Wilderness Wanderings

God's grace has saved you because of your faith in Christ. Your salvation doesn't come from anything you do. It is God's gift. It is not based on anything you have done. No one can brag about earning it. We are God's creation. He created us to belong to Christ Jesus. Now we can do good works. Long ago God prepared these works for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-10).

As Pastor Anthony mentioned yesterday, having shown us that "nothing can steal us out of God's hand or out of the future with King Jesus", Paul returns to the great topic of 'by grace alone.' When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, killed by hostile people and resurrected and ascended by the power of God, we are saved by grace alone. The Protestant Reformers were quick to add that faith was not some sort of 'work' we needed to add to the grace of God. Faith itself is a gift of grace.

But I do not want to lean into that doctrine today. Rather, I want to take you into a reflection on the confluence of grace and works. The relationship between grace and works, as set forth here, is much misunderstood. The misreading goes something like this: God has saved us so that we can do something for him. The first task of the Christian is to figure out what this 'work' is that God wants us to do. And if we don't accomplish it…well, we are left to imagine what the disappointment of God looks like.

It doesn't take much to recognize that this teaching immobilizes some of us whiling spurring others on to do all sort of things hoping against hope that we are meeting God's expectations. This distortion of grace is rooted in a misunderstanding of 'work'. For us, work is about accomplishment.

We work for a paycheck. We work to add status to our profile, to add to our resume. It is a means of providing for our dependents and for moving up in the world. We think about religious work in much the same way. If fact, for some, the only meaningful work is 'Christian work'. In building the kingdom on earth, we accomplish something for God. And the more we accomplish the more pleased God is with us. God will listen more readily to a 'pastor' than to a lesser Christians. But this distorts God's grace.

In his book, Practising Resurrection, Eugene Peterson helps us see how grace and work belong together. He reminds us that God is the first being we see at work (Genesis 1 & 2). We see God creating. Everything he makes is a gift. This gifting culminates in the creation of woman. The man is delighted. She is a gift. (We distort their relationship when we do not see this giftedness). Everything is a gift. In creating us in his image, God invites us into his work, giving us work to do that corresponds with his work.

Next, we turn to Jesus who continues his father's work. He insists that the God no one has ever seen is visible in the works that he does right in front of their eyes (John 10:25). His work is like God's work of creation. It is all gifts. He feeds, he heals, he comforts, he blesses – all gifts of grace. And he dies.

It is one of the great ironies of Jesus' life that what people saw Jesus do were the very things that provoked rejection of him as the incarnation of God. Jesus' work is the form in which the invisible God can be seen. We have seen God's glory in Jesus. Glory is God's invisibility become visible in Jesus at work. And — this is Paul's point in Ephesians — we also are "created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." Our work is a form for the glory.

Work is not what we do; we are the work that God does: "we are God's creation," "we are God's workmanship" (RSV). In Christ's crucifixion, God re-makes us into the image of Christ. And with our transformation, our sense of work is transformed as well. Work is no longer about our achievements; rather, it is to put grace into physical form. To live the resurrection life in the here and now. To live the resurrection life as we work for our paycheck. To live the resurrection life at school and in retirement, among our family and when socializing with friends.

This resurrection life is growing up in Christ. It is our work. Work is learning to put away the misdeeds of the flesh and dressing up in the clothing of the Spirit. We are God's work and doing God's work: "we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life" (Eph. 2:10). Growing up in Christ means we live not in terms of what we make of ourselves but in terms of what God makes us.

Whatever job we get and whatever task we are assigned serves as a container for grace, a means for us to grow up in Christ. Growing up into Christ is our work. Our work is always and only, God's grace at work in us.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6-7)

Between the "by grace you have been saved" of verse five and the "by grace you have been saved" of verse eight, comes this powerful picture of what that grace means.

Not only has God saved us from the death of sin and evil by "raising us" up to a new, resurrection life in the life of Christ, but he has raised us all the way up. We usually stop the good news of the gospel after we've said the words death and resurrection. But Paul doesn't. He says we've been raised all the way—raised up with Christ through his resurrection, ascension, and his enthronement. We are with him in the heavenly realms, seated with him in the throne room of heaven where all things dwell under the rule and reign of our King Jesus. We are there, seated not under him, but with him. As if we were his siblings, co-heirs to the throne.

That's a powerful place to be. And it rhymes with everything that has come before. Like in chapter 1:3 where Paul praises the God who has "blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." Yes—here we are, seated with Christ in the heavenly realms between grace upon grace. Or in chapter 1:20-21 where we hear of God's power for us, which is the same as that which "raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come."

It's a beautiful picture of unassailable power—a perfectly complete salvation. Such a contrast from those opening words of "dead in your transgressions."

And yet: I write this sitting in the church at 61 Mohawk Road West. I can assure you that my feet are firmly on the ground of planet earth this cold and cloudy day as the trees look increasingly bare. Paul's vision of us with Jesus in the heavenly realms doesn't quite line up with reality, does it?

Or does it?

I think Paul invites us here to see beyond what we can see. In the eyes of God: all of this "raising up" is already accomplished. It is as good as done. His promise is sure, his grace irresistible, and his power complete. Nothing can steal us out of his hand or out of the future with King Jesus that Paul paints.

The challenge is holding onto this vision of our true, royal salvation reality amidst the pain, sorrow, and suffering of still sin-broken world. I think that's why Paul paints the vision so starkly.

I have to think of the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie where Gandalf shows up in King Theoden's court under a gray cloak. He is announced as Gandalf the Grey and hobbles forward on the arm of a companion as if an old man. He approaches the bewitched king as if to set him free from Saruman's spell. But the king just laughs: "you have no power here, Gandalf the Grey" he cackles. Then Gandalf takes off his cloak, revealing the White robes of his newly established power as Gandalf the White—immediately the light shines forth and the powers of darkness are quickly dispelled (you can watch it here).

So it is here in Ephesians 2 and in our lives. Remember that underneath the grey, shabby veneer of the darkness and difficulty of our lives, a truer reality exists. It is the bright and powerful reality of who we are and what we have in Jesus Christ and his power: the incomparably great riches of his grace that saves us and gives us the unshakable promise of a future.

But God loves us deeply. He is full of mercy. So, he gave us new life because of what Christ has done. He gave us life even when we were dead in sin. God's grace has saved you (Ephesians 2:4-5).

On the weekend of October 22, Walter Decker, a 99-year-old Hamiltonian, climbed the 1,776 steps to the top of the CN Tower in Toronto. It's the third time he has made the climb. He does it to raise money for the United Way. His climbing began 10 years ago as a distraction from his grief after losing his wife.

Since then, Decker has been climbing up the steps of the Hamilton Escarpment three times a week. He does 30 to 50 push-ups each morning when he wakes up. His story is inspiring. Many of us can resonate with his ambition. Even if we are not gifted with that drive, we wish we were. We idolize that ambition. It is the cultural sea in which we swim.

This is a culture in which we aspire to have the energy and ambition, the single-minded purpose to journey from rags to riches. This is a culture in which we revere those who have the undistracted and unswerving mental tenacity to add degree after degree to their name. This is a culture in which we idolize those who have the eye-on-the-ball concentration to hit home runs during the world series.

But such goals, athletic prowess, financial abundance, academic acclaim, and others like them, have little to do with living in the resurrection life, to the praise of God's glory. You see, the disciplines that lead to competitive ambition are commonly pursued without conscience, without love, without compassion, without humility, without generosity, without righteousness, without holiness. The ambitions and the successes that our culture treasures can all be pursued while ignoring the values by which Jesus calls his disciples to live. Likewise, many Christians ignore them to our shame and Jesus' shame.

I mention all of this, not to denigrate Mr. Decker. I know nothing more about him then what I mentioned here. Nor do I say all of this to lament how evil our culture is, nor to lament that many Christ followers are indistinguishable. Rather, I say all of this to highlight the radicalness of the gospel. If it was radical among the Ephesians, it is no less now. I am, of course, speaking about the doctrine of grace: "We are saved by grace alone" – sola gratia – as it become know in the days of the Protestant Reformation.

Grace alone means that God loves, forgives, and saves us not because of who we are (our identity) or what we do (our accomplishments), but because of the work of Christ. None of our energy and ambition, nor single-minded purpose, nor undistracted and unswerving mental tenacity, nor eye-on-the-ball concentration are helpful for our entering the resurrection life. God declares us righteous for Christ's sake. It is a gift, and only a gift.

Our greatest barrier to experience God's great loving salvation is our own need to accomplish stuff, to be productive, to shore up our self-identity by showing off our life's trophies, including our spiritual success. To find redemption, we need to let all this go. In his book, Practicing Resurrection, Eugene Peterson calls this "acquired passivity". Passivity suggests "insipid, spineless, no-good, lazy, lacking gumption, couch-potato, good-for-nothing, shiftless, hangdog". Not things we aspire to be known for.

If grace is a free gift from God rooted totally in his mercy and love, then it simply cannot be earned or acquired by our work and scheming and effort. It can only be received. But that goes against the grain. We want to deserve it; to do something we can show off to God. But there is nothing. Not until we have stopped trying and laid back in total surrender do we discover that grace holds us up.

This is freedom. Our sin no longer separates us from Him and no longer places us under his judgement. We can rest in the arms of Jesus. His love surrounds us. His grace fills us. His mercy will lead us home. Our spiritual activity is no longer a striving to get God's attention, but a joyful response to his grace. They are acts of love to the God who loves us even though we were rotting in the grave.

This is the resurrection life. This is 'acquired passivity', to simply receive. Once we catch a glimpse of it, we proclaim with the apostle:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. (Ephesians 2:1-3)

Paul begins chapter two with some hard news. After this massive, cosmic picture of all that God has done, is doing, and will do across the universe and arc of time, Paul sharply zooms in to the situation in Ephesus. "As for you," he says, glaring now directly at them, "you were dead in your transgressions and sins…" For the Ephesians, that was quite literally true. They had all grown up pagan, totally outside the faith until the gospel came finally also to them.

But then Paul slowly zooms out again. "All of us" he continues. Paul now includes himself. He recalls his days of persecuting the church. Paul too had been dead in his transgressions before Jesus met him on the road.

But really, Paul is now including all of us. Not just these formerly pagan Ephesians. Not just the formerly church-persecuting Paul. But all of us, including those of us today who read this letter. This is perhaps a bit odd, because many of us were born directly into the covenant of grace—directly into the church—such that there was never a pre-Christian time in our lives. Never a time when "dead in our transgressions" was the complete and final word about us. We have just always belonged to Jesus.

Yet there's still something true here for us. Paul is talking figuratively here. He's making a caricature, throwing sharp contrast onto the situation to purposefully make it stick out. While a number of us may never have had a pre-Christian time in our lives, that doesn't mean that the ways of sin and death have not stained our souls. It may be harder to see because we didn't have a conversion moment, but the same struggle is still there. The Christian tradition throughout the ages has talked about Original Sin to capture this idea.

All of us do still struggle with transgressions and sins. We were born with it. Sin came with our humanity. It is highlighted a thousand times over in the news and social feeds that cross our screens, but it's also there in the personal, secret sins that you never could quite defeat. Or the fantasies you entertain. The vengeance you desire. The words that slip out accidentally in fights with your spouse, children, or parents.

Many of us may never have been "dead in our transgressions" in the way pre-Christian Paul or the Ephesians were, but that doesn't mean that we don't need saving. Indeed, it is only because of that saving grace of Jesus Christ that death has never had it's hold on us.

We will of course speak of this more as Paul carries on into some of those strong, Reformation Day Faith-Alone, Grace-Alone texts in this chapter that are for all the Saints—which is what today is: All Saints Day. For now though, it is enough simply to remember our baptisms. A plunging under the waters to picture our death to sin and death in all its ways as we die in the death of Christ which defeated both, so that, rising up out of the waters on the other side, we might have life instead. His life. A new life. It is the same drama that Paul is painting here in the opening verses of chapter two.

Though traces of death remain: it is not the final word about us. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

God placed all things under Christ's rule. He appointed him to be ruler over everything for the church. The church is Christ's body and is filled by Christ. He fills everything in every way (Ephesians 1:22-23).

We come to the end of Ephesians 1 and to the end of Paul's prayer. We have caught glimpses of God's work on our behalf from before there was time. We have been named saints, not because we are so saintly, but because God has been preparing for ages to adopt us as his children. As he names us saints, he calls us to resurrection life.

We have overheard the apostle to the gentiles, folks like us, on his knees giving thanks while continually asking that our knowledge of and faith in God may increase. These two, knowledge and faith, are like railings on each side of a steep circular stairway. Only as we hold onto both rails is climbing possible. And yet, as we climb, we discover its more of an escalator than a stair that we are on, for the Holy Spirit is propelling us up and up and up. Its more the Spirit's power than ours that enables us to go higher.

As we are still making sense of this reality, we discover that the Holy Spirit is the power of God by which Christ was raised from the dead and ascended to his throne. This 'incomparably great power' is now at work in us flushing away the stench of sin and filling us with the aromas of grace.

As the Spirit draws us ever deeper into this resurrection life, we see Christ seated in the heavenly realms above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name invoked throughout all the ages. And we see all things placed under Christ's rule. Finally, we see Christ filling not only the church but 'everything in every way'. And so, we run outside and look. But we don't see him, everything looks, well, so ordinary. We go to the church, and we meet people we know. They don't act like saints; they act like sinners. We become disillusioned. Is it all a hoax?

I think, this is the very matter Paul is praying about. This is nothing new. Folks who met Jesus in the flesh didn't notice anything particularly godly about him. Herod, anticipating a show-and-tell miracle, was disappointed; Pilate was puzzled but unimpressed; Caiaphas was contemptuous. The resurrected Jesus was still unimpressive: Mary Magdalene mistook him for a gardener; Cleopas and his friend walked and talked with him for seven miles without recognizing him. Some worshipped him while others still doubted.

Why didn't they get it? What were they looking for? Only when he picked up a loaf of bread, blessed it, broke it open, and passed it around did they get it. With the texture of bread on their fingers, and its taste on their tongues — grounded in the ordinary — they recognized him.

Why doesn't Jesus advertise himself? If he wants to be known as God incarnate—healing, saving, blessing –why doesn't he get our attention? Why doesn't he do some show-and-tell miracle? Then we would know without a doubt. Then we would run to him. If all those verbs that Paul has spread out for us to consider and receive are the real thing, why doesn't Jesus at least raise his voice? Why is it so difficult to see?

Eugene Peterson answers simply, "God reveals himself in personal relationship and only in personal relationship". We want to treat God as a spectacle to be marvelled at; or a force to be used; or a doctrine to be argued. But he is not these things. He is not impersonal or abstract. Since he is personal, he treats us personally. He doesn't want to impress. He's here to eat bread with us and receive us into his love just as we are, just where we are.

Yes, he reveals himself in the mountains and the oceans, in the thunder and lightning, in the butterflies and flowers. But mostly, he reveals himself in the person sitting with us in the coffee shop and at the breakfast table. He reveals himself in the person we share a pew with and in the person peddling at the intersection.

God wants to sit with us in the quietness of prayer, sometimes we might use words. Jesus wants to be with us as we wash the kitchen floor. The Spirit wants to fill us as we watch our (grand) children play hockey.

May the eyes of our hearts be opened, that we might see Jesus as he 'fills everything in every way', ordinary things in ordinary ways.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. (Ephesians 1:19b-21)

In the first half of verse 19 we hear Paul's prayer that we may know in our heart the power of God for us who believe. It has been my increasing sense over these past number of years, probably ever since 2015 or so, that we as Christians in the West have little sense of this power of God.

Whether in the legalism of progressive justice seeking or the legalism of conservative ethical codes—both political and church discourse has been shaped by an implicit belief that if any Christian good is going to get done around here—we have to do it ourselves, that is, in the strength of our own power. These "strong positions" of "strong stances" betray our belief in a very small, impotent God. A God that is functionally dead. "It's all up to us now" is what we actually believe: we believe we're on our own.

From the spiritual angle, I think this smallness of our God and our functional belief in his powerlessness is, more than anything, what has driven the polarization in church and society. We think that we have to save the church. That we have to fight the secularists. We have to save our society. We have to set things right and make justice happen in this world. We, we, we. Through the power of law, the power of our money, the power of our influence, the power of our votes—through any power that is, that we can get our hands on—we ourselves have sought to be the god that we no longer believe in.

Aside from lip service, very rarely in these divisive conversations have we bent the knee of our hearts to a power greater than our own. Very rarely have we laid down our powerful, coercive armaments in trust that God's power will vindicate and save us—if not now than in the world to come. Very rarely have we held out hope that his power will see us through to a glorious inheritance despite what our eyes can see around us.

When we lose sight of a big, sovereign God—a powerful God—we lose everything. If we no longer believe that God is powerful to act in our lives, world, and church anymore, then we functionally deny the very power that "he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand." Said differently: a belief in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ demands belief in a God who powerfully works in our world still today. The power is the same, Paul says. The power of God for us who believe is the same as the power that vindicated Jesus in Resurrection.

Let me revise that stark and hopeless sentiment that I offered at the beginning though. Over the past number of months, I think the tide has begun to turn. As we all become exhausted from the trouble of our world, slowly I begin to see Christians in our congregation, city, and elsewhere remember and rest again in the power of the big, sovereign God that has always saved and held them.

And as we recognize that power once again, so we begin to feel our hope and calling renewed. God is on the move! Just like in those days of power when, through his mighty strength he raised Christ from the dead. My prayer is the same as Paul's: that God will once again open the eyes of our hearts to perceive and rest in his mighty power, hope, and calling for us who believe. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is 1 Samuel 24 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

Dive In!

1. How have things changed between David & Saul? How is David's response different from Saul's?
2. Why is David's heart stricken?
3. What opportunity is Saul presented with? Have you ever had such an opportunity? How did you respond?
4. Pay attention this week to situations in which you are faced with these kinds of choices. Ask God to help you follow David rather than Saul's heart. How do we begin moving towards David's example?

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe (Ephesians 1:18-19a).

Its difficult to keep hope alive. Bad news abounds. Do Christians even have a right to be hopeful as chaos descends? Yesterday, Pastor Anthony answered that question with a resounding yes. Today, let's dig deeper into that hope.

But to do that, we need to take a step back to remember that God places a 'call' upon his saints. This call is not random or purposeless. God calls us for a purpose and to a future. The call and the hope are paired. Together, our calling and our hope cause us to live with expectation. We have already seen that God is the main actor in the Christian life. Thus, we believe that he will see our calling completed and bring us into our inheritance. Even as we lean into it, even as we engage in the work of discipleship, we trust that God is the one who makes it happen.

So, what is this calling and hope? It is rich and varied. He has called us to belong to Jesus Christ and live in fellowship with him. We are called into freedom from the judgement of the law and from sin's dominion over us. We are called into a harmonious fellowship in which barriers of race and class and gender fall away. God calls us into the peace of Christ and into a life of love towards others, including the capacity to forgive. Even as he names us saints, he calls us to saintly living.

When we face opposition towards are faith, we are called to love our enemies, not to retaliate. He calls us to endure unjust suffering with patient endurance, following the example of Christ. And after suffering for the gospel, we will enter the glory of heaven, for his is a kingdom of blessed glory and rest.

All this was in God's mind when he called us. He calls us to Christ and holiness, to freedom and peace, to suffering and glory. It is a call to a new way of life, the way of discipleship, in which we know, love, obey and serve Jesus and while enjoying fellowship with him. To look beyond the present hardships of this life to the glory that waits us.

Paul prays that our eyes will be opened so we see the hope to which we were called. That we will have a vision of God's kingdom in all its resplendent glory in which all creatures worship and obey God; in which there will no hatred, envy, or discord; no more debilitating addictions nor poverty; nor power plays or self-aggrandizement. And having this vision, we are called to live into it; to already shape are lives according to its realities. This is our calling and our hope.

But the vision of this glorious kingdom and the realities of this life are very far apart. Broken marriages, abandoned children, neglected seniors, insufficient housing, broken governments, the persistent destruction of life and infrastructure through war is our reality. All this, 2 000 years after Christ's resurrection, makes us wonder if our inheritance will ever come. Should we not just give up and do our own thing?

How do we keep up hope? It is to this question that Paul now turns. Again, he will heap word upon word and phrase upon phrase, tripping over his own tongue (pen) to help us see. To realize our calling and enter our hope he would have us look to only one thing: the greatness of God's power. It is only God's power that can fulfil the expectation which belongs to the call and bring us safely into the riches of the glory of our inheritance.

And so, his next petition is that we will know 'the immeasurable greatness of God's power' towards those who believe. As they say, the 'proof is in the pudding'. And the pudding, for our hope and calling, is the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. There are two things that we humans simple cannot compete against: death and evil. They hold us in bondage. But the power of God is demonstrated in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, in which God broke the hold of death and evil over us. This is the power that is at work in us to enable us to fulfill our calling and to bring us into our inheritance. Our only hope is in the power of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people… (Ephesians 1:18)

The past number of years through political polarization, pandemic, war, and now any number of other crises, like affordability, have been revelatory. What these years have revealed to me is that there is very little hope to be found in humanity.

We fight with one another, we tear down institutions, we start wars, we multiply fears and conspiracies, we look to coerce and control one another, we make short-sighted decisions, and our solutions to save ourselves from ourselves tend to lead only to more heartache.

Of course, within our own tradition of scripture and confessions, this is not news. Our church's confessional statements—preaching from the scriptures as they do—have been rather blunt on this point: the sin that has broken this world touches every aspect of our lives such that we are utterly unable to pull ourselves out from it. Our cause is hopeless.

Before all the mess of this past few years, we had perhaps been able to lull ourselves into thinking that things weren't really so bad as all that. Multifaceted progress, wealth, and health were allowing us to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and live good, safe, and prosperous lives. But all of a sudden, the world doesn't feel quite so safe and secure as it once did. Bad news abounds. And the diagnosis of our Christian tradition doesn't seem quite so far off the mark after all. We've begun to remember what depths of evil we human people are capable of.

And yet: the saints of ages past have not only left us with the hopeless reality check of the bad news. They have also declared a word of unflinching hope that rings out against this world's evil. There is yet a name by which we may be saved. There is yet a God who has not abandoned this world of sin and pain. There is yet a future of full and vibrant life in and for this world coming on the horizon, if only we wait in trust for just a little longer. Jesus remains with us, for us, in us, saving us. And he will come again.

It is so easy for this message of hope in Christ upon which the Church is built to get lost and overlooked amidst the swirl of hopelessness and defeat. And so in every age, including our own, this prayer of Paul needs to be continually prayed again: "that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened by the Spirit, in order that we may know the hope to which the Father has called us in Jesus Christ—the riches of his glorious inheritance among his saints." Amen. May we all rest in this hope until Jesus comes again.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better (Ephesians 1:17).

Let us begin at the end of this verse. Recall that Paul is telling the church how he prays for them. He heeds his own advice, "to pray continually" and "to pray in all circumstances". Here he says, "I keep asking". Understand that God is already answering his prayers. Reports have come to him regarding the faith and love of the Ephesian Christians. But he wants more of it, longing to see their growth in Christ. And so, he keeps on asking. Now he zeros in on an essential aspect of the Christian life, "to know God". Faith and love awaken in us because we know God. Paul prays that we will know him better.

We should understand that there are two dynamics that work in tandem in our knowledge of God. First, there is information, facts. Things about God that we learn from the scriptures and from other Christians. We might call this second-hand knowledge. But this must be complemented and re-enforced with personal knowledge that can only come from our personal interaction with God. That is why Christians often talk about a personal relationship with God.

We develop a personal relationship with God as we wrestle with God in prayer; as we notice the ways that God shows up in our lives; as we experience the freedom that the grace of forgiveness brings to us; as we live out our faith by loving difficult people; and as we learn to give testimony of our faith in Jesus with those who believe different things; as we read the Bible, not as a place to gather facts, but as a love letter from God.

Christians have long recognized a paradox: God is everywhere and therefore, in a sense impersonal; and yet in relation to the individual person, God is entirely intimate and therefore, personal. So, with the eyes of faith, we can see God at work in many places while at the same time experiencing the intimate dynamics of a loving relationship with him.

We are not on our own in forging a personal relationship with God. Paul knows that we cannot do this on our own. We need help. And so, he prays that we will be given the "Spirit of wisdom and revelation". It's the Spirit's role to continually reveal knowledge about God to us. The Spirit is given to all Christians and will continually give wisdom and revelation for life and understanding so that we know God personally.

One of the main tasks of the Spirit is to help us know what God has given us (1 Cor. 2:12). Paul's prayer in effect says, "By knowing God's benefits, you will know God." As in the doxology, God is viewed as a giver, who by giving makes himself known. Knowing God happens neither accidentally nor by magic. The Spirit makes possible knowledge of both God and his benefits.

How can the Spirit do this if we are not learning about these benefits from the scripture? Biblical facts can just sit in our heads. But the Spirit will persist in nudging us to personalize those facts. They are about and for us. Christian living requires a continual openness to the Spirit and his communication to us, not about strange mysteries, but about what Christians have in the gospel and about its significance for life. The gospel tells us what God has revealed about his character and his intent for people.

We continually need insight into the faith, for we have a darkness that needs enlightening (1:17–18). This darkness is the result of sin as well as our inability to grasp the magnificence of God and the enormity of his work in Christ. God addresses our limitation and darkness and through his Spirit helps us to overcome this deficiency and to keep us ever learning about God and Christ.

Paul prays that the glorious Father will do this thing. As we have said, glory often refers to God revealing himself to humans (for example, Exodus 33-34). Here Paul asks that the father reveal himself to us. God is viewed as a giver, who by giving, makes himself known.

God, the glorious father, wants to be known intimately by you and me. Let this be the prayer for the church and for all people.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).