8.3 - The Hope of His Calling

Before the Apostle Paul admonishes his readers to "walk worthy of the calling," he prays that they understand the hope of their calling and the God who offers this hope. In this episode, Paul and Noah spend time unpacking Paul's prayer in Ephesians chapter 1.

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Paul and Noah both preach and teach with the Cedar Park church of Christ in Cedar Park, TX. You can visit our site at: https://www.cedarparkchurchofchrist.org/

Transcript

Noah: 0:30

Well, good morning and welcome back to the Stand Strong podcast. I'm here with Paul and we are back in the book of Ephesians here in this new season of the Stand Strong podcast. We're working through Ephesians a little bit at a time. Last time we covered about the first half of chapter one. But when I say we covered it, Paul I mean, we could spend a whole lot more time on this first section of chapter one than we already have No doubt about that.

Paul: 1:00

Yeah, I just I'm looking forward to, I think, I think you were gonna give us that long, long sentence yeah. In chapter one. That kind of helps set, sets the stage and reminds us where we're trying to go and where Paul was trying to go when he was talking about the richness here, about those of us who are in Christ.

Noah: 1:20

Yes. Yeah. So I think it would be good to just go ahead and read beginning in verse three. Go ahead and read. It's not rendered in the English is one long sentence, but what is essentially a really long single thought. But I think it'll help us kind of reframe as we're getting back into this and prepare us for the, the remainder of the chapter. So let's begin reading in verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love. He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons, through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In 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, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory in 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 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. So that's a lot, that's a lot you know, kind of crammed into a very short amount of time. But I think that in some ways that's, that's kind of a, a taste of how Ephesians is. This is not drawn out in the same way that Paul's letter to the Romans is drawn out. This is. The, the first half of the book, there's a lot of rich concepts in a very short amount of time. And then in the last half there's a lot of practical application of those important concepts kind of smashed into a small small space. So this is kind of a preview of that. There's this section of praise where he's, he's praising God. And for everything that God does in Christ through Christ blessing us, choosing us, having this love for us sealing us and, and accomplishing this plan that he had since before the very foundation of the world as. Peter would talk about in one Peter chapter one. So there's, there's a lot to praise God for obviously. And Paul makes that very richly and abundantly clear here at the beginning of Ephesians one.

Paul: 4:14

Yeah. I love the fact, Noah, that what Paul is doing, you know, we referenced all the way back. Or going forward into chapter four, where he's gonna get very practical and tell us to walk worthy of the calling. Well, what he's doing here in the beginning of Ephesians is telling us about that calling. Yeah. And to tell us about that calling. He's got to talk about the, what I refer to as the triune god the father, son of the spirit. And if you're gonna talk about deity and connect deity to, to the, the, the richness here. Of the calling. Then you talk about the father, you talk about the son, and you talk about the spirit, and he beautifully does that and weaves those three together in this section here, verses three through 14. Why is he doing that? Well, before you talk about who we are in Christ. And what we had now become because of this God of grace and mercy who, who gave of his only son, then, then you need, you need to talk about deity before you talk about, you know, who we are and the blessings that we have. But then, you know, once he does that, he starts telling us who we are. I mean, we are forgiven, we are loved, we are sealed. We are a child of the king with all the rights and the privileges we're no longer condemned and what we now have, spiritual blessings. The, the spirit, we'll talk about that later in, in, in his praying, but eternal life and inheritance. We've got a, a spiritual family. We have hope. And all of that he's saying is because of. God in his great purpose, he planned to have a people to redeem a people in Christ Jesus. And he did it according to the pleasure of his will. He wanted to do this right.

Noah: 5:55

This is something he desired and he desired it for everybody. I think it's worth noting here and, and the, you know, last few verses of what we just read when he says, when Paul says things like, so that we who are the first to hope in Christ. Might be to the praise of his glory. And then he also says in him, you also, and then he has a long sentence, but the end result of that is also to the praise of his glory. Mm-hmm. So Paul's making a distinction here. He says, there's those of us who were first to hope in Christ, which probably pretty reasonable to say that's the Jews. They were the, the first to hear the Messiah's message that's part of Jesus's ministry. And then he's writing to it the Ephesian Church, which is largely going to be Gentile. And he says, and in him you also, when you heard the word of truth and the gospel of your salvation believed in him. And then the end result is to the praise of his glory. And so there's this, I, I think this is an important thing to understand that. This is God's plan. It always has been God's plan. It's because his desire to enact this and to demonstrate this love. But it's always been the plan that this is gonna be available to everybody, Jew and Gentile. It's going to be something where any individual has the opportunity to bring God glory through their belief in God. And that's encouraging in a lot of ways, but it's also really important for where Paul's going next here in chapter one, when he starts talking about their faith, the, the, the belief and the faith of the people he's writing to in verses 15 and following.

Paul: 7:35

Yeah. I, I, I love that, you know, to, to talk about that, that we, who first trusted in Christ should be, this is verse 12, should be to the praise of his glory in him. You also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. I mean, what, what does, what does trusting in Christ look like? How do I know that, that I am truly a believer who has, has committed his life to God in Christ Jesus? And Paul's gonna talk about that later in chapter one and certainly into chapter two.

Noah: 8:11

Yes. Yeah. So I think that that's a reasonable point at which we can, we can come over here to verse 15 and following where Paul says that he's heard of the Ephesians faith. In the Lord Jesus, and he has heard of their love for all the saints, and because of this verse 16, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. So he has, he's familiar with the, the faith of this church, both the, how it's demonstrated in their faith. To Jesus, but also how it's demonstrated in their love for one another. And he's thankful to God for that. He's thankful for their example of faith and for the way that they're living in that faith. And I, I'm just gonna pause here for a moment. This is something that Paul does at the beginning of several of his epistles where he is thankful for. One thing or another about the people he's writing to. Two things. One that doesn't preclude the fact that he's writing them a letter. The fact that he's thankful and appreciative of these people doesn't mean there's not things that he needs to write to them about. And secondly, he's about to express what he prays for, regarding them, things that they need to grow in, things that they need to gain wisdom and understanding in. And that's not precluded by the fact that he appreciates these people for their faith and for their love. So I, I think that that's helpful for us to wade slightly into application for just a moment. Sometimes we take it as an offense when people. Who people try to instruct us or help us or show us areas where we need to grow. And we may think, oh, well, if an apostle wrote to me, then I would feel better about it. I, I think if we look at the reactions of some of these churches, that's, I don't think that holds up. I, I think we would probably sometimes be the ones that go, Hey Paul, who do you think you are? Why are you doing this? Why are you telling me this? So I think it's just helpful for us to recognize. Not that there aren't bad apples who are just out there to be vindictive, but oftentimes our brothers and our sisters can simultaneously appreciate us. And appreciate our faith and our love or other positive attributes and still see areas where we need to grow.

Paul: 10:25

Yeah, that's, that's very true. You know, you referenced, Paul does that to the Colossians, by the way, too, very early. When he, when he writes he, he, he says, I give thanks to God. And I give thanks to God for your faith, and I give thanks to God for the fact that you, you love the saints. And you know, I don't think that they would've misunderstood what Paul was saying. I think they would've understood that Paul was saying as a result of true faith in Christ, truly trusting in Christ. Then that naturally produces in you a willingness to love others who are also in Christ. Yes. Let me explain'cause you kind of, you, you went all around that and I think that's a powerful point when I'm truly trusting in Christ. I'm convicted by his love. I mean, that's part of the gospel. If you're gonna preach the gospel, then you need to preach the love of God in Christ Jesus. And so when you understand the gospel, you're convicted by the gospel, you're, you're appreciating the message of the love of God, the love of Jesus. And so because God in Christ has loved me. This much and provided for me, salvation has made it possible for my redemption and my forgiveness. I don't have condemnation. He sees me and he doesn't see guilt. He sees righteousness because of my relationship and Christ my faith. You truly trust him. Okay, I get love if God loved me this much. I'm in a family and those who are in the family with me, I want to love them. Mm-hmm. I think that's why Paul, early on, when he talks about our calling and he talks about how much God loved us first, he wants this people to understand, I appreciate the fact that you love each other. Mm-hmm.'cause

Noah: 12:22

it's a demonstration of the faith that

Paul: 12:24

you have in Jesus. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know. Why does, why does Paul very early when he talks about the gospel and he talks about, you know, like the father, what the father did, what the son did, what the spirit is doing and serves as, I guarantee, why, why does he say, okay, here's what I'm praying for you. And I, I, I think there's a lot there, Noah.

Noah: 12:51

Yeah. Well, and so the, in verse 17, he starts to say the things that he prays for them. And fundamentally, if I were gonna try to summarize the next few verses, Paul's prayer is that the Ephesians would grow in wisdom, he says. And in knowledge of God or in understanding, I think some translations, understanding of God. But then that's, that's both in verse 17. What follows I, I think is him giving some detail of kind of saying, here's where you need to continue to grow in your understanding of God. I'm praying that you grow in wisdom and that you grow in understanding of God. And here's more specifically what I'm praying about because this is what it looks like to grow in an understanding of God. So that's kind of what we get for the rest of chapter one, is him kind of laying that out. Before them. And there's a few different ways we could break this down. Paul, I don't know if you've got a preferred preferred way of kind of trying to chunk his prayer up here. I tend to try to chunk things'cause otherwise I get lost.

Paul: 13:57

No, you, you can start, ding it up and I'll jump in.

Noah: 14:00

Okay. So one of the things that, the first thing that he talks about is the hope to which you were called, right? He says, part of understanding who God is. Is understanding the hope to which God has called us. But then he also says understanding the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, God's glorious inheritance in the saints, which comments on the value that we have in God's eyes. He wants them to understand that God sees his people as his inheritance. That. Offers us inherent value there. And then he continues and he says, 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 seeded him at his right hand in the heavenly places. And we'll, we'll go on and discuss the next few verses probably in more detail. But basically the idea there is understanding the power that God exercised through Christ. In order to accomplish the things that he's gonna talk about in chapter two and the things that we're well familiar with as far as salvation and redemption and restoration in our relationship with God. All of that was done through God's power demonstrated in the person of Christ. And so all of what he's talking about here is really gonna thrust forward into the beginning of chapter two, but he's talking about the hope, understanding God, understanding, coming to a greater understanding of who God is. Involves understanding the hope that he's called us to the value that we have in God's eyes and the power that God exercised in order to, to redeem us, to save us. That breaks down for me that that helps me understand a little bit more of what it looks like to begin to understand the God that we serve.

Paul: 15:46

Yeah,

Noah: 15:47

absolutely.

Paul: 15:48

You know, it, it's like, okay, I, I want, I want you to take the blinders off. I, I want the eyes of your understanding, the eyes of your heart to be enlightened. I, I want you to be able to see, appreciate, understand more fully. So, okay. Preach a sermon. Do some teaching, do some preaching. Give us a series, three lessons, three hours where you're preaching on, on, on this. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We do. We, we should preach we should teach, you know, open up the Bible, relay some information to people that they can take it in by faith and say, Hey, I see now this is what God has declared to me about me for my life. I see it now. I understand it. Hey, that's powerful. You and I preach that all the time, right? Paul's praying this. Yeah. So again, for people, this ought to be our prayer for ourself. This ought to be our prayer for other people because in order to fully appreciate. All that God has already done and accomplished, and he wanted to, he had planned to before the foundation of the world for us in Christ. Paul said, I want you to see this. I want you to see how rich you are. Yeah. I want you to see that. Your identity is rooted in who I say you are who I declare you to be in Christ. You know my child forgiven. You have hope, you have an inheritance. I want you to see how deep the father's love. I want you to understand what has already been accomplished. I want your faith to get to a point that you appreciate. There's a guarantee here. See, we hear in that, oh, be careful. Be careful. You don't want people to think that once they're in Christ, they're always in Christ. Paul never says that. Sure. When he talks about the guarantee of the spirit, you know this, this earnest seal with a spirit until the redemption of the purchase possession. I mean, he's wanting them to understand that you are now my child. I have, I have made good on these promises, and so I want you to take that in to understand who you are and what you have because you are my child. But what you have the power. I mean, we don't, I don't fully understand at times the. The dynamite, the energy, the, the, the, the just sheer power that we have because of who we are and who we're connected to.

Noah: 18:28

You know, as you were going through that, one of the passages that came to mind, you know, is another situation where, you know. There's a, there's a prayer that you might come to know the, the breadth and the depth and the height and the width of God's love. I don't, I don't wanna oversimplify what Paul is saying here, but there is a very real sense in which what Paul is saying here is, is parallel. Maybe not one-to-one equivalent, but the same general idea that's being communicated is we one notice that what he says here is not. I pray that you, he says, I pray that you gain in wisdom, but he says, not that I pray, that you gain understanding of how to walk according to your calling. He's gonna talk about that later. Mm-hmm. What he talks about here is I want you essentially to understand what God has done, why he has done it. How you get to benefit by because of his power and his grace and his love. Right? And so there's a, a sense, very real sense in which that's very similar to. I want you to understand the width and the breadth and the depth of God's love for you. All of this is about what God, who God is, and what God has done. Mm-hmm. And later he's gonna get to the effect that that should have on us. But first in chapter two, he's gonna talk about the effect it does have. And I think though kind of teasing that apart can be helpful.'cause when we get into chapter two, he's gonna talk about how our hope is salvation from death. You know, verse one of chapter two, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. And he talks about in verse chapter two, verse four, that God had a great love for us that speaks to, again, our value that he, that we are his inheritance and he has this love for us. And that's done, that's all was accomplished by the, the power demonstrated through the raising of Christ and, and the authority that was given to Christ and the establishing of the body. That's kind of there at the end of chapter one. All of that is in God's court. All of that is things that God has done and how they affect us. And, and Paul wants them to, to understand that and that that's why that's his prayer. Yeah. You re,

Paul: 20:43

you re, you referenced that prayer and we'll get to it in chapter three. Beautiful prayer. If you're gonna read the prayer here in chapter one of Ephesians, then get the prayer in chapter three of Ephesians. And again, who is the focus in this, not ourselves. As much as God. Yeah. We, we are the recipients. We are, we have received the blessings of this power as a result of this relationship. And I think one of the reasons he's doing this very early Noah, is so that they will again know and understand and appreciate, but, but the, the spiritual and the eternal is, is to become the focus, not, not the earthly and the temporal. Now we, we, the earthly and the temporal, we have this physical tabernacle, this earthly, this material body, and we live in a very material world, and it is only temporary. And so we are frail and we face all kinds of situations and circumstances. And he says, look, understand who is your father? What is your inheritance? What I have already accomplished? That was in my mind before, before I ever created man. When you understand the power of God demonstrated in creation, when you understand and appreciate the wisdom of God, what was in his mind and he purposed and will to accomplish and he did accomplish, and the gates of Hades cannot prevail against what God says I will have. I will have a people. Mm-hmm. And my people. Will be these kinds of people, and I will do this for these kinds of people. And he's making that point clearly known here before he ever prays. And then when he prays, he says, just, just keep praying that you'll continue to understand and grow and appreciate what you have because of who you are. You are in Christ. You are my people. And you have the Holy Spirit as a guarantee. And we'll probably talk about, well, at least I will a little bit more about the, the, the Holy Spirit as re as it relates to God's power. Mm-hmm. Because he mentions that in the prayer in chapter three.

Noah: 22:58

Yeah. Yeah. I think something that is really important, and, and maybe this is, maybe this is the thought that we can kind of have as we close. From what you were just saying, when, when Paul's talking about who you are because of who, what God has done and the relationship that you have with God part of what's being described there is that God's actions and his plan and the power that he exercised was motivated by his love, but it didn't only accomplish our salvation, it accomplished our salvation. In the context of an entrance to an acceptance into God's household, we are his people. So when God says, I'm gonna have a people, and he exercises his plan and his power to make that happen I think it's helpful for us to recognize that our salvation is accomplished. But we're not just a saved people. We're his saved people and that is going to, that's gonna influence how we live. That's gonna be a part of what it means to answer the call, to walk worthy of the call. Mm-hmm. Is because we're his saved people. We're not just a saved people. I. And I think that's gonna become more important as we work through Ephesians together.

Paul: 24:14

Yeah. And, you know, so, so we are gonna, we're talking about the church. I mean, he brings, he uses that concept at the end of chapter one. I mean, who, who are we redeemed? Who are we? God's people. We are the church. Yeah. We are his body. Who is the head of that body? Christ. Yep. And what did God do? He exalted him. He, he, he raised him up and he seated him and he placed him in a position of headship as ruler as king, having all authority. And so, you know, if, if you're gonna talk about this calling and if you're gonna connect everything that we've said together in this, bring it back full circle to Well, yeah. He's my king.

Noah: 24:56

Mm-hmm.

Paul: 24:56

Jesus. He's head, he's ruler. So, you know, the question to ask me is, okay. I, I'm thankful to be in Christ and I'm thankful to have all these spiritual blessings, and I sure, sure am grateful to the fact that God has loved me this much to provide for me this, oh, Jesus is my king.

Noah: 25:16

Mm-hmm.

Paul: 25:17

He's the head. All right, so if we're gonna talk about the, the church, which is his body, then we've gotta talk about Jesus Christ being the head.

Noah: 25:27

Yeah.

Paul: 25:28

So,

Noah: 25:28

yeah, absolutely. I. Well, I think we're, we're running up on the end of our time here. As we expected getting through Ephesians in a timely manner might prove difficult, but we've made it through the, the meat of chapter one, I believe. And I believe next, next episode, we're gonna go ahead and move into chapter two. Is that right Paul?

Paul: 25:47

We're going into chapter two. We're gonna see Mercy. We're gonna see grace. We talk about those terms all the time. What is mercy? What is grace? I'll just give you a quickie. For those to be thinking about between now and next week. Mercy is not getting what I deserve, and grace is getting what I don't deserve. But it's interesting, all the superlatives in chapter one, the exceeding riches of, or the exceeding greatness of Paul's still gonna use those superlatives. In chapter two when he talks about mercy, he talks about grace and he talks about love. So, it's, it's those of us who are joining, thank you. Read into chapter two. Be ready for that. As we're journeying through Ephesians next week. And until then we give thanks to God for who he is and what he has made possible in his son Jesus Christ. All of the beautiful things that tell us about how blessed and rich we are because we are in him. Let that today and this week serve to help you to remain strong.