Seen through the Eyes of the Heart

[00:00:01] Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. [00:00:06] Amen. [00:00:12] St. Paul, in our reading from Ephesians 1, he wants for his hearers that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened. [00:00:27] So the implication is that eyes need to be given light. Okay? So they don't see. [00:00:37] And he wants them to see. Or they. [00:00:41] Maybe they see a little bit. And he wants them to see a lot. [00:00:46] So he's praying for them. And he says, 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 of revelation in the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe we'll leave it there. There are a lot of words in this reading, and it gets kind of. Kind of complex. You have to meditate on a few at a time. [00:01:27] All right? But having the eyes of your hearts enlightened. [00:01:33] There's that familiar verse. We walk by faith and not by sight. [00:01:40] That's a good one to pair with this. [00:01:42] We need the eyes of our hearts enlightened because reality isn't what it looks like to the eye. There was a line like that in the hymn we just sang, actually. Let's find it. [00:02:00] Oh, what glory far exceeding all that I has yet perceived. [00:02:05] It's a reality. [00:02:07] And the gifts that God has given to us and has to give to us, they're not perceived by the eye. [00:02:19] You and I all come from a family. [00:02:21] We've got parents and history. Family history. [00:02:28] Some of you know it better than others. Probably some of you can trace it a long way back and say, where you're from. [00:02:35] Others like me, maybe I have that discovery yet to make. [00:02:40] On some level, I know a little bit, but, you know, I'm just kind of a mutt from England and Germany and wherever and, you know. But my history, I only know it back a few generations at this point. [00:02:55] But we all have a story like that. Then we all have an individual story. [00:03:01] You've received some form of education. You've had certain experiences. Maybe you started out somewhere else and you've come to Greeley. [00:03:12] Maybe you're in school right now. Maybe you're young, or maybe you are midway through a career. And so you've had other experiences and opportunities to grow and to take up responsibility. [00:03:30] Or maybe you're retired now and that part of your life is history. But you could tell the story of your life and you could think about what you are, who you are to others around you. [00:03:48] But in our readings today, especially in the epistle reading, we hear about who we are and what we are, what we have in a way that the eye can't see. [00:04:02] That nobody observing your life story, even if they know you well, could see it, could say based on what they see with their eyes looking at you or what they remember from experiences with you, you have been made a child of God in Jesus Christ. You've been given Jesus Christ himself and all that Jesus is. [00:04:29] Jesus has given you his spirit through faith and by baptism, so that Christ lives in you, has united himself to you. [00:04:42] And just as Christ is above everything, above every authority and reigning, and nothing can touch him and nothing can take him down, that's you in Jesus Christ. [00:04:58] That's not obvious with the eye. Not just anybody can see that. [00:05:03] They can see it by faith in Jesus Christ, having the eyes of their hearts enlightened. [00:05:10] You and I, as we go through life, we can look at our own life and how things are going based on what it looks like or based on what God has told us, what Jesus Christ has revealed to us through His Word. [00:05:27] And it makes all the difference. [00:05:33] The apostles going out to preach Christ's word to the nations, there they were, they had this seemingly weak word. [00:05:45] Christ says it's foolishness to the world, but it's the wisdom of God. They went out with this seemingly foolish word and were killed gruesomely for it. Like they looked weak, just as Christ looked weak on the cross. [00:06:04] But just as Christ rose from the dead, powerful, ascended above every authority, and is seated at the right hand of God, so the apostles, with confidence went to the world, endured temporary weakness, outward weakness, knowing the strength that they had in Christ and the stability and the hope everlasting life. [00:06:30] So Paul prays for those he's writing to that they would be given by God a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, that it would be revealed to their hearts. Reality in the face of appearances. [00:06:48] Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. [00:06:55] Brothers and sisters in Christ. [00:06:58] There's a lot in the world that could dampen our spirits, that could take away our hope if we put our trust in those things. [00:07:10] If you're hoping for, you know, the well, if you're hoping for America, right And all the promises that America has to offer, like, well, who knows, how will this go in the next 50 or 100 years? Could go great for America. [00:07:26] It could not go great for America. [00:07:28] But that's not where our hope lies. [00:07:31] If you're hoping in political leaders or whatever else, maybe it's closer to home. Maybe you've got hope in a new job or a house or an opportunity or a relationship. [00:07:46] It's not that any of those things are worthless or don't matter in a certain sense. [00:07:55] But having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, we recognize the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. [00:08:02] Hope that doesn't disappoint. No matter how bad things look, no matter how hopeless life or the world looks from an earthly perspective, with the eyes of the body, you could say we have hope that transcends all of that in Jesus Christ. And we can follow the apostles to their death, to their life in Jesus Christ, confidently knowing that he's above all. [00:08:28] So having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you? What are the riches of his glorious inheritance? In the saints you have riches, a glorious inheritance. [00:08:43] As a child of God, what do you inherit? [00:08:47] What God has. [00:08:53] He's made us sons of God, heirs of heaven. [00:08:58] What does an heir receive? [00:09:00] What? His father, or whoever he's an heir of whatever he has. [00:09:07] Well, that's profound. [00:09:10] Think about that. [00:09:12] Do you have comparable riches in your own name? [00:09:18] No. [00:09:19] Maybe you've got something, maybe you don't. Maybe you wish you had that kind of thing. [00:09:25] You have riches in Jesus Christ, riches that you can only see if the eyes of your heart are enlightened. [00:09:36] What is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us or in us who believe is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe? [00:09:49] Do you feel powerful? [00:09:52] Do the apostles feel powerful? [00:09:54] Not from an earthly perspective, but with the eyes of their hearts enlightened, having their faith in Jesus Christ and fixing their eyes on Him. [00:10:05] They knew the power of the resurrection. They knew the power that Jesus had overall. [00:10:13] And this power is in us. How is this power in us? [00:10:21] Well, Paul has laid out these gifts that we have that can only be seen with the eyes of the heart through faith. [00:10:30] And then he goes on to sort of explain how this works. Alright, so let's read the rest. [00:10:39] What is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us, who believe according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when He raised him from the dead, and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. [00:11:03] And he has put all things under his feet. [00:11:07] So all of this because he has raised Jesus from the dead and lifted him up, seated him at his right hand and given him authority over everything, put all things under his feet, and then comes to the part that shows how this is power in you, how this all works out for you, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. [00:11:41] So this is Christ, but Christ is the head and you and I are the body. [00:11:47] Think about your foot or your toe or your toenail. I don't know. You don't want to think about that. But take some, you know, some simple part of your body, and well, it participates in your body, right? It's. It's kind of like if it were separate from your body. Don't think about that too much. Then it would be just totally meaningless. I mean, it would have no meaning anymore. It would be nothing but connected to your body. It has a whole lot of purpose, every part your toe. [00:12:26] People don't realize what a blessing a toe is until they don't have it and then makes things real hard. So the toe has a purposeful part to play in the life of the body. And is. [00:12:41] Is. Well, it participates in the life of the body because it's receiving directions from the head. [00:12:49] So there's a head governing this body. And so every part participates in the life of the head. [00:12:57] Does that make sense? [00:12:59] So the life of the head is dispersed throughout the body. [00:13:03] Everything receives the head. And, and as it participates in the life of me or in the life of my head, then it's taken up beyond itself, right? What was it before it was a part of me? Don't take that to its logical conclusion. It doesn't really make sense. But like, apart from me, what is it? Nothing but taken up into the governance and the order given by the head. [00:13:30] It's got a purpose and it's part of something above itself. [00:13:35] This is the image that is used here, and that's why we're going into it. We don't really think about what head and body are necessarily, but that's what Christ and the church are. You and I taken up into Jesus own life so that just as my toe participates in the life of my head, we participate in the life of Christ. Taken up beyond ourselves into something completely above our heads, you know, above us. [00:14:05] We're taken up into the life of another, into the life of Christ as He graciously comes to dwell in us and to give us life, to participate in us. You could say, although his is a gracious condescension to take us up into his own life. [00:14:28] This is why we have these things. This is why we have the immeasurable greatness of his power in us. [00:14:34] It's because he has taken us up into his life as our head. [00:14:44] This is easy to forget. [00:14:47] We're going to go home today to earthly outward realities. [00:14:52] Maybe something's broken in your house, or I hope not. [00:14:56] Maybe you've got difficult things to deal with or something tragic. Or who knows, Maybe you have plans that you're trying to realize in order to progress, get to the next step or something like that. [00:15:12] There are lots of things that will pull our attention and tug at our hearts. There are other things to hope in. [00:15:20] Don't forget Jesus Christ, in whom you have hope and riches and inheritance kept in heaven for you. Peter says, and immeasurable power in Jesus Christ, the kind of power that can make you face anything in faith in Jesus Christ. [00:15:41] Don't forget God, who has enlightened your hearts, given you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. [00:15:51] And let us. [00:15:54] I don't usually do a lettuce sermon. Sorry, I got distracted here. It's like it's a lettuce sermon now. At seminary they said, and don't end every sermon saying, let us, because that's a lettuce sermon. [00:16:09] We're going to do it this time. [00:16:13] Let us fix our eyes on Jesus Christ our head and remember to whom we belong and in whose life we've been taken up in Him. In Jesus name, amen.