illumination, an enlightenment that takes place and we break
through that veil and we enter in and have that just that encounter with
the Lord. That is what we all long for, isn't it? I want to have that.
And Paul encourages that we pray, he's praying about it, and at the same
time, he's leaving us an example of how we can pray for each other.

And this is a great way to pray. And now he gets into the specifics. So
he says that we need the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the
knowledge of him, that the eyes of our understanding being enlightened,
that we may now listen.

Here's where he's going to get right down to the specifics. There are
certain things that Paul really wants us to know. And the great thing
about this prayer is to remember that it wasn't merely the prayer of a
man, but it was the prayer of an inspired man.

You see, when I read the prayers in the Bible, the thing that excites me
about them is that I know they are part of the inspired revelation of
God. And so what that tells me is that this very prayer right here was
not something that was just the desire of Paul for the Ephesian
Christians, but it's actually the desire of the Holy Spirit for all of
God's people for all of time. So here's the great thing.

You know, sometimes when we're praying, like I mentioned earlier, we get
we get a little bit frustrated because we're not sure about the will of
God. In a particular situation, but here's the great thing, these
prayers right here, everything that's prayed, we can be absolutely
certain that this is God's will. This is what God wants to do.

This is what he's desiring to do. And we know if we ask anything
according to his will, he hears us and we have the petitions that we've
requested from him because we've asked in accordance with his will. So
this is exciting stuff.

I can pray with confidence when I pray this prayer for you. When you're
praying this prayer for me, you can pray with confidence that the Lord
is going to answer this prayer because this is his desire in the first
place. And so here he comes with the specifics.

That you may know what is the hope of his calling, so this is point
number one, this is what the spirit of God wants each one of us to know.
The Lord wants us to know what is the hope of his calling. He wants us
to know, he wants us to have fixed in our minds what it is that he has
in store for us in the future.

He wants us to know that. So we live with that edged in our minds each
and every day, because if I live each and every day with the reality of
eternity edged into my mind. If I live each and every day.

Thinking about what God has in store for me, that is going to motivate
me strongly to live each and every day for his glory and for his
purpose. And so Paul prays that we might know what is the hope of his
calling. What has he called us to? Well, he's already talked about it.

He's called us to. Stand blamelessly before him, he's called us to enter
fully into the inheritance that he's stored up for us, he's called us
into. A parent child relationship with him presently that's going to go
on eternally.

He's called us to be his heirs and joint heirs with Christ. He's called
us to the obtaining of the glory of Jesus Christ, Paul said in writing
to the Thessalonians, that is a phenomenal, phenomenal concept right
there. We've been called to the obtaining of the glory of Jesus Christ
that is inconceivable for us as people, the glory of Jesus Christ.

Remember when Jesus was praying in the 17th chapter of John's gospel, he
said, Father, I pray for these that you've given to me. I pray that they
might be here with me and they might behold the glory that I had with
you before the world was ever created. The glory of Christ.

The glory of Christ is. Something that we could never see in this life
and survive. Paul, in writing to Timothy, you remember he spoke of God
who dwells in the light that no man can approach.

And you remember what happened to Paul. He wrote that out of his own
personal experience when he was on the road to Damascus, there was a
light shining at noonday brighter than the sun. And that was the glory
of Christ shining upon him and bringing him to repentance at that
moment, the glory of Christ, the majesty of Christ that would
occasionally break through that veil of flesh while he was here on
Earth.

That glory that broke through every time he performed a miraculous deed.
That glory that broke through when he was baptized in the heavens were
open and the spirit descended upon him or the glory that broke through
when he was there on the Mount of Transfiguration. And you remember
suddenly his garments were white as snow.

And Peter, James and John, who were with him, they were marveling.
Because what happened is the glory of Christ broke through for just a
brief moment, broke through that flesh that was veiling his glory, but
what was under that flesh is the glorious God. And we, Paul said, have
been called to the obtaining of the glory of Jesus Christ.

When a believer leaves this world, we say this sometimes and this is
absolutely accurate and we ought to say it all the time, we should never
say they died. You know, Pastor Chuck has taught us that, you know,
don't say they died. The scripture never uses that term.

Scripture says that they've fallen asleep. Or we say they passed away.
We have a lot of ways to describe what's happened, but you know what we
really should be saying? They've entered into glory because that's
exactly what they've done.

They've been glorified. And, you know, if we saw it for what it was, it
would be really hard to be sad about it. All that poor brother, he went
to glory, he's glorified.

Let's just sit down a week together about his glorification. He's out of
this sin ridden body, out of this sick, perverse world. Poor fella, you
know, right there in heaven with all the saints.

And, you know, we're just so dense and, you know, I'm right there with
everybody else. I am, too. I remember years ago, someone close died.

And I remember at a point and they were believers and they went right to
be with the Lord. And I remember at a point of the poor person. And, you
know, suddenly I caught myself.

What am I? What am I thinking? This is ridiculous. No, the poor people
are us that are left behind in this miserable, sin laden world. But no,
they've entered into glory.

They've been glorified. They've obtained to the glory of Jesus Christ
and gone into that state that is unimaginable for us here on Earth.
Remember what the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians? Eye has not
seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of a man.

The things that God has prepared for those who love him. We have a taste
of that through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and we have those brief
moments where we have what Paul was praying for us. We have the spirit
of wisdom and revelation that flashes upon us.

We have that illumination that suddenly, you know, oh, we see it. But
those brief experiences. Are what they have entered into fully.

And permanently. And so that's the terminology that we need to use. It's
not even, you know, that they're asleep or that they've passed away.

No, they've entered into glory. And that's where we're all headed. We're
all headed to the obtaining of the glory of Jesus Christ.

The spirit of God wants you to know that the spirit of God wants me to
know that that we may know what is the hope of this calling and then
what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints? What
are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints? Notice
that. It almost sounds like, wait a second, did he get it wrong? I could
understand if Paul wrote and what are the riches of the glory of our
inheritance as saints, I could understand that. But what Paul is
actually saying, at least he seems to be saying.

Is that we are. God's treasure, we are his inheritance, and what he's
actually praying is that we might know what is the riches of the glory
of his inheritance, that we might know this is really what he's getting
at, that we might know how precious we are to God, that we might know
how much God loves us, how much God cherishes us, how much God cares
about us. We're his inheritance.

We're his pride and joy, we're his prized possession, as he said of
Israel of old, we are the apple of his eye. It's really indescribable
what we are to God. And the fact that what we are to God is
indescribable is really incomprehensible that we could be that.

I mean, you know, for us to gain the Lord, I can understand what a
glorious inheritance that is for him to gain us. I don't quite get it.
What's so good about that? But yet to God, there's something.

Obviously, extraordinarily good. There's something so precious that he
was willing to take the most valuable thing in the universe to purchase
it, and that's the blood of his son, Jesus Christ. We were not redeemed
with corruptible things like silver and gold from our vain manner of
life received by tradition from our fathers, but with the precious blood
of Christ.

And so Paul is saying, oh, if you only knew how much God loved you, if
you only knew what a treasure you are to him. Now, some commentators
have actually balked at this interpretation because it just seems so.
Unbelievable.

And actually, Dr. Ironside, in his commentary on Ephesians, he says
emphatically that this verse does not mean that we are God's
inheritance. He just doesn't like it because he can't see it. He was
looking in the mirror saying, no way it's not possible.

But yet I believe that that is indeed what Paul was communicating, and
we have support for it back in the Old Testament, because this is what
God said about Israel over and over again. Israel was the Lord's
inheritance. We likewise are the Lord's inheritance, and so Paul is
saying that you might know what are the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints, how precious we are in the sight of God, how
valuable we are to him.

You know, I meet people all the time. Who haven't been able to lay hold
of the fact that God loves them for one reason or another. You need to
just accept it.

You need to just embrace it, you need to just take the word at face
value. Sure, you can find a million reasons why it shouldn't be so.
There's no question about that.

If God were to count iniquities, who could stand, Solomon said. And it's
true if we sit down and think, well, let me figure out how it is that
God actually loves me so much. And we start doing an evaluation and we.

Start going through and taking a survey of our lives, you know, we're
going to come to the conclusion that it couldn't be possible, really, if
we're honest. But. What we need to do instead is just say, you know, I
don't understand it.

I find it. Incomprehensible that it would be so, but because God's word
says it, so I'm going to just rest in that I'm going to just trust in
that I'm just going to believe it so and I'm going to enjoy it, I'm
going to enjoy God's love for me. And, you know, when you get into a
place where you're just accepting the love of God, you know what it
does? It just liberates you.

It just makes your life so much more pleasant. We so often put ourselves
under all kinds of bondage, we put ourselves under all kinds of guilt
and things because, you know, we put up this thing, it's it's really
works righteousness. We don't necessarily even intend to do it.

But we do it. And it's almost subconscious sometimes where we're just,
you know, we're going along and and in the back of our minds, we're
thinking, OK, I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good.

I'm doing pretty good. OK, God, he loves me. He cares about me.

He's going to bless me. And then, oh, I blew it. Oh, oh, God's angry
with me.

God's going to judge me now. Well, there's no blessing upon my life.
And, you know, it's back there.

It's it's way back there. It's not right out in the forefront, but it's
something that is with us. And it causes us to live under like a burden,
a weight, and it causes us to always be sort of anticipating that
something bad's got to happen.

How many times have you heard this? Maybe you've even said it yourself.
Things are going so good, I'm afraid, you know, people say that to me
all the time. Now, you know, I don't know.

I'm pretty concerned, man. Things have been going good for so long. I
know I can't last.

I know that, you know, boom, you know, something's going to happen.
Well, not necessarily. God is good.

God can bless you and keep on blessing you. Sure, we go through
difficult times, but not all the time. I think some of what we go
through is, as I'm saying, it's sort of self-inflicted.

But just to be free. In knowing that God loves us. Now, somebody might
say, well, OK, since that's the case, God loves me, I guess that means I
can just do anything I want and I don't have to worry about it.

Well, no. You see, if we really are experiencing the love of God, it's
going to impact us to want to do what God wants us to do. Augustine, one
of the early figures in the church, he said something that it sounds a
bit risky at first, but when you think it through, I think he was
absolutely right.

In answer to, you know, how is a Christian to conduct himself or behave
himself or whatever, he said this, he said, love God and do what you
want. Boy, that sounds like a license to just go out and live it up. But
no, if you think about it, notice what he said, love God and then do
what you want.

You see, if you truly love God, you know what you'll do? You'll do what
God wants you to do. It'll be a delight, it'll be your joy and your
pleasure. Jesus said, and of course, he's the example of one who loved
God.

Quotation in Hebrews chapter 10 from Psalm 40. He said, I delight to do
thy will, O God. You see, when you love God, then you're going to
delight to do the will of God.

It's going to be a pleasure, not a chore. So God loves you. God loves
me.

God loves us as his people. We are his treasure. We're precious to him.

Boy, you look at the history of Israel. And you see with Israel, you
really see. The love of God toward the nation of Israel, some people
look at the Old Testament, they say, oh, boy, the Old Testament, man,
that God of the Old Testament, he's scary, he's mean, he's vengeful,
he's full of wrath and judgment.

And some even drew the stupid conclusion that the God of the Old
Testament was different than the God of the New Testament. Early on in
church history, there was a guy named Marcion who came along and he just
completely rejected the God of the Old Testament, said, no, no
connection. And there have been others that have done it in more recent
history.

But, you know, you would have to. Have just a very shallow.
Understanding of the Old Testament to draw that kind of conclusion, if
you read the Old Testament in any in-depth manner, you're going to see
just the opposite of that.

You're going to see a God who is so patient, who is just continually
loving and having mercy on his people, even though they're spurning him.
They're not interested in his covenant or his way of life. They're
constantly rebelling against him and worshiping idols and just doing
everything he told him not to do on a constant basis.

But you find that over and over, God is merciful. He's pleading with
them. He's having grace toward him.

He's being patient. He's bringing him back the moment they even show any
sort of a hint of turning away from their sin. And as you look at God's
long suffering with Israel and at times God crying out to the prophets
saying things like, oh, Israel, how can I let you go? How can I give you
up? That's God.

And. That becomes a picture for us so we can understand what God is
like. And for us under the new covenant.

How much more now we have a better covenant than they had back in the
Old Testament, and if God showed that much patience, that much.
Compassion, that much mercy. I think of King Ahab, you can hardly find a
more wicked guy in the Bible.

Manasseh maybe topped him, but Ahab, you know, he's his name is
synonymous with wickedness. Notorious for being a rebel against God, and
he's continually rejecting the word of God and the prophet of God. And
but yet there's a there's a place.

For the end of his life. Where he finally shows just a little bit of
sensitivity to God, he finally shows a little bit of repentance. The
Lord had pronounced some judgment upon him and Elijah went to him and.

Told him that it was coming and. He responded and he humbled himself and
then the Lord spoke and he said, see how Ahab humbled himself because he
humbled himself. I'm not going to do in his day what I said I was going
to do.

I'll hold it. I'll hold back the judgment. I'll wait till he's gone off
the scene.

And I look at that and I think you got to be kidding me, Lord. The mercy
you showed to this guy, unbelievable, and then look at Manasseh, who I
mentioned a moment ago, Manasseh reigned 52 years as king over Judah.
And it was really because of the sins of Manasseh that Nebuchadnezzar
finally came and conquered.

The southern kingdom of Judah. But after all of these years of
rebelling, setting up idolatry right in Jerusalem, sacrificing children
to Molech and things just unspeakable wickedness. Manasseh is taken and
he's led off in chains.

Into captivity and he repents finally while he's there and God has mercy
on him and he actually brings him back. To Jerusalem and allows him to
reign once again. I mean, that kind of mercy is just, you know, it's
really beyond my comprehension.

But this is my whole point. If God exercise that sort of mercy and
compassion and forgiveness and love and patience in the Old Testament.
Do you think he's any different now? They're not two different gods, one
of the Old Testament, one of the New Testament, the God of the Old
Testament is the God that Paul's writing about here.

He's the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he loves his
people. We are his treasure today.

We are his inheritance. And then he prayed finally. That we might know
what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe.

The exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe. The power of
God. It's been demonstrated in us.

You know, when we come to Christ, a miracle takes place, people say, oh,
there aren't any miracles taking place anymore today. You know what?
Every conversion is a miracle of. Epic proportions, every conversion,
there's a miraculous thing that takes place when a person is converted,
they are resurrected from the dead.

And that power that comes and raises you out of spiritual death is that
same power that God supplies to you to go on into all that he has for
you as his child. You see, God justifies us and he regenerates us. But
then he begins a process of what we call sanctifying us and that same
power that regenerated us, that same power that brought us to life again
is the power that's working in us to sanctify us.

We don't have to live under. The power of sin. We shouldn't be living
under the power of sin.

God has supplied us with all the power we need to live what you would
call a victorious Christian life. A life of walking in the spirit, a
life of obedience, a life of prospering in the spirit, he supplied us
with everything, the same power that was used to regenerate us. It's
with us today to sanctify us, and it's the power.

That raised Jesus Christ from the dead. And. Listen to this quote from
one of the commentators, he said, there was as great a difference
between their present and their former condition as between Christ in
the tomb and Christ at the right hand of God.

That's the difference between where we were and where we are now,
because of that miracle of regeneration that's taken place, that power
of God. The power of God, it's interesting that Paul uses the
resurrection of Christ to describe the greatest demonstration of God's
power ever. When we think about creation.

And we think about God speaking the world into existence, we think about
the vastness of our universe and our galaxy and the billions of stars
and the whole thing. You know, all this whole. Thing we live in called
the universe, this planet we live on called Earth and all of the
demonstrations of power that there might conceivably be in relation to
the created universe and in relation to the creation itself.

You know, whenever there's any sort of cataclysmic event on a natural
level, what is it the result of? It's the result of a demonstration of
some power. A hurricane is a powerful wind, an earthquake is a powerful
jolting of the earth, a volcano is a powerful explosion. And here we
have all these different kinds of demonstrations of power and these
demonstrations of power, I would say, are relatively nothing in
comparison to the power that was used to actually launch the whole
universe to bring it into existence.

But it's amazing to me that Paul doesn't say that you might know what is
the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to
the working of his mighty power, which he exercised at creation. He
says, no, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead.
That's amazing.

God's greatest demonstration of power was not in creation, but it was in
redemption. And that great act of power that brought Jesus Christ up
from the dead is the same power that's brought you into a new life, and
it's the same power that's going to keep you and sanctify you and bring
you ultimately to glory. And God wants you to know that.

That we might know what is the exceeding greatness, greatness of his
power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty
power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and
seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. So God wants us to
know. That he's got all the power we need.

All the power is available to do what he has promised to do, and that is
to save us. And to keep us saved and to get us safe. Into that glorious,
eternal purpose that he has prepared for us.

And that. Is thrilling if that doesn't bless you, if that doesn't
encourage you, if that doesn't thrill your soul, if that doesn't make
you say, wow, great. All right, Lord, I'm just here I am.

I'm along for the ride. I'm trusting you. I don't know what else to tell
you.

This is it. All the power of God. God is never going to fail us.

He's never going to let us down. Not one word of the Lord had failed.
Joshua said when he was at the end of his life.

And as we look at our lives tonight. I can say God has been faithful.
And I can say that.

He's been strong. Even when I've been weak. Actually, many times his
greatest demonstration of power in my life has been at my weakest
points.

It's not my strength. It's not my power. That's going to keep me going
or do anything else.

It's not by my might or my power that the kingdom of God is going to
progress. It's by the power of the omnipotent God. And that power has
come to us through the spirit of God.

Who's come to live in us. And. Prepare us.

For eternity. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you.

And Lord, I think we all need. The very thing that Paul prayed that we
would have. We need the spirit of wisdom and revelation.

Lord, we need the eyes of our hearts. To be enlightened tonight. Lord,
these things are so.

Profound that they baffle us. Intellectually. We thank you that you're
not limited to.

Communicating to us. Through our minds. But Lord, you can go right
straight to our hearts.

And we pray that you would do that tonight. And we do pray. That we
might know.

What is the hope of our calling? What are the riches of the glory of
your inheritance in us, the saints? And what is the exceeding greatness
of your power toward us? Lord, reveal that to us. We pray in Jesus name
and for his glory. Amen.

========================================================================
Audio: https://sermonindex1.b-cdn.net/11/SID11656.mp3
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/brian-brodersen/ephesians-the-hope-of-his-calling/
========================================================================