"(15) For this reason I too, having heard of the faith
in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, (16)
do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;
(17) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to
you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. (18) I pray
that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is
the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in
the saints, (19) and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us
who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His
might (20) which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead
and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, (21) far above all
rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not
only in this age but also in the one to come. (22) And He put all things in
subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,
(23) which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians
1:15–23, NASB95)
While we will not look at this whole passage today, what we
do have is a continuation of the response of praise from Paul begun in verse 3.
I have long said that Paul was the master of run-on sentences, and as I read
these verses in various translations I see how others have struggled with
punctuating his words. But I must admit that I really love imagining the great
joy that must have flown from Paul as this huge response of praise flowed out
of him, possibly even without stopping to take a breath. I know that
excitement, and when I speak there are definitely times that I also tend to overflow
with long and joyous responses of praise. This is true of most of us when we
get excited about something, and what we have here is definitely an excited
response of praise to our God who deserves all of the glory for what He has
done.
Having written about our salvation and what a glorious and
irrevocable gift it is, Paul now shifts to the response of the Ephesian
believers in light of their own faith in Christ. Jesus had told the one lawyer
to love God and love others in order to inherit eternal life (previous post), but
the lawyer resisted Jesus’ words asking Jesus how far he must go. But hearing
of the Ephesians and their faith Paul shared his excitement over how they had
been doing exactly what Jesus had commanded. These believers, in response to
God’s love for them, had shown that same love toward one another. He was so
excited about this that he told them that he did not cease giving thanks for
them as he made mention of them in his prayers. He took what he heard of these
believers before God who drew them to Himself and He praised God for what He
had done in and through them.
Paul had spent considerable time in Ephesus working among
them, and now to hear how they had grown in their love for God and one another
was truly a blessing to him, and He continually thanked God for what God had
done there. While this is not a prayer, Paul does share with them several
things that he was praying on their behalf. Paul was taking what he heard and turning
it to God. He thanked God for what He had done, and he lifted to God the things
that he desired God to do in and through them. Paul gives us here an example of
what we call intercessory prayer. It is the praying for others. He demonstrates
it here not only as a priority for his
life knowing that it God who works His will in them, but also as an
encouragement letting them know his hopes for what God has done and will do on
their behalf. Paul’s prayers were not wishful thinking. They were lifted to God
in the full confidence of what He had done and said He would do. Paul praised
God knowing that it is God who gets the credit for what had been done, and he
petitioned God as he asked God to continue to work in specific ways.
Later in this same letter Paul would ask the Ephesian
believers to come before God and do the same thing for him—praying on his own
behalf. Right after speaking on the issue of the spiritual warfare, which we
are all engaged in, Paul returned to the issue of prayer writing, “With all
prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be
on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on
my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to
make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an
ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to
speak.” (Ephesians 6:18–20, NASB95)
He encouraged them to persevere in prayer for all the saints
and then even specifically to pray for him. Paul began this by saying in 1:16
that he did not cease praying for them, and in chapter 6 he asked them not to
cease praying for their brothers and sisters in Christ as well. Then he added a
specific request of them for himself that they persevere in praying that in the
face of him even being imprisoned as an ambassador in chains that he would not
only have the right words to say when speaking of the good news of salvation in
Jesus Christ, but that he would also be bold in doing so.
Paul told them to do this “in the Spirit.” We had just read
in Ephesians 1:13 that we have been sealed by the Spirit, and here Paul
instructs them to pray in the Spirit. In Jude we are warned against those who
come into the church who do not have the Spirit, who would bring division into
their midst. Their protection against this was the instruction of verses 21 and
21 which reads, “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy
faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting
anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.” (Jude 20–21,
NASB95) Sometimes it might be hard for us to know. But the certain reality is
that God knows, and we are called to bring all things to Him in the Spirit who
He has given us and along with that to grow in the faith as we engage together
in building up one another.
Paul wrote in Romans that as we come to God that the Holy
Spirit works. “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do
not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us
with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what
the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to
the will of God.” (Romans 8:26–27, NASB95) We not only have the Spirit, but we
have one another. God has done an incredible thing in this, and as we practice
praying for others we are constantly reminded that He is alive and that we are
not alone. God will hear our prayers.
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