Acts 19:21-20:1 – Ephesians 1:15-23 Praying for the Saints
Good morning, turn with me to Acts 19:21-20:1, page 928 in the pew Bibles.
I am very grateful for Will and his willingness to step in and deliver the sermon last week. I was watching it live online and really missing all of you. Thank you all for your prayers.
Let’s pray.
21 Now after these events Paul resolved in the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.” 22 And having sent into Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while.
23 About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way. 24 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. 25 These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. 26 And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. 27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all Asia and the world worship.”
28 When they heard this they were enraged and were crying out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 29 So the city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed together into the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s companions in travel. 30 But when Paul wished to go in among the crowd, the disciples would not let him. 31 And even some of the Asiarchs, who were friends of his, sent to him and were urging him not to venture into the theater. 32 Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together. 33 Some of the crowd prompted Alexander, whom the Jews had put forward. And Alexander, motioning with his hand, wanted to make a defense to the crowd. 34 But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
35 And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky? 36 Seeing then that these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash. 37 For you have brought these men here who are neither sacrilegious nor blasphemers of our goddess. 38 If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another. 39 But if you seek anything further, it shall be settled in the regular assembly. 40 For we really are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.” 41 And when he had said these things, he dismissed the assembly.
20 After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia.
I’m not actually going to preach on this text. I’m not really going to say anything about it at all other than to say these events described here took place in Ephesus, which you could have just read for yourself.
What I would like to talk with you about is something from the letter that the Apostle Paul would later write to the church there in Ephesus when he was in prison.
Turn to Ephesians chapter one, verse one, page 976 in the pew Bibles.
This is another one of those times when the Lord put something on my heart, kind of convicted me a little bit, and you all get to hear about it and hopefully be challenged and encouraged by it as well.
Ephesians 1:1.
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus:
2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
11In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. 13In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
15For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18having 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, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21far 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. 22And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Though I read all of that, I would like to focus on just verses 15-23.
Verses 15-23 are like one long run-on sentence. Paul doesn’t pause to take a breath or insert punctuation because he is so passionate about what he is sharing. There’s only two periods in the whole paragraph!
And what is it that he is so passionate about? In the first half of chapter one it’s praise of who God is and what he has done and in the second half of Ephesians one it’s prayer, and prayer is what we are going to focus on today.
Paul praises God as a loving Father who chose us before time began to be holy and blameless in his sight, He adopted us as his children, He bought us back from destruction with Jesus’ life on the cross, He set us free to worship him, He forgave our sins, He revealed to us the mystery that is the church and included us in it through the gospel and faith in Jesus Christ, and He gave us the Holy Spirit as a seal and deposit guaranteeing our place in His eternal kingdom.
Now that is a loving Father!
And because of all this Paul says in verse 15: 15For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,
There are few things I find more encouraging than to hear someone whom I value say that they are praying for me. I don’t take that for granted.
But can you imagine how encouraging it must have been to receive a letter from Paul telling you that he has been praying for you regularly?
Here was a guy living out the mission of Christ writing a letter to the church to motivate them to live lives consistent with that mission from prison, and oh by the way, just know I am praying for you. I believe he meant it too, this was not just a throw away statement for Paul, he was serious.
So, what did Paul pray for and how does it affect us today?
First of all, it is important to remember that Paul instructed the church, in 1 Corinthians 11:1, to imitate him just as he imitated Jesus, and by praying for the church he is doing just that.
So how does this affect us today? What is the principle for us to put into practice?
Paul prayed for the church because Jesus prayed for the church, and so, we should pray for the church.
Piece of cake, right? If it’s so simple, then why is it so hard to do?!
Maybe we just need some guidelines to help us do it. Let’s look at the text and see if we can draw out some guidelines that might make praying for the church easier for us.
15For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, 16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,
Ray Stedman, a pastor and author of the book, Body Life, said:
“If your faith in Jesus Christ is genuine, it always results in love.”
Love proves that our faith is real. Paul knew that the faith of the Ephesians was real because it was evidenced in their love for the saints, that is, the church.
If your faith is real it will be evidenced by a genuine love for people, and people who love people pray for them!
Paul prayed powerful prayers, they were not weak petitions to just “be” with so-and-so or “be” with this situation or that situation.
Here is how Paul prayed:
16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 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, 18 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, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe,
First, notice that Paul prays to the Father of glory.
I have always wondered about who I should be directing my prayers to, is it the Father or is it Jesus? This may not be a big deal to some of you, God is God so what does it matter?
I think it’s important to be specific and Paul prays to the “Father of glory” the maker of all things glorious.
Second, he gives thanks to the Father of glory, for them, that’s simple enough.
He then asks God, the Father of glory, to give them the spirit of wisdom.
Some of your translations will have “a spirit of wisdom” not meaning the Holy Spirit Himself. This is a better translation as we understand from earlier in the chapter that God has already given the Holy Spirit to the church sealing each believer.
Paul asks that God the Father would give wisdom to the church-
How does that translate in your mind? What does a wise person look like? In order to be wise you must be smart and old, right? And in order to be old and smart, you have to start out as young and dumb, right?
Wrong. God’s wisdom is available to every believer regardless of their age. When I was young and dumb I was much wiser than I am now because back then I spent a lot more time reading the books of wisdom that God has given us.
God gave us in his Word several books dedicated to the subject of wisdom.
The book of Job is about how to deal with loss and adversity in a way that pleases God. Seems like the place I ought to have spent the last two years and didn’t.
The book of Proverbs is about how to live and grow and use our talents and abilities born out of a proper understanding of our relationship to God translated as “The fear of the Lord, the beginning of wisdom.”
Song of Solomon is about how to live in a godly way within the covenant of marriage.
Ecclesiastes is all about the vanity of ambition apart from pleasing the Lord and the futility of acquiring stuff.
In the New Testament we have James, the New Testament version of Proverbs, it’s full of instructions about how to live with our faith on the outside not just the inside.
So when Paul prays for wisdom for the church, what is he actually asking for?
He is asking the Father to help the church live as Christians, ones who belong to Christ, true, maturing, disciples living to please God the Father. The church still needs that don’t you agree?
Next Paul asks for a “spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him.”
Again, some of your translations may read simply “to know him better” but the truth is, that Paul is asking for is really knowledge as opposed to ignorance, complete knowledge.
Paul wants the church family to know the Father, to be totally engaged with Him. Not just knowing about who He is in an impersonal way like Abraham Lincoln of something, but to know and accept and be totally engaged with God’s character.
Everything in this letter to the Ephesians is based on who God is, and knowing Him is the key to understanding the letter.
Jesus even prayed in John 17:3 “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Paul wants the church to truly know God. We still need that don’t we?
The next statement Paul makes is one of the most interesting ones in this passage: 18having 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, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe,
Paul is not dealing with the intellect here, he doesn’t ask God to open the minds of the church so that they could understand, he asks that the eyes of their hearts be opened, so that the truth that they are learning about who God is and what He has done for them would really grab hold of them and that their entire being would be engaged by it and changed by it.
The hope that God has called us to, the riches of his glorious inheritance, the immeasurably great power toward us who believe… Allowing these truths to grab hold of our being will chase off any feelings of doubt, fear, shame and guilt!
That hope, those riches, that power, are all available to us through Jesus.
“We don’t need to be powerful people, we need Jesus.”
You have heard of the power of prayer, that prayer changes things?
The truth is that it’s not the prayer that has the power, it’s the One to whom we pray.
God is not offering a magic formula for prayer through the text this morning, but I believe that he is calling us as a church family to a renewed commitment to love each other through prayer.
It is time to truly thank God for each other, to ask the Father to give the church family wisdom and fuller knowledge of Him and that we would allow that wisdom and knowledge to grip our hearts, renew our minds, and transform our lives.
Prayer involves us in one another’s lives; prayer knits us together in love.
People who love each other pray for each other.
Amen?
So what I would like to do now is, to spend a few moments loving each other through prayer.
Find someone nearby and pray for them, thank God for them, ask Him to give them wisdom to live as a Christian, ask Him to allow them to truly know Him, ask Him to open the eyes of their hearts that the hope, and the riches, and the power that are available to them in Jesus would grip them and transform their lives.
This isn’t about getting all the words right, the Bible says that even when we don’t know how to pray the Spirit will pray for us.
So find somebody right now and pray for them and I’ll close our time of prayer in a few minutes and the worship team can come up.
