Episode 131 - Thinking Bigger - The Truth Will Set You Free Part 2

Our gratitude and prayers reveal what we think about God, how much we trust God, and if we really believe we need God. In Ephesians 1:15 - 23, Paul exhorts us to think bigger- to go beyond just being grateful for and thanking God for the usual things - material needs, physical healing, safety, etc. for ourselves and others, and to "thank bigger" and "pray bigger."  What exactly does this mean and how do we do it? What effect can it have on our transformation and how will it set us free? Join us and find out!

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Transcript

Episode 131 – Thinking Bigger

    Welcome Back. Last week, we started the series, The Truth Will Set You Free. We are working our way through the book of Ephesians. In the first episode, we got some background and went through the introduction, chapter 1 verses 1 – 14. In this episode, we will finish out chapter 1. It’s only 8 verses, but there is a lot jam-packed in them. They deal with Thanksgiving and Prayer. Chris, Lifeway did

a survey last Aug. They found that nearly half of Americans pray every day. Here’s the funny thing, though, not all that were surveyed were professing Christians. In fact, 1 in 5 people who say they aren’t religiously affiliated to any religion – they call themselves “nones” – say that they pray every day.

This seems to be most evident among Millennials. Only 52 percent of Millennials say they look to a religion for guidance, yet 62 percent of them say they talk privately to God. They say they haven’t given up on God, they just want to cut out the middleman and deal directly with God. And by middleman they mean the church and / or organized religion.  And among those who say they pray, here’s what they say they are praying for: 74% pray for their own needs and difficulties, 42% pray for their own sin, 82% pray for friends and family, and 38% percent pray for those who've experienced natural disasters. Only 12% pray for politicians and 5% pray for celebrities. 

And then on the thanksgiving side of things, Psychology Today says there are 10 things you can always be grateful for: satisfying our basic needs, our five senses, the kindness of strangers, our own capacity for kindness, the ability to learn, the strength to get through tough times, modern technology, good memories, our birth, and this moment. Now, these are secular surveys – like we said, even Lifeway did not limit their survey to professing Christians, so that, too, was pretty much secular. And in both surveys, there is a lot we could pick apart and refute with Scripture, but there are also some things in both that the Bible would not argue against. In fact, there are probably things on both lists that we all pray for and are grateful for. 

         But our purpose today isn’t to refute or agree with what the world is praying for or is grateful for. Our purpose is to think bigger – pray bigger, thank bigger! In our Be Transformed series, our series verse was Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God; what is good and acceptable and perfect.” This verse is key to our sanctification. In the book of Ephesians, Paul expands that verse even more adding think bigger! In Ephesians, Paul takes themes we are all probably familiar with: prayer, thanksgiving, salvation, faith, unity, love, etc. and exhorts us to think bigger about each of them. It’s not that Paul teaches anything new in Ephesians; every doctrine, subject, and concept is present throughout Scripture (as we’re gonna see). But in Ephesians, Paul digs deep into them one right after the other.

         So let’s start with thanking bigger. Eph 1:15 – 16a says, “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you.” We would probably all agree that most of the things on that Psychology Today list are things we can be thankful for. And while Psychology Today advises us to be thankful in some ambiguous way or to thank some abstract force out in the universe, we know that all good things come from God, and that our gratitude should always be directed to Him first and foremost. But Paul is showing us that our thanksgiving to God needs to transcend beyond just His meeting material needs, physical healing, safety, even beyond our salvation.

         And don’t misunderstand. It is absolutely right and appropriate to thank God for those things – for everything. But thanking bigger doesn’t stop there. Keep in mind Paul is writing this letter from prison and look at what he’s grateful for. It isn’t for God healing him from the beating he probably received, or that God is providing believers to bring him food while he’s in prison. It isn’t even that he’s grateful for God sustaining him. There’s no doubt Paul is thankful for these things, but they aren’t what he chooses to have his readers focus on. Paul summed up his feelings about his own circumstances in Phil. 4:11 – 13, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Rarely do we ever see Paul talking about his circumstances unless it is to encourage his readers or to thank them for their support. Like we said, there’s no doubt Paul would have been grateful to God for everything God did for him, but Paul is showing us that his gratitude has grown bigger.

         That’s right. So what is Paul grateful for in this verse? Paul says he never ceases to give thanks for the faith of the believers in Ephesus and for their love for each other. And this isn’t Paul just using Christianese like we sometimes do. Like when we say we have faith or that we love everyone. Even the church can fall into this trap of using “faith” and “love” as empty buzzwords. But that’s not what’s going on here. Paul has heard that the believers in Ephesus have great faith and love for one another. Think about that. Would people say that about your church or about you? In order for them to say that, your church or you would have to be so active in your faith and love that’s it’s worthy of being talked about by other people. To be active in your faith would mean that you have a complete trust in what God has done, is doing, and will do. That you have a poise and peace about you that is evident and consistent and is not shaken by world events or personal circumstances. To be active in loving other believers would mean intentionally participating in meeting the needs of, discipling, and encouraging fellow believers regardless of the personal cost to yourself. How else would a bystander not only see it, but be impressed enough to tell someone else about it?

         And it is exactly this that Paul is thankful for. His gratitude has nothing to do himself or even anyone close to him. Remember, he didn’t know the people he was writing to very well, if at all. Paul’s gratitude has nothing to do with him personally, and everything to do with furthering the Kingdom of God. He says something very similar to the church is Colossae in Col. 1:3 -5, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.” So Paul is grateful for the faith and love of the Ephesian church that has been so evident that people are talking about it. And who is he thankful to? He’s thankful to God. He’s thankful to God both because the Ephesian church’s faith and love was a work of the Holy Spirit, but also because it is a tangible sign that the Gospel is spreading and the Kingdom of God and the church is expanding. And these things are so important to Paul that even with his being in chains, beaten and bruised, hungry, and cold, he is rejoicing in gratitude about them. THAT is thanking bigger!

Paul encourages and exhorts his readers for their faith in Jesus and in their love for each other, while still giving the credit to the One who deserves it. That is a great model for thanking bigger. And Paul follows this up with a long run on sentence about praying bigger. Eph. 1:16b – 23 says, (I remember) you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,  having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,  and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

We recently finished a book and study guide by Alistair Begg titled, Pray Big. It was fabulous. In fact, the devotional was inspiration for the title of this episode, and we strongly recommend it. Most of us have probably heard the ACTS acronym for praying – we did an episode on it during The Best Sermon Ever Series – Episode 50 called Does How We Pray Matter. And if you’re not familiar with the acronym ACTS when it comes to prayer, it stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. It’s a great model to get you to start thinking of prayer in the correct manner. 

And if you want to learn about this in more detail, we invite you to listen to episode 50. But we will give you a very brief summary. First, we give God the adoration and praise that He’s due (we focus on the greatness of God).  Then we confess our sin, which makes us come in humility realizing that we aren’t worthy, but because of what Jesus has done, God welcomes us as His own child. Then we thank God for all that He’s already done to remind ourselves of the goodness of God. Finally, we get to the supplication where we present our needs to God. It begins to take our prayers from man-centeredness to God-centeredness. It’s meant to increase our intimacy with God and keep us from turning prayer time into Santa’s lap time where we just read off a list of what we want from God. 

         There is a lot of commentary, articles, sermons, and books on prayer, and they take different angles. Some give you specific prayers to pray depending on what you want. For example, since we talked about saints last week, we’ll start with a prayer to a saint. Catholic.org has specific prayers to 121 saints on their website. They are neatly organized and titled by saint and what that saint’s area of prayer is. For example, if you want guidance, you can pray this prayer to St. Therese. “Dear St. Therese, guide me in your Little Way, so that I may ascend to the heights and happiness of Heaven.” (and Little Way is capitalized, not sure why)

         Andrew Wommack, a prosperity gospel t.v. evangelist, with millions of followers says that we don’t need to pray. We can answer our own prayers. His logic is that God isn’t angry at mankind anymore. He is no longer holding our sins against us. God’s wrath and justice have been satisfied. Jesus changed everything, and now His mercy extends to all people. He loves the world— not just the church— but the whole world. Jesus paid for all the sin of every human who has ever lived. He goes on to say, “Before I understood this, I would say, “If God doesn’t judge America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Now I say, “If God judges America, He will have to apologize to Jesus.” He even claims Moses told God to repent in Ex. 32 and God repented. He says we now have the power of Jesus. We should not be wasting our time praying for the sick, we should be healing the sick by commanding healing into their broken bodies. He says it is no longer necessary to beg and plead to God for anything, we can exercise the complete authority that we have been given and fill our own needs and all the needs around us. 

         That wasn’t the praying bigger Paul had in mind! And one thing both praying to saints and things into your own hands have in common is that they both skip God – one prays to a saint, and the other is self-reliant. If we used either of these, rather than praying bigger and thanking bigger, we would be plunged into idol worship – worshipping either a dead person or ourselves! Okay, let’s put some Biblical Truth in this conversation on prayer. Let’s quickly start with the basics we need to know. What is prayer exactly? The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines it as, “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies.”

John Bunyan, the writer of Pilgrim’s Progress defines it as, “a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Spirit, for such things as God has promised.” And John Newton the former slave trader turned pastor and writer of Amazing Grace simply puts it, “Prayer is . . . the great means to procure the graces of which I stand in hourly need.” Chris, Scripture is clear that God is omniscient, meaning all-knowing. So why spend time pouring our hearts and minds out to God when He already knows what’s in them better than we do?

 It's true that God knows what we need before we ask Him, and in His providence, He already meets those needs. So it’s a fair question to ask that if God already knows what we need, and He already plans to fulfill those needs according to His will why do we need to pray? First, God tells us to pray. Even though God’s will is sure, He uses our prayers to achieve His purposes. Like free will, we don’t know God’s specific will so we make choices and God uses those choices for His purposes. It’s the same with prayer. We don’t know God’s will, so we pray, and God uses our prayers for His purposes. Second, just like God doesn’t need our repentance; it’s us who need our repentance; God doesn’t need our prayers, WE need our prayers. Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us. We need to pray because prayer puts our relationship with God in the proper perspective, deepens our dependence on Him, and brings us into a more intimate relationship with Him. It transforms and sanctifies us. And as RC Sproul puts it in his book, Does Prayer Change Things, “Prayer prompts and nurtures obedience, putting the heart into the proper ‘frame of mind’ to desire obedience.”

            Another great theologian, A.W. Pink, said, “Prayer is not designed for the furnishing of God with the knowledge of what we need, but it is designed as a confession to Him of our sense of need.” So there’s a lot of great views on why we pray. And I would add that it’s also a way to worship God and thereby, glorify Him. This is why the ACTS acronym is a good place to start in our prayer life, but in this Ephesians Paul exhorts us by example to up our prayer game even beyond the ACTS prayer. He shows us how to pray bigger. 

            And praying bigger isn’t something we can just add to our to do list and check off. Why was Paul able to pray big? Why were John and other Apostles able to pray big? Why was Jesus able to pray big? How will we be able to pray bigger? The answer is by understanding that at the root of our prayer should be love for God. David Johnson, professor at Austin Theological Seminary says this, “Prayer is the human response to the grace of God, made in obedient and joyful submission to the One who embraces us in compassion and love, to which we bring nothing but our need.” Scottish Pastor Robert Murray M’Cheyne said, “What a man is on his knees before God, that he is, and nothing more.” No matter what we profess or how eloquently we quote Scripture or pray in public, it is in our private conversations with God that what is really in our heart is revealed. We can fake it in public, but when its just God and us one on one, there’s no faking anything.

It’s true that we can seem godly in public, but not even really be a believer in private. However, when our private prayers become bigger, it will definitely have an impact on who we are publicly. Okay, so how do we pray bigger? Look at Paul’s words. And since we already read from the ESV, I’ll read from the NLT. In the ESV, verses 16 – 21 are one long run-on sentence. The NLT separates it into 2 sentences, so it will make it a little easier to exposit. Verses 16b – 18 says, “I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.”As with everything, it comes down to a heart issue. Do we love God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength? Do we cherish Him as our Father? We don’t often think about this, but while other religions have some form of God, it is distinctly a Christian thing to refer to God as Father, and especially to speak to God as Father.

As Alistair Begg says, “God sent His Son to make us His Sons.” We very often refer to God as the Almighty, holy, sovereign creator, sustainer and master of the universe. And we should refer to Him that way. But we should also remember  that He’s our Father – dad as Jesus calls Him. One of the reasons prayer is so crucial, is that it helps us find the balance between the two. We start off praising God for His magnificent and then bring it in for a more personal conversation with our Father. Paul got it. We are going to see this even more when we get to chapter 3, but in 3:14, Paul says, “I bow my knees before the Father.” As Charles Spurgeon said, “We may speak boldly with God, but still he is in heaven and we are upon earth, and are to avoid presumption.” 

We can come confidently to God because He is our Father, but we should never come entitled. We are not God’s equal, and we need to never forget that. We bring nothing to the table but our need. Yet God invites us to come into His presence and pour our hearts out to Him. In fact, He is glorified when we do. So let’s look at Paul’s prayer. Just as Paul’s gratitude is not centered around himself nor his circumstances, neither is his prayer. Paul never asks to be released from his circumstances. The most common Christian prayer today most likely has to do with health, either our own or someone else’s. But prayers about health are almost non-existent in Scripture. Why is that? Because the believers in the Bible understood that good health was never a guarantee, and that death could come at any time. But it wasn’t something to be feared. Once again, Paul gets this as he tells the Philippians in Phil. 1:23 – 24, “I am hard pressed between (life and death). My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” 

Paul and all the other believers in Scripture knew that their physical life was a win-win. If they lived on, they could spread the Gospel more. If they died, they would be in heaven with Jesus. And understand that tt’s not that it’s wrong to pray for health, we’ve all done it. Sometimes when someone we love’s life hangs in the balance, it is our biggest need, and it is absolutely right and appropriate to bring that before God and even plead for healing. David did. After being told his baby would be put to death by God, he fasted and pleaded to God to change His mind. So it’s not that we shouldn’t pray for physical health and healing. 

But when that becomes the focus of almost all of our prayers, it reveals something about us – we are distracted by the fear of death and with earthly things. If someone we love is very sick or dying, yes, pray for healing. But your prayers need to be bigger. Their greatest need is not physical healing, it’s their eternal salvation. So if you aren’t sure of their salvation status, make sure you are praying for that, too! Pray that they belong to God because that is what matters most. I’ll quote Alistair Begg again, “All that matters may be brought before God, but what we bring before God is not always what matters most.”

Paul got this. He was eternally minded. As a result, his thanksgiving and his prayers were also eternally minded. Eternal prayers are what matter most – the concerns of today are relevant and important, but in the big scheme of things, they matter a lot less. I saw a video on the news where in the middle of the devastation and rubble, a group of Christian Ukrainians were holding a prayer service. And they weren’t begging God to deliver them from the Russians, they were lifting their hands praising God for Jesus and the hope that they have in Him. And with the very real possibility of another world war on the horizon, will we have the faith to pray bigger like Paul and that group of Ukrainians when the time comes? Do we understand as Phil 1:21 says,“To live is Christ, to die is gain.”

So what is Paul’s first prayer in this passage? It’s for God to give the believers in Ephesus wisdom and understanding of who God is. He prays that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened so that they truly understand the hope they have in the Gospel and all the blessings that God has prepared for them. Remember last week, in the intro., Paul told them believers have received every Spiritual blessing from God. Here, Paul is praying that the Ephesians understand that and put their hope in it. “Opening the eyes of our heart,” is not just a 90’s praise song, it has Biblical roots. Having the eyes of your heart opened, means you are able to see things that are unseen to the naked eye. It means having your eyes and mind opened to the things of God – things that are not able to be perceived by unbelievers.

The Psalmist in Psalm 119 prays, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” In Acts, Paul tells King Agrippa that he was sent to, “Open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” Isaiah 32, prophesying about the coming of Jesus says what Jesus’ coming will mean for those who belong to Him, “Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will give attention.”

It’s the very definition of hope – being certain of things unseen. And it’s exactly what Paul prays for the people of the church in Ephesus. Paul is praying for the salvation and sanctification of others. Paul doesn’t pray for the church to grow in numbers, or that the collection will be increased so that they can do big things for God. He doesn’t even pray that they will be protected from persecution and death. He may very well have been praying of those things in his private prayer life, but the public statement to the church about what he is praying for them for is for their spiritual condition. While the other stuff may be important, Paul is showing what is most important. He is thinking bigger – bigger than just this life on earth which is temporary and fading.

We said the ACTS acronym is a great place to start in your prayer life. But when you decide its time to pray bigger, there’s a couple other letters to add to that. Sadly they don’t form a word, so we just have to memorize them. The first is “I” for intercessor. Intercession is exactly what Paul is doing for the Ephesians. He is praying to God on behalf of someone else. Again, we have all prayed for someone else – their health, their grief, their travels, whatever, but praying bigger means intercession for others by praying for their spiritual good. Maybe some of us already do this – praying for someone’s salvation, for someone’s sanctification. But do we do it for all believers? Those we’ve never met and may never meet? Do we ask God to intercede for the good of all believers? Do we ask God for salvation for those we know aren’t believers – even evil, corrupt leaders? This kind of intercessory prayer was exactly what Stephen used his last breath on earth to utter. Acts 7:59 – 60 records, “As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died.”And Stephen was just imitating what they had seen Jesus do. While hanging on the cross, Luke 23:34 tells us Jesus said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

 So Paul’s first prayer is intercession for the church of Ephesus for their salvation and sanctification. And his second prayer is tied in with that. Again, reading from the NLT, Eph. 1:19 – 23 say, “I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power  that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come.  God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.”

The next letter we can add to our bigger prayers is “A.” And this might surprise you a bit, but the A stands for argument. Now it doesn’t mean arguing with God. In fact a better letter might be “W” for wrestle. It means that we use some of our prayer time to wrestle with the Truths of God that we don’t quite understand. Why is this important and what does this have to do with Paul’s second prayer for the Ephesians? First, not to sound like a broken record, but we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This means we think deeply about Biblical Truths – even wrestle with them if we have to. There are those Christians who say even if it makes no sense, you have to just have faith and believe it. I am not one of those Christians. While there are definitely things in Scripture that are hard to understand and mysterious, never are we told to not worry about trying to think deeply about them and just believe. 

I’m with you, Chris. Take election for example since we will be talking about that next week. I have always thought that if a believer has never struggled with election, they probably don’t fully understand it. What transforms our minds is thinking deeply things and trying to understand them – even if we can’t fully understand them, we can still get a grounding for them and see how God points to the concept over and over in Scripture. To put this in simpler terms. When you were 4 or 5 and your teacher told you that 2 + 2 is 4, you weren’t told to just believe it even if you don’t get it. You were given blocks where you laid out 2 blocks on one side and 2 blocks on the other side, and then you counted them all and got 4. This is the same concept.

And while studying Scripture, listening to sermons, and reading commentary is a great way to understand hard truths, bringing them before God in prayer is the best way. Afterall, it’s the Holy Spirit that will ultimately allow you to see the truth. So what does this have to do with Paul’s prayer here? Paul is praying that the Ephesians will properly understand what can be a difficult and misused truth – that every believer has the power of God in them. The same power that was used to raise Jesus from the dead dwells in us. Paul uses 3 different Greek words that mean “power” in this passage. Think back to Isaiah 51 where Isaiah calls God “holy” 3 times. Three times signifies complete with a Trinitarian reference. It’s the same here. Paul is saying we have complete power from God. That doesn’t mean that we can do everything Jesus did while on earth like heal people, miraculously feed people, or even exercise demons from people. What it means is that we God in us testifying to the Truth and we have power over sin, satan, and death. We are no longer slaves to them, nor do we have to answer to them. 

It's ironic that most of the things the world longs for – never dying, overwhelming joy, unconditional love, satisfaction, and especially power are the very things every true believer already has. And while many in the world are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve these things, even committing evil, all we had to do to get them was put our faith in Jesus. Paul also uses 4 words in this second prayer – rule, authority, power, and dominion. These were and are words that are usually attributed to those over us – government, kings, presidents, etc. And usually they have very negative and evil connotations. But Paul attributes these words to Jesus.

And it’s not just that Jesus has all rule, authority, power and dominion in the spiritual realm. Jesus is all of those over those who have that authority on earth. Paul is telling the church in Ephesus who had seen their share of persecution and were under the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire, that the evil and corrupt leaders who had earthly rule, authority, power, and dominion had no real power that wasn’t given to them. Even though they didn’t know it, they were completely under the rule, authority, power, and dominion of Jesus. And thankfully, this is still true today. And it may be hard – it is hard – to see the evil and corruption of political leaders and what they are doing to innocent people. Besides the lying and propaganda, they are seizing their bank accounts, jailing them, getting them fired, doxing them,  cancelling them, destroying their businesses, and as we’ve recently seen, invading their country, killing innocent people, taking what doesn’t belong to them, even sacrificing their own people.  

This is exactly why this is something we should wrestle with and do everything we can to understand the Biblical Truth behind it. And again, no better place to do that than in our prayer. God welcomes these bigger prayers –sincere prayers to better understand God’s revealed will and revealed truth. Paul prays for the Ephesians to get this understanding because he wants them not to worry about what they see going on around them. God that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. Jesus is not just far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion – He is completely sovereign over them and has full control of them. Paul’s big prayer for the Ephesians is that they would be eternally minded. And that, hopefully will be the result of our bigger prayers.

That’s right. Our prayers – whether we pray at all or not, how we pray, and what we pray about reveals a lot about our hearts. They show us what we think about God, how much we trust God, and if we really believe we need God. Praying vaguely and half-heartedly to God hoping He is up there listening, and hoping that He decides to care enough to listen is not the same as praying to our Father who we know loves us as much as He loves His begotten Son, Jesus. Bigger thanksgiving and bigger prayers reveal that we are eternally minded. Bigger gratitude shows that we are most thankful for the things that last – salvation and sanctification. Bigger prayers show that we care most about the things that last – salvation for unbelievers and sanctification for us and other believers.

Bigger thanksgiving and bigger prayers at the root show our love for God. We love God and therefore, love His people – and those who may not yet be His people – and their eternal needs are important to us. They show that we understand our place before God. We are humble orphans with nothing to offer before our holy God, but He has called us His children so we can confidently come to Him in complete trust knowing that He will always do what is for our good. 

Bigger thanksgiving and bigger prayers are evidence that we understand we have immense power in us given to us by God and we don’t have to fear or chase after the things that are most important to the world – we already have them! Nor do we have to fear the evil that seems to be getting out of control all over the world – Jesus is on the throne and in control. As Paul says in Eph 1:22, “And (God) put all things under (Jesus’) feet and gave him as head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

As we saw last week, Ephesians has 2 themes – God calls His people and God saves His people. These 8 verses in Eph. 1 show both of these Truths and expand them to God calls His people and opens the eyes of their hearts to see Truth, and God saves His people and sanctifies them by challenging them to think bigger!

That’s a good place to end. Thanks for tuning in. And just to go back to something we said earlier, if you have ever struggled with election or are still struggling with it, or want to be able to articulate it Biblically to others, you won’t want to miss the next episode. Have a blessed day!