“Wisdom, Revelation and Power” on Ephesians 1:15-23 by Joe Ellis – Sept. 29, 2024

One of the most common little white lies that Christians tell is when we say to someone, either “I’m praying for you,” or “I will pray for you.”  Sometimes Christians can be talking to someone who is going through a hard time, and say, “I’ve been praying for you,” and then it dawns on us that we haven’t been praying at all for that person, but who’s going to know?  They’re not going to say, “I don’t think you actually were praying, because things actually turned out really lousy for me.”

When we tell someone we will pray for them and we don’t, we’re making a statement (at least to ourselves) about who we believe that God is and the way that He works in the world.  By not praying for someone who thinks we’re praying for them, we’re basically saying, “What actually matters isn’t the prayer.  What matters is the comfort that we give someone by telling them that we’re praying for them.”  We then turn prayer into a psychological tool to comfort someone in pain.  We are turning prayer into a placebo — like those people in a study who think they’re getting the real medicine, but they’re getting a sugar pill. Of course, it’s actually true that people do benefit from the placebo, because they think they’re getting actual medicine. Researchers have found that the placebo was 50% as effective as the real drug to reduce pain after a migraine attack. Saying, “I’m praying for you” may be of some benefit to the other person even if we don’t really pray.

Beyond that, what does that say about us if we treat prayer like a well meaning placebo? If we say “I’ll pray for you,” and we don’t, our actions admit that we don’t actually believe prayer will impact a person’s life, but if I tell them I pray, they’ll be comforted — and that does something.

When we’re honest with how easy it is to treat prayer as a placebo to comfort friends and family, you can’t help but wonder what you’re missing when you encounter someone who truly believes prayer to be an inestimable source of power — like when you read Paul’s opening statement in today’s Scripture verse. In v. 15-16 Paul says, “Ever since I heard about your faith,.. I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”  Does Paul really mean this, or is he just trying to turn up the volume on the placebo? In reading Paul, you know straight away he’s not playing games with expectations. Paul is deeply convinced of the power of a prayer that is prayed to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For one, Paul doesn’t just say, “I’ve been praying for you,” he actually tells us what he’s been praying. 

When we read Paul’s letters, we are reading the words of a human who was convinced to the very core of his self, that Jesus is in the work of powerfully reshaping this world into the Kingdom of God, and an enormous way that we participate in this work is through prayer.  Listen to Paul’s prayer for his friends in Ephesus. Paul says in v. 17, “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.” 

First, let’s be clear what Paul is not praying for.  Paul is not praying that the Ephesians receive the Holy Spirit.  As we talked about last week, the Ephesians had received the Holy Spirit when they first believed that Jesus died in order to save them.  That happened at least five years before Paul wrote this letter.  They already have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them.  So what is Paul asking for?  Paul is asking God to give his friends wisdom and revelation, the kind of wisdom and revelation that is only given by the Spirit of God. If you want to see a picture of true wisdom, you look at the life and teachings of Jesus — and Jesus’ wisdom is counter-intuitive.

In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul talks about how deeply counter-intuitive is the wisdom of God when compared with the wisdom of the world. In 1 Corinthians 1:22-25, Paul says: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” 

You can see why praying for wisdom would be a matter of urgent prayer for Paul. The wisdom of God is no less than the wisdom we see in Christ Jesus, who, though he was God, did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, but gave it all up to be like a slave — even embracing death, death on the cross. This is the wisdom of God — the way of God in the world. This sort of wisdom does not come naturally to human beings. In 1 Corinthians 2:7-9, Paul says: “But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.’”

So, of course, Paul prays for wisdom and revelation from the Spirit because without the Spirit’s imparting wisdom, we could never conceive of what God has prepared for those who love him. Paul prays for the Ephesians to receive wisdom and revelation — Why? —  so they might know God better.  In the Old Testament, when someone ‘knew’ their spouse, it meant that about nine months later they probably would have a child.  Knowing someone biblically entails a lot of intimacy.  We can’t just know our God with a distant, theoretical knowledge.  Knowing God means that we are invited into the most intimate sort of relationship with Him. That’s where wisdom and revelation lead to knowing God. Paul prays that we might be filled with wisdom and revelation so that we might see Him clearly, so that we might imitate Him, and so that we might find intimacy with Him. 

We’ve been looking at the content of the first part of Paul’s prayer. Now let’s pause and compare Paul’s way of praying with how you or I might pray for the people we care about. Do they line up? Are you likely to pray that way for others? Here, Paul is indirectly teaching us an important principle of prayer. In prayer, we are not so much trying to bend God to our will, but bend our will to God’s. Maybe the things Paul prays for aren’t first on your list. In prayer we are to bend our will to God’s, not God’s will to ours. Jesus has us rehearse this in the Lord’s Prayer: “Your will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus prays this in the garden of Gethsemane: “Not my will be done, but yours.”

In praying for others, we try to discern God’s will, not our own, and bring God’s will before Him in prayer. This is one of the reasons why I appreciate praying prayers that other people have written from time to time — for when someone writes a prayer that reflects God’s heart in a way I haven’t really considered, it’s an invitation for me to bend my will to God’s will in a certain way in prayer. Paul models just that for us in this passage in Ephesians when he tells us how he’s been praying for the Ephesians.

Paul says in v. 18-19a, “I pray that the eyes of your heart might 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.” Incomparably great power!  If you’ve never spent time looking at this next verse, please pay close attention.  That incomparably great power that is at work in us, as Paul says in v.19b-20, “is the same as the working of the (Father’s) mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised him from the dead and seated him at His right hand in the heavenly realm.” 

Did you catch that? The power that God the Father works in us is the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, after he had been tortured, stripped, scourged, and crucified. As we imitate Christ’s wisdom in carrying our cross, we can anticipate the same sort of narrative ark in our own life. That as we follow Christ, we anticipate His power at work in our life that is strong enough to bring life from the dead. The power of God that raised Jesus to the highest heavens and seated Jesus at the Father’s right hand is the same power that enfolds you as you follow Jesus. 

Prayer is the opposite of a placebo. Paul knows that the One who receives his prayer has unfathomable power, and he expects this power to be at work in the lives of those to whom he prays.

But trusting in this power takes faith — which is why it is so difficult to trust in the efficacy of our prayers. Because unlike a placebo, unlike a drug, unlike virtually any other resource at our disposal — you cannot measure the power of prayer. You cannot quantify the efficacy of prayers — people have tried, they’ve done studies, but they’re pretty silly. You can measure the horsepower of a Dodge Truck, or you can measure the power of a drug to fight cancer. In an age of scientific empiricism, we are told that the percentage of trust we can place in a drug because it has a 75% success rate for those with that condition.

But God will not be measured — and the only way to grasp the dimensions of God’s loving power is through the Spirit and by faith. This is why later in Eph 3:16-19, Paul prays: “I pray that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breath and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Our world says that the only power of which you can be certain is the power you can measure. Paul says, the only power of which you can be certain is that which is immeasurable. This power is beyond comprehension. We are speaking of the power which God exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and exalted him to the right hand of the Father.  And Paul prays that the Ephesians comprehend this power at work in each other — can you imagine praying such a powerful prayer for someone?

A Christian who does not believe in the power of prayer is like a boat that doesn’t believe in sails, or a truck that doesn’t believe in gas, or a fish that doesn’t believe in gills, or a train that doesn’t believe in rails, or a bird that doesn’t believe in wings.  Or maybe I should say that all of those things are just a shadow of a Christian not believing in the power of the Spirit manifested through prayer.  So Paul prays for us, he prays that we would know the power of the Spirit within us. 

We cannot substitute a life of prayer with a placebo — too much is at stake.  God wants to reveal to us the knowledge of His intimacy.  God wants to reveal to us who He is, and how we can live wisely in response.  God wants to reveal to us the power He’s given us through His Spirit, and our lives will be transformed, as well as the world around us.  All this is way too important to fake.  At stake is the power of God at work in His people.

By his example, he invites us to pray,

Heavenly Father, it is so easy to believe that Your Spirit is not in our prayers.  It is so easy for us to believe that you help those who help themselves.  And when we realize that by our own power we are helpless to live like your Son Jesus, we give up and tell people that we’ll pray for them so that we at least look like we’re trying — too often we treat our faith like a placebo.  Forgive our impotence.  Open the eyes of our heart.  Open our eyes, so that we can know your great power for us who believe. Open our eyes to imitate your Son with our life. Open our eyes to see your deep love for us. Compel us to pray with the certain knowledge that it is by your Spirit that our prayers are infused with power as we bend our will to yours.  Help us to trust that when we pray, you listen, and move in power.  Open our eyes, so we can encounter you through your Spirit.  We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen