Prayer for Clarity, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. I've also encouraged you here that you ought to compare your life to a movie. And if your life were a movie, who would the main character be?

Because if the main character is going to be you, that movie's got a really bad ending. But if the main character is Jesus, that's a movie that goes on forever, because that's what Ephesians 1 says. All of it, everything going on in the universe, is going under Jesus' feet, who is the head of the church, and that's everything. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. You know, Shakespeare may have been right when he wrote that all the world's a stage. Think of the theater currently happening in our world right now.

So many storylines. And even though we're not necessarily the lead actors of this particular play written by God right now, we are still essential cast members. Today, Pastor J.D. reveals our role in God's plan as he continues our study in Ephesians called Mystery and Clarity.

If you've missed any of the messages in this study, you can find them at jdgreer.com. Now, here's Pastor J.D. Ephesians chapter 1 is where we are going to be, and we're going to look at the second half of the first chapter. All right, here we go, verse 15. Because I have heard of your faith, you new Ephesian believers, I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints. So I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened. I want to focus on those words.

Let's stop there for a minute, okay? This is a prayer, you see, for spiritual sight. And Paul says, I don't want you to just consent to the fact that God loves you.

I don't want you to embrace that cognitively and tell me that you believe it. I want you to feel it. I want you to feel it down in your soul. The point of it all is to know God and love him, not just to avoid sin and believe right things. And passion for God, you see, begins with sight. It begins with seeing who God is and how much God is and how much God loves us. So this is what Paul prayed, that we would see God with the eyes of our heart and be overcome with a sense of awe and worship.

So what exactly, what exactly does that look like? What specifically does he want them to see? He gives you four phrases in the next few verses that are four things he wants you to see clearly.

Here's clarity number one. He wants them to see the hope to which God has called them. You see that there in verse 18? He wants them to see the hope to which they have been called. Now, first, let's talk about the word hope, because a lot of times in English, hope means a desire. Biblical hope is different. Biblical hope is certain.

In fact, let me give you a definition. Biblical hope is a life shaping certainty that has not happened yet, but that you are sure is going to happen. So let's stop for a minute, and let's just ask, why would that be important? Why is it important for us to see that?

Let's give you a couple reasons. Knowing the hope to which we are called would allow us to overcome sin and temptation. The only way you will avoid the trappings of materialism, for example, or the race to get ahead, the only way you'll avoid that is by a greater and more certain hope. Here's the other thing.

Knowing the hope to which you are called not only helps you overcome sin and temptation, it'll help you endure pain in your life. I was thinking this week about the worst college jobs. I worked in college one summer. I worked in a food line distribution center freezer.

It was terrible. It was such a drudgery being in this job, right? Well, let me just kind of change the scenario a little bit. What if I had some rich uncle who said to me, son, I want you to learn character. So I want you to take this job over the summer.

I'm going to pay you $10,000 an hour. You think it's going to feel like a drag? No, it's going to be awesome because I know the hope that God has called me to. If you know what God is doing in you and giving to you, it changes your perspective on pain in the present.

That's why Paul in the book of Romans, Paul, a man who was very accustomed to pain and heartache, said these light and momentary afflictions are not even worthy to be compared to the glory the glory that is going to be revealed in us. Here's the second phrase. I want you to know what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. He's talking about an inheritance. So what is an inheritance? Well, an inheritance is something of great value that you get when a rich relative dies, right? Second question, whose inheritance is he talking about?

This is the part everybody misses. He's not talking about our inheritance. Whose inheritance?

Look at your bio. Whose is it? God's inheritance. God has an inheritance? Yes.

What is it? The saints. Who are the saints? The saints are all those that God has chosen.

You. You are God's inheritance. Paul says, I am praying that you might know that you are God's greatest treasure. God considered me so precious to him that Jesus gave up the universe and he suffered and he died to save me. Paul is saying, I'm praying that you would see that and you would feel it and you would be overwhelmed by your value to God and by his commitment to you. You're taking notes. Write down for the second one, write down your worth. Paul wants you to see your hope.

Second, he wants to see your worth. Later in Ephesians 3, Paul re-prays this prayer with different words. And Paul says this, listen to this. This is my favorite passage in Ephesians, I think, the whole thing. I pray that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now, you know, he didn't actually say what he means by breadth, length, height, and depth, but I think when you understand, especially Ephesians 1, I really think it's actually kind of obvious what those four words refer to. Again, this is my interpretation.

You could challenge it, but just look at it. The length, the length of God's love from all eternity and for all eternity, God chose us from before the foundation of the world, which means there has never been a time ever when God has not known me and loved me, and there will never be a time in the future where he will quit loving me. He says, that's what God did for you.

He looked down through history and said, that one. He chose us from all eternity and he will never quit loving us. The length of God's love. Then there's the height of God's love. I think that's a reference to the intensity of his love for us.

Psalm 103, which Paul would have been familiar with, says, as high as the heavens are above the earth. That's how great God's love, how intense it is for us. So when you walk out under the stars and you suddenly have this overwhelming sense of how big the universe is, or you look through a telescope and realize that you're seeing about one one millionth of what's out there, and you're overwhelmed by the size of the universe, that is the height, that is the measure of God's intensity of his love for you. Then there's the breadth of God's love.

I think that's a reference to how much it controls all things. God has marshaled every molecule of the universe, Paul tells us, in pursuit of his good purpose in our lives. Now he's using everything. He's using our bad luck. He's using injustices of others.

He's even using our own stupid decisions. He's controlling everything to accomplish his purpose in our lives. God's love, the control is broad, spans the whole universe. Then there's the depth of God's love. And I think that's a reference to how far God went to save us, how far down God had to reach to rescue us when we were so unlovely and so screwed up. And God reached farther down deep just to get us even when we were so far gone that we had given up hope. Paul says this love that surpasses our knowledge to comprehend or even with me with an inspired pen to accurately describe, this is the love that I want you to feel and I want you to taste. Here's your third phrase.

We got to keep moving. Clarity number three, he wants us to see what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe. That's verse 19. He prayed that you would know how much power is at work in you and how much power is available to you. It's interesting to me, watch this, the measure of God's power that he chose.

You see that next verse? It says, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead. The measure of God's power that Paul gives to us is what?

The resurrection. Now, honestly, I feel like if I had been writing this, I try to do this with you guys to show you if I were an apostle what I would have written and why it would have been wrong. If I had written this, I would think I would naturally have wanted to measure God's power by the powers of creation because creation is pretty impressive. Something out of nothing, I'd have been like, do you see how big the universe is?

That's pretty awesome. That's the measure of God's love. But that's not what Paul chooses.

That's not the measure he used. He said the power at work in you is the power of resurrection. Resurrection is the greatest possible power imaginable because it is the power to bring life out of death.

Creation is bringing life out of nothing, which is pretty impressive. But resurrection is bringing life out of death, which is even greater because death is not a neutral power. Death is a corrosive, destructive, negative power. Death is at work in the world because you and I rebelled against God. Our rebellion brought his wrath and his curse of death on our lives and it ruins God's creation and our lives. It's a destructive power and everything we as humanity touch ends up being destroyed by Paul invoking the power of resurrection.

He is saying, listen, this is good news. God is not only able to create good stuff out of nothing, he is able to create good things out of even bad things. And this is good news for a number of you because a number of the most sensitive parts of our lives are touched by the decay of death. Many of you are consumed by destructive emotions, you are upset or obsessive, you are jealous, you are selfish, you are hateful, you are controlling, you are domineering, you are materialistic, and that's why every relationship that you touch turns sour. Many of you have addictions, sexual addictions, drug addictions, power addictions, attention addictions, and you can't get over them. Many of you, your lives are consumed by confusion that results from the blindness that comes from sin. Many of you are broken and you feel like you're broken beyond repair, but God brought life out of death and that means he can bring life out of even the deadest and most decayed parts of your life. God can give you the power to overcome and break selfishness. He can give you the power to have self-control. He can give you courage where previously you were a coward. He can repair hopelessly damaged relationships. I know some of you right now when it comes to your marriage are in despair because you say nothing works and I'm telling you Jesus Christ came out of the grave and that means he can bring life back to your marriage. Power of God able to make you love God rather than stuff. Paul says I want you to see that power, a power that can change you and heal you and some of you need to quit trying to make life work.

You need to quit turning over a new leaf and you instead just need to surrender to this great stream of power that flows from the tomb of Jesus Christ that is available to all who believe. One last thing and then I'm gonna ask you a couple three questions in conclusion. One last thing, Paul prays that we would be able to see that God, look at this number four, put all things under his feet and gave him Jesus as head over all things to the church.

For number four, right now finality. Paul wants us to see the ultimate finality of God's plan. One of the biggest themes of Ephesians 1 is that Jesus has a plan and a purpose and nothing, nothing will ever trump his will or thwart his purpose, ever.

And in this verse it says that God's one great purpose on the earth, the end to which he is controlling everything, is the work that he is doing, get this, in the church, in you, making you into people who love him and who resemble him and that he lives inside of. I was thinking this week about those movies where you got like, it's like a military movie and so they got the big map of the world and they got their map and all the important military movements or, you know, Wall Street and they got all the different, you know, developments going on in the financial sector. Jack Bauer, you know, all the different places that there's terrorist activity out there in the world, sports center, all the different, you know, major sports events.

These maps are tracking what is going on that is important in those arenas. You're going to find this hard to believe but on Jesus' big map, the one that he has in his control room of what's going on in the world, you know what's there? His work in you, in the church. And all this other stuff, what's going on in Hollywood, what's going on in Washington D.C. and what's going on at sports center and what's going on in the White House and what's going on around the earth, that's all just background noise.

The big deal on the earth from God's perspective is what God is doing in his church and in the progression of his church to those places where his church is not known yet. The finality of God's plan. I want you to see it. I want you to feel it. I want you to arrange your life around it. So all that makes me ask three questions that I want you to consider.

I give them to you quickly and I want you to take them home. I want you to think about them. Number one, what is your source of hope and worth and power? What's your source of hope and worth and power?

You see, all of you have this source. You got something, all of you, whether you're a Christian or not, you've all got a sense of hope. Your hope for the future is in something.

Maybe it's in your finances, maybe it's in your 401k, maybe it's in your family. There's this myth out there that people who aren't Christians walk around. When I grew up, this is like the songs we sang, people need the Lord. Like they're all walking around like they're hopeless. You know, we just gotta go up and tell them, hey man, God loves you. Oh really?

That's not the problem. All of them have hope. The question is, is there hope in something that actually is not an illusion or is there hope placed in something that ultimately will fail them? Worth. All of you have a sense of worth. Maybe you base your worth on what others think about you. Maybe you base your sense of worth on what kind of car you drive or how much you make. That's why you go ridiculously into debt to live in a neighborhood and drive a certain kind of car because that suddenly makes a statement about you worth. That's why you get so jealous.

That's why you get so angry and people criticize you. Power. You have a sense of power.

This is what you think will make the future work out. It's when the chips are down, it's kind of what you turn to. Maybe it's your skill. Maybe it's that you're a good person. Maybe you got a good family, good upbringing.

Maybe it's your college degree. It's what you think is true about you that will give you the ability to survive. Here's the point. Every source of hope and worth and power besides Jesus ultimately will fail you. What happens when your finances crumble? If your hope is in family.

A lot of people, that's where their hope is. But that's all well and good until you turn 35 and you're still single. And everything you've had as a hope for the future, you're single and you don't know how you can make it in life. Or maybe you're 45 years old and suddenly you're divorced and your hope is gone. Maybe it's one of your kids makes bad decisions and strays.

Maybe it's that your spouse died untimely. If your hope is in your family, it crumbles. Is your hope in something, is your worth, is your power established on something that cannot be taken away? Some of you that are going through pain, this actually could be a good thing in your life. Because maybe before it's too late, God is opening your eyes to the fact that your whole life is built on an illusion.

And one germ, one stock market crash, one poor decision and everything that you live for is gone. Where's your hope, worth and power? Number two, what are you living for? What are you living for? You see, everything else besides Jesus' purpose is going to fail.

God has determined that all of the universe is going to serve Jesus' purposes. I've often encouraged you here, especially you students, that you ought to compare your life to a movie. And if your life were a movie, who would the main character be? Because if the main character is going to be you, that movie's got a really bad ending. But if the main character is Jesus, that's a movie that goes on forever because that's what Ephesians 1 says.

All of it, everything going on in the universe is going under Jesus' feet who is the head of the church and that's everything. And I'm telling you, some of you need to give up your small dreams, your dreams which are going to, yeah, maybe you'll have the American dream or whatever they call it, but then it's all going to fall apart and you're going to get to the end of your life and realize when you stand before Jesus that you wasted everything. If you died today, what would you be able to carry into eternity that would matter? If you died today, what would you be able to carry into eternity that mattered? And some of you need to radically readjust the focus of your life and quit living as if the movie was about you and start finding your part in the movie of what Jesus is doing on the earth.

That leads me to the last question here, number three. Do you realize how much power is available to you? Not just the power to overcome sin but the power for ministry. All of resurrection power you see is available to the church. Listen to this, I sometimes think that the power of God is a lot like for the church, like unclaimed checks that are written out to us, they're ours, but you just never go get them and so they totally go to waste. You realize that if resurrection power has been given to the hands of the church, listen, that means that God really could transform our community.

God really could change our world. The hesitation is not in him that he's got the power of resurrection available, the hesitations in us. I realize I'm looking at a group of people right now that God has put in their hands the power of resurrection if they would access it. And on my other hand, I've got 6,500 unreached people groups in the world that have never heard about Jesus. And the question is what happens if this group is not able to change their world? This group doesn't release resurrection power to this group because the hesitation is not in Jesus, the hesitation is in us.

I remember reading the biography of Hudson Taylor who said he was a missionary to China, he said I realized that there were still millions of Chinese who heard about Jesus. And I knew suddenly I knew that if I had asked God to raise up people to send to them, God would have done it. He said so pray the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers to the harvest. He said suddenly I was overcome by a sense of blood guiltiness.

They hadn't heard because I hadn't asked. God had declared his power. He had said that all authority had been given to me. He had put in my hands the power of the resurrection and I had simply failed to access it for the millions of Chinese who had never heard about Jesus. All the power to reach all the unreached people groups in the world is in the church.

Release it. I've thrown out to you as a congregation there are five groups here in our city I want to see God's power brought into. They are the homeless, recovering prisoners, fosters and orphan children.

They are unwed mothers and high school dropouts. I have no idea what we're supposed to do or how we're supposed to do it but I know all the power for us to transform those groups here in Riley Durham is right here in this church and under the sound of my voice. I don't know what you're supposed to do with it.

I'm just throwing it out there. Jesus says to us Psalm 2 8 ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance because they're my inheritance and I'm waiting on you to ask for it. College student what are you doing with your life? Resurrection power for the world. The ability to complete Jesus' mission is here.

It's you. Put up your small dreams. Quit messing around with the American nightmare dream whatever. Go forward to what God has put in front of you and release his resurrection to the world. Don't waste your life. The church needs our eyes to be open because our community needs to see God.

They need to see him in us. Pray and ask God to give you the eyes to see or as Paul said having the eyes of your heart enlightened. You're listening to Pastor JD Greer on Summit Life online at jdgreer.com and while you're there you can also browse through previous studies or visit Pastor JD's blog for the latest relevant articles. We love making these resources available free of charge so that everyone can dive deeper into the gospel but this mission is only possible because of friends like you who give generously to support this ministry. When you donate to Summit Life you're really giving to your fellow listeners and making it possible for JD's teaching to be heard all across the country. As our way of saying thanks for your gift today we'll send you an exclusive new Summit Life study named after our teaching series called Mystery and Clarity the Book of Ephesians. We'll open up one of the most powerful books of the New Testament and study it together.

We'll hold up the mystery and majesty of the gospel to show us that even though God loves to blow our minds he also loves for us to see him to know him and to feel his presence in our lives personally because if there is one thing that we all need it is greater clarity into the mystery of God's love. We'd love to get you a copy of this new resource today. Ask for Mystery and Clarity when you donate at the suggested level of $25 or more by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or give and request your copy online at jdgrier.com. While you're on the website you can also sign up for our email list to get ministry updates, information about new resources and Pastor JD's daily devotional delivered straight to your inbox. It's a great way to stay connected with Summit Life and it's completely free to subscribe.

Sign up when you go to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch. Thank you for joining us this week. You know when something goes wrong in the world we tend to look for someone to blame like the other side of the political line, a corrupt business or a flawed education system. But next week Pastor JD reveals that the blame doesn't lie with one political party or system.

It's actually inside all of us. We'll see you again Monday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.