Do You Know God or Just Know About Him? | Ephesians 1:15–23

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Well, good morning friends. My name is Alex. I get the privilege of being one of the pastors here. I’m going to invite you to stand. Uh we’re going to read the scriptures together.

If you have a copy, feel free to get it out. Turn to Ephesians chapter 1 verse 15. We’ve been doing in this season uh this series a new responsive reading. Last week I promised you that I would have that on the screen and I failed. Um and so this week I promised you that I’ll have it on the screen next week.

Uh and we’ll see. Who knows? The responsive reading goes like this. Come south fellowship. This is me the leader.

Come south fellowship. Walk in the grace of the Lord. And we as a community respond. We will walk in the unforced rhythms of grace. It’s a response based on the message version of Matthew chapter 12.

It’s an invite from Jesus to not walk something that is forced, something that is difficult, but to follow him on a journey in which he is the one that takes the lead. And so here we go. Ephesians chapter 1 verse1 15. For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 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.

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 in glorious inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe. 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, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, and but also in the age to come. And God placed all things under his feet, and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, and the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Comes our fellowship.

Walk in the grace of the Lord. We will walk in the unforced rhythms of grace. You may be seated. Well done. You were much better than the first service.

Um, today I’d like to start us with a question that looks something like this. Uh, have you ever planned a trip, a journey to a specific place, built your itinerary, done all of that work only to find your expectations are completely different to what you actually experience when you got there? The reason I asked this question is because I think it happened to me over the summer. We got as part of my sbatical to take uh the family to Tuskanyany in northern Italy. I’ve been to Italy several times.

One of my favorite places. Love the people, love the food, love the culture. It’s just magical. And so I was really excited that we would all get to go together. I had a load of places in that space that I wanted to go and visit.

Really wanted to go to Florence, this beautiful like capital city of Tuscany. This is me and the girls. Photo Laura took on the Ponttovecio. This incredible bridge right there on Vanna, the river. Really wanted to go to Penza.

this beautiful slow town that has cobbled streets and you just feel has different rhythms to everywhere else. And I really wanted to go to a place called Sienna. Sienna was maybe one of the towns I knew the most about because of a really famous horse race that they have. Couple of times a year they close off the village square and they pack the middle of it with people and then they do bearback horse rides around the outside of it. It’s incredibly dangerous, incredibly fast, but just fantastic.

Every district gets to be represented in at least one of the races, and the whole town seems to stop for it. So, I was really excited when I found out that there was going to be one of those races in the week that we were there. But then the host said to us, “Look, I wouldn’t risk the race if I were you.” We’re talking about 8 n hours in the the the hot sunshine. Your kids won’t have any bathrooms to go to. You’re just going to be stuck in the middle of the square.

Or you’re going to have to pay about $10,000 to rent a balcony to watch it in comfort. And now neither of those for understandable reasons were on the cards. And so we took her advice and went the next day afterwards. Now I knew enough about Sienna that I had a whole bunch of places I wanted to go. knew at this point about the cathedral with a floor they uncover only a couple of times a year.

Knew about some of the history of the city, its competition with Florence. built a cathedral, Sienna build a bigger cathedral until they run out of money, which is a very Sienna thing to do. But nothing prepared me for what I actually experienced. Because you see, we walked into the afterparty of the race. That the area of the town that had won hadn’t won in 34 years.

And nobody seems to celebrate quite like Italians. All these wonderful, good-looking, cool people gathered in this space just celebrating like crazy. I grabbed a picture or found a picture online of of them all outside the cathedral. I am actually in this photo. I’m in that doorway right over there.

They didn’t allow me to actually be in the photo. Apparently, no English people allowed. Bad smiles or something. I don’t know. We just don’t look Italian enough.

But what happened is this. I I went in knowing a lot about it. But when I left, I felt like I knew it. I felt like I became part of this thing. I feel like I’m a quiller, the yellow group, the eagle for life.

Now, even just after this week being there, it’s the difference between knowing about and knowing. It’s the difference between planning on a map, stepping off the map into the streets, and experiencing something for yourself. That pattern happens with people. It’s the same kind of concept as going to college and seeing your roommate’s name on paper, maybe knowing some details about them, and then living with that person and finding them to be completely different to the person you imagine, sometimes in the worst ways possible. It’s the difference between saying I do at a wedding and then six months later saying, “What have I done?

This is crazy. This is this person. I’m learning to live with them, to know them.” I didn’t say that. That was from Laura’s journal. I read it, copied it, took it.

Uh, what have I done? This guy never stops talking. Some years ago, I did I ran my brother’s uh bachelor party for him. Invited all his friends. We got to dress him up to play golf, to go shooting, all these traditional kind of British things.

And in the midst of that, I wrote to every single one of them that was coming just to say, “Hey, my name’s Alex. I’m going to be kind of running things for the weekend. Wanted to introduce myself. make sure you come in. This is the cost.

All those details. And then on the weekend, one of the guys came over to me and he said, “Sir, hey, I got to tell you something.” When I read your emails, I was like, “Man, this guy’s really boring. I was writing in work mode. I was just giving details.” He was like, “This guy does not sound fun.” And he said, “When I met you, you were quite fun.” Really? Now, quite fun in English terms is like the biggest compliment ever.

People give up titles. Most people give up wealth to be called quite fun by their friends. It’s a big deal. It’s the difference between knowing about someone and then knowing someone. The heartbeat of the passage that we just read is Paul’s longing for this group, the Ephesians, to to not just know about God, but to know God for themselves.

Now, if you’re kind of new to faith, maybe watching online, new to any of this Jesus stuff, that might sound right now like an impossibility. But this guy writing a couple of thousand years ago is convinced not only that it’s possible, but that it has happened to him. And he longs for it to happen to every single one of us, no matter what age we are. Now, let’s jump into that. Just a quick warning.

Last week, as you remember, I lost 20 minutes of my message to some chatty people on stage. I am taking that 20 minutes back this week. If you’re hoping to get the Broncos game, you’re going to miss the start of it. Hope you’ve got it on record. Uh we’re going to we’re going to work through a lot of stuff.

Paul begins this writer Paul, this person in the first century, this follower of Jesus who has jumped in and begun this journey following Jesus, who was seen. He said Jesus even though Jesus is dead, resurrected, ascended. He says, I have learned from him directly and now what he has given me, I now teach to you. And he begins with what God has done. The first three chapters of this letter to this town in called Ephesus are simply God has done this.

God has done this. God has over and over again all in s all sorts of different ways. God has brought grace. God loves you over and over. He says, “God, this is what God has done.” This is the end of the passage we were going to finish last week.

And you were also included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Watch this part. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing your inheritance. Paul says this, that surprisingly, against all odds, God has come to live on earth. and he’s come to live in you who call yourselves followers of Jesus.

Every religion of its day had a marker, something they did, a behavior, something that they would do as a sign that they were part of this thing. Paul says the fact that you walk around looking like normal people is is at odds with the fact that internally you have been changed. God has come to live inside you. That’s what he celebrates. God has done something internal.

He’s begun to change you from the inside out. And so this journey through Ephesians, this broad like scope of it looks like this. That the first three chapters are what what’s technically called indicative. God has done this. God has done this.

God has done this. And the last three chapters are what’s technically called imperative. What you should do because of what God has done. Paul says, “God has done all these things.” And therefore, I invite you to become this kind of people, not because you worked really hard, not because you really studied really hard, but because God is beginning this work inside you. And he says this, he says, I’ve actually already seen it begin to take shape.

For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, Paul says, I started to see that thing emerge from you, and I’m so excited about that. I keep giving thanks to God for what he has begun to do. I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. Paul is writing from prison, spent about three years in this town of Ephesus, teaching them, pastoring them. They had this lineup of pastors that was really quite incredible.

Paul, a disciple of Jesus called John, one of Paul’s students called Timothy. When I hear about the pastors they had, I actually feel kind of bad for you guys. I almost want to kind of apologize. I’m sorry that I can’t live quite up to that standard. He writes to a church that’s now a thousand miles away.

Paul is in prison in a place called Rome. He’s writing all this long journey, this 1,000mi journey from Rome to a town called Ephesus in what is now Turkey. five years since he’s seen them, missing them, wondering what’s going on with them, hoping that somewhere he can encourage them in following in the way of Jesus, with the heart of Jesus. Think about that for a moment. Paul is in prison.

Paul needs prayer. Sure, he’s praying for himself. Praying that God might free him perhaps so he can continue his work. Praying for all sorts of things that one might pray in prison. Paul is praying for them even though Paul needs prayer.

His heart is for them, longing for them to continue on this journey in the way of Jesus. And so the heartbeat of this passage is a prayer. It’s a prayer I’ve prayed for you as a community. It’s a prayer I’ve prayed for myself. It’s a prayer, in fact, I’ve prayed for every single community I’ve been part of as a pastor.

It’s a prayer that I would say if you were to say, “I want to pray for you. I want to pray for the staff. I want to pray for the elders.” This is the prayer that I would pick for you to pray. What does he pray? Well, here he is.

Verse 17. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, Paul has a way with words in prayer. It’s not quite Jesus level. John 17, the Lord’s prayer. Jesus is a different space.

But Paul prays with this beautiful language. I pray that he may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. Whole bunch of different words in there that just get thrown in and that we maybe jump after. First thing he prays is that you and I would have wisdom in the Greek language. Sophia learning.

But but really this heartbeat insight that grasps reality as God sees it. Says I pray that you would give them this capacity to see you as you really are to see what you have done in the world. That you would give them that kind of wisdom. And then an even more unusual word, revelation. Apocalypsis.

A a word that we get our word apocalypse from. Now, if I say the word apocalypse to you now, you maybe just get a picture of empty streets, no one around. Not like downtown Denver in a Monday, but like I couldn’t resist. Sorry, little Denver joke for you. But like destruction, ending, like Chernobyl, a town where people were going around doing the most normal things and then suddenly it’s not there.

Suddenly life has changed forever. But that isn’t what a first century person would hear when he said something like revelation apocalypsis. They’d hear this idea of unveiling and uncovering. So when Paul says, “I pray you give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation.” He means God making known what was previously hidden. He says, ‘I pray that you, God, would give them the wisdom to see you as you are.

And this unveiling moment where they would start to see you beyond human sight to see you as you see you. If you want like analogies, maybe there’s some metaphors that we use or some language that we use today like lift the lid off like pull back the curtain. Let me see what’s really going on. And Paul says, “I pray that you would give them moments where they see in a way they haven’t seen before.” And then the last word in this verse, which I think is badly translated in the version that we use, so that you Ephesians may know him better. But it doesn’t say know him better.

What it says is this. I pray that you would let them know you. Give them real knowledge. knowledge gained through a firsthand relationship. Paul writes to this group of people, followers of Jesus, like many of us in the room, and he says, “I pray that you would let them see you and that you would lead them into a moment where they don’t just know about you, they actually know you.” This is the message version of it.

But I do more than thank. I ask, ask the God of our master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory, to make you intelligent, discerning in knowing him personally. His goal, it seems, is for us to move from knowing about to knowing. I wrote that earlier in the week and put it into the document and sent it to Teresa, our comm’s director, and it and it was sealed now. It was locked.

It couldn’t be changed. It’s on the paper. And as I thought about it, I’m like, I don’t actually think that’s what I would say now. I think I would say this. His goal is for us to combine knowing about and knowing.

See, I love this about South. I love that we’re kind of maybe an intellectual church is a way of saying it. You guys like to study. You like to read. I speak to so many of you that will say, “I’ve read this book.

I’ve studied this.” Maybe some of you in the room have been to seminary. And there’s all sorts of beautiful knowledge that between us in this room, we have. I love that. Don’t want to change that. But I also know that the call of this passage is to not just know about God, but to actually know him.

Maybe you feel that more from this passage in the book of Job, an Old Testament passage, a man who suffered a lot, who God speaks to very directly. And and he says this, “I’ve heard about you before, but now my eyes have seen you for myself.” Paul prays for this group of people in the first century. He says, he prays that he would that they would know Jesus. That they would know Jesus. So here’s a confession for me as a pastor.

My personality is I’m cerebral. I like to think, love to read, love to know things, love to just pull in knowledge. I can sit learning new things for hours. I could happily drop into another degree and another degree and another degree. That brings me joy.

I love moments where I meet someone who knows something that I don’t know and I get to learn it from them. I also hate when I meet someone who knows something I don’t know because it means there’s something that I don’t know. My confession is this. I guess I sometimes try to think my way to God. And while knowledge is good can never fully get you to that depth of knowing God for yourself.

As I thought about this, I thought there has to be some kind of analogy, some way of understanding this that gets to the hard issue of this that helps us understand what it is to simply try and think your way to God. And so, this is what I came up with. If you’re a dog owner in the room, put your hand up. Just throw a hand up in the air. Okay?

Any cat owners? I’m sorry. I love to make cat owner jokes. I used to own cats. I don’t know what it is.

I think it’s that you guys are so easy to poke with your cat owner stuff. But supposing for a moment you wake up early, maybe earlier than usual, 5:00 in the morning, you kind of walk down the stairs and maybe for whatever reason you’re quieter than usual and usually your golden retriever comes bounding over to you like super excited doing the golden retriever golden retriever waggle. But instead, you see this. Your golden retriever sweatered up. He’s at the desk.

Maybe got a pipe, pen. He’s writing a book. The lives of humans, a dog’s perspective. You start to leaf through the chapters and he’s got like theories about the the magical thing that produces cheese in the kitchen. And he’s got theories about where you go every day, what happens to you, what they they just get in the car, they go.

It’s got theories about why you shut the bedroom door at night. All sorts of things going on, just curious. Is it exploring? And so, how do you respond to that? On one hand, maybe you’re a little flattered, really just appreciate my dog’s deep care for me.

And then on the other hand, you know something instinctively. You know that try as he might this dog can’t understand your life is different above him too complex. I think that’s how it is with us and God. We got the scriptures that give us all the wisdom we need to step into a relationship with God. But they can’t give us all that knowledge.

Imagine if if that was all there was. We stepped into eternity knowing everything about God and there was nothing more. That would be a boring eternity. The idea behind God is, I understand it, is simply that there’s always more facets, always more to know. As my good friend Carolyn, who was here earlier and I think has headed home now, has said to me multiple times, she said, I think when you read that passage in Isaiah of these angels worshiping God, it’s simply that they’ve been worshiping him forever, they’ve never got to the end of him, never fully understood him.

There’s always more with God, always more to know. You can’t think your way to God. You step into a relationship with him. Now, here again, I’m not saying the knowledge part isn’t important. I love that we look at that.

But, but if it gets in the way of you experiencing God, then that’s a heartbreak. That’s a heart ache. I said this, don’t let the study of God rob you of an experience of God. And I think when you end up thinking your way constantly in every step, it’s times you can miss that experience, miss that invite. Ji Pekka, who wrote the book, Knowing God, a book so good I have four copies of it in completely different versions.

There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance. They have known God and God has known them. Somewhere at the core of this story, there is an idea that God says relationally, I picked you. I chose you. You are mine.

I am yours. That that is the beauty of that relationship. And so, let me show you how it can be missed. This is John Wesley, one of my heroes, 18th century pastor, preacher, founded the Methodist church, was born into an affluent family, went to Oxford University and wiped the floor with everyone. Top of his class, a brilliant mind.

He created a thing called the holy club. A place where people would come together and practice the most rigorous kind of disciplines. He received some money from his parents to live £30 a year. He would give 22 of it to the poor. When it was doubled and he received 60, he just gave the extra 30 to the poor.

He said, “I didn’t need it to live.” He had an opportunity to go to America. got on a ship and a storm hit. In the moment of the storm, he said, “I was terrified to die.” I looked over at a small group of Moravians, followers of Jesus. They sat on the boat praying, completely at peace about what might happen. He goes and preaches to the Indians, and everything goes wrong.

The people turn against him. Nobody wants him there. He gets back on the boat and heads back to England in shame. And then he has a moment, a moment that I might say that his relationship with God moved from just knowing about to knowing as well. He describes it in his journal.

I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation. And an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. From that moment, everything changes for him. He’s unafraid of anything.

He preaches all over the country, rides thousands of miles, and in one moment is preaching in a graveyard with an empty church next to him. He’d been banned from the church, and the crowds came to watch him outside. The priest came to him afterwards and said, “How is it that I have an empty, warm church in winter, and you have a graveyard full of people in the freezing cold? that want to listen to you. And this is what he said.

God set me on fire. People come to watch me burn. That’s a rockstar thing to say. There is this moment somewhere where for certain people, they step into knowing God and that changes everything. Don’t get me wrong, what Paul is saying here is this.

This is a group of people that he calls Christians. He says the spirit lives inside them. They’ve not done anything wrong. But he says, ‘I want to invite you deeper. Don’t just settle for what you have.

Keep looking to know God more. The writer Thomas Merton says in silence, God ceases to be an object and becomes an experience. That’s what Paul wants for these people. He says, I want him to be more than just an idea in your head. And then verse 18, he goes on to say this.

I pray that the eyes of your heart, whatever part is in you that doesn’t just think but feels something that moves towards something, 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. Paul, he prays that their eyes would be opened. Maybe you’ve had a moment, maybe it’s not a church thing, maybe it’s outside of church. you had a moment where you tried to figure something out for a long time and and then suddenly it all falls into place. Maybe it’s like the marriage story that we began with.

You’ve been married for a while and you’re like, “Oh, this is how you’re supposed to work together.” Maybe it’s a work thing, a school thing, a concept that’s gone over and over again. You’re like, “I just don’t get new math. What is new math?” And then there’s this moment where it clicks. And what do you say in that moment? He said, “I get it.” Finally, something happened.

I get it. It went over the edge. And now, suddenly, it’s clear. Paul prays that they would get it. He says, “I hope that God does this thing in you.

I hope he opens your eyes so that you can see him.” And then he gives a list, a beautiful verbose, long list that we don’t have time to cover completely in order that you may what? know the hope to which you are called, the riches of his glorious inheritance in inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe. Three things in there. The hope God escorted you to says I hope that they understand that they see what God made them for. That life was made to be lived knowing God.

It’s the original story. So the cheat code if you like for living this life is to live in relationship with God. Not because it makes your life easy because it enables you to be who God made you to be. The glorious inheritance, his glorious inheritance, not yours. He says you are his inheritance.

When he picked his inheritance, he said, “I want them people like you and me.” He said, “I want these guys.” Said remember that the hope he’s called you to his glorious inheritance. his incomparably great power for us. And that one is the one that seems to align with what Paul is saying. He prays they will see what God has done, how God sees them, what God will do for them. If only they knew it.

That last one ties with exactly what Paul is doing in this moment. It ties with Paul’s actions. Think about think about what he’s doing. This guy in the first century sat in prison. Paul is praying across oceans from a prison cell for a group of people who haven’t seen him in years.

Are there many of us in the room that would say, “I pray for people I knew five years ago. I don’t find myself to operate that way at times. I find myself to to maybe pray less than I would love to.” And at times to to wonder is this moment right now with us gathered is it moving something thousands of miles away. Paul has no problem whatsoever with the fact that this thing that he is doing is having an effect on this group this church in Ephesus thousand miles away through prison walls across oceans to a group of people that may not even remember him or think about him at all. The preacher Charles Spurgeon 19th century said, “He who knows how to overcome with guard in prayer has heaven and earth at his disposal.” And maybe every now and again you’ve run into this.

When I was 19, I got taken by a pastor friend to the Philippines with a group of people. They woke me up at 4:00 in the morning to start their prayer meeting. And I remember being stirred outside in the the hot the dark in a different foreign place. We began praying and then the the the light that lit the courtyard went out. I remember thinking instantly, thank goodness, we can go back to bed now.

We can call this whole thing off. Let’s call it a day. We tried our best, guys. Let’s let’s end it now. But not 600 Filipinos in the middle of Mindanao, the poorest island with no resources whatsoever.

600 of them put their hands out towards the light and pray light in Jesus’ name. And it comes back on. My instant reaction is, you should change the bulb. That’s what we do. And they’re like, we don’t have one.

We’ve been praying for the same bulb for years. It just comes back on every single time. To them, there’s no inongruity with praying for a light that’s gone off any more than there is praying for people thousands of miles away because they believe what Paul says in this letter that he has in in incomparably great power for them in the moments of their need. And so, here’s where this pulls my curiosity. Paul believes this stuff.

He believes that God is working through people like you and me. It believes that when we pray, it’s not just to feel better. It’s to actually shift something. And as I started to pull these threads, it felt like light bulbs for me at least started to go on. So, first a statistic.

This is Pew Research Center. Women consistently report praying more than men. Pew finds, yes, woo for the ladies out there. I love it. Although maybe I don’t know, maybe we shouldn’t woo that.

I don’t know. Don’t know if that’s what we want. uh Pew finds 64% of women pray daily versus 46% of men. One of the largest most durable gender gaps in the American religious behavior. This is people in church, people that call themselves followers of Jesus.

And so I started pulling this thread. I started asking what is that? Are men just lazier? Not necessar necessarily sure that’s true. Are they less committed?

I don’t know if that’s true. We have some amazingly committed people. Is it just the way men are wired? And not necessarily. In Israel, more men pray than women.

So, what is it? Then I started looking at some of our psychology, our physiology. And I’m going to say this carefully because there’s therapists in the room that know way more about psychology than I do. And and I might get corrected afterwards. But what I understand is this that generally, and if this isn’t true of you, it’s not a criticism.

It’s just generally women when they talk about problems feel better. The problem feels smaller. The concept is called tend and befriend. They find someone that values them. They talk about the problem together and everything seems to reduce down.

There’s a peace quiet. Men, the opposite is true. When men talk about problems and can’t do anything about them, the problem feels bigger. It expands. The cortisel jumps up.

You might generalize it like this. Women like talking through problems. Men don’t. It feels harder to talk about it. Now think about how we often in the west have characterized what we do in prayer over the years.

Famous sermon quote anonymous prayer is just talking to God. Tell him what you’re feeling. Get everything off your chest. Share the problem. Problem shared is a problem harved.

We haven’t said it like that, but that’s the inference you might take from it. Many people are guilty of this. Alex Walton 2025 July. Prayer is not a button to be pushed. It’s a relationship to be pursued.

Now, I stand by that. It is. But the moment you take the possibility that God might do something out of prayer, the moment you reduce it to sharing a problem, the moment you reduce it to just getting something off your chest, it potentially becomes toxic to a whole 50% of the population. somewhere you have to keep the power in prayer to believe like Paul did that matters that what you do changes things all across the world in those moments that you pray but the challenge that comes with that is that can be hard to believe in a western world the solutions to every problem out there but Paul is convinced that when he prays when he partners with God the God he knows something begins to happen. And watch him now as he gives this beautiful speech about just what God’s power means.

Verse 20, 21, that power, the power that is for you. He says, as hard as that can be be to believe in 21st century America in the West, 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. Paul rips through four different words that essentially all mean power just so his listeners, his readers don’t miss the message. Says God’s power for you, his strength for you, his might for you, his power again for you. All different words, but he goes through them so you get this message just reinforced to you.

He desperately wants this group of people to know that God works through people like you and me. That’s what he wants them to understand, to get to heart. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at the right hand in heavenly realms, far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but in the age to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. He says across time, across all spaces, in every single universe, God has shown that he is in control, that he has the power to move through people like you.

And he invites you in to the story. Not just to be people that can pray, but to be people that can be transformed by who he is. Paul says that the God who did all of that, all of the long list of things he just said, he works through you to transform you and me to change us into his image. The thing on the wall, the living in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus, you can’t do that by yourself. That’s a him thing.

He has to transform that in you. can obey, you can participate, but but he does it. That’s why we’re living in the unforced rhythms of grace, his work in us. In Ephesians, in the next chapter, he says, “For we are God’s masterpiece, his creation. He is doing the work.

We are becoming like Jesus.” And think for a moment with me just what that means. This is Andy Stanley. It wasn’t just his new message that made Jesus irresistible. It was Jesus himself. People who were nothing like him liked him.

And Jesus liked people who were nothing like him. Jesus is able to live on this different plane to most people. And God says, “You can be like that, too.” CS Lewis, her little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, someone who really embraces this idea of knowing God and living like him and with him, it’s irresistible. If even 10% of the world’s population had it, would not the whole world be converted and happy before years end?

This is what we’re invited into. And now here’s the risk that when I say something like this, what you hear is this brilliant. I just have to say yes and it’s all easy. And yet talk to friends in the room who have lived this journey for a while and ask them how easy is it be to be transformed into God’s masterpiece into the image of Jesus into his way and his heart. I think what you’ll hear over and over again is this.

Oh, it’s wonderful. But easy is the last word I would choose to describe it. You see, God doesn’t make bad things happen to you, but when they does, he’s completely unashamed of using them to make you more like him. When you find yourself in a hard relationship, the right thing might be to get out of it, but he’ll still use that relationship to make you more like him. In the moments that you step into marriage and you say, “What have I done?” He’ll still use it to make you more like him.

He’ll take anything out there to make you and I more like him. And so the best way that I can help us understand what we’re invited to is like this. When I first came to America, I was staying with Laura’s folks and I noticed a TV show that periodically people would switch on and then they’d watch like half an hour just silently watching as this guy shaped a masterpiece as he sketched out a drawing. This is his first ever one from the first episode of Joy of Painting. It’s now just sold for $10 million.

But what happens with Barb Russ? He does this thing. He creates something. And you say something like this. It’s perfect just as it is.

Step away. Leave it. Don’t touch it again. And then what does he do? He grabs some paint and he just smears it across.

and then continues to create something else. When you see him work, you have to learn that you have a trust issue. You have moments where you say, “What have you done? You’ve ruined it. What are you shaping here?” And then he uses it to create something even more beautiful time and time again.

And so after a while, after watching him, when you think he’s done something that just doesn’t make any sense, you get to say something like this. I know Bob. I know that I’m confused right now. I don’t get really what he’s trying to do, but he’s going to shape it into something incredible. I know Bob.

I know Bob is going to work it. He’s going to figure it out. He’s going to make it happen. I think somewhere in that there’s a parallel. And in the moments where you think, God, what are you doing here?

Why am I in this moment? Why is this thing so hard? Why is it so difficult? Why am I wrestling with this same challenge over and over again? Why is this person we just feel like we bump against each other really hard?

Why are all these things happening to me? And I think he says, “Trust me, I’m shaping a masterpiece. It’s not an easy thing, but it’s a good thing. When you know him, I think we can trust his work. That’s what Paul invites us into.

He says, “Don’t settle for knowing about. Chase towards knowing. Look for him. Open your heart to him.” Maybe for you this week, it looks like a few different things. Maybe you want to pray.

Ephesians 1:17. this prayer I’ve been praying for years at different points. Pray that I would know him. Give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation today so that I might know you better. Maybe you want to take that as your prayer for a season.

And maybe when you’ve done it, maybe that’s enough. Or maybe you want to do this. Just spend five minutes in silence. Just give the God of the universe a few minutes to answer your prayer. Step into that space where there’s not a lot to say.

Just listen. What did Thomas Merton say? In silence, God ceases to be an object becomes an experience. And then one of my favorites in the evening, love to turn on just in my earbuds, Lectio 365. It’s just this beautiful devotional moment.

10 minutes just leads you through these beautiful reflections. The number of times I hear something I didn’t know and I know more which I love. But then there’s this moment where I’m like, “Oh, actually God, that helps me know you in a new way.” That’s what we do over and over again. Jesus for my friends in the challenge of sitting in that space between knowing about you and knowing you. Thank you for this that this is a church that loves to study, loves to think, loves to process.

Help us also to be people that would say they have known you, that you have known them, to know that closeness, to know that as the most important relationship of our lives. the one thing that will always be there for everyone from the youngest to the oldest in the room. Help us to ask that question. Do I know you? And to know that that’s not a guilt question.

It’s an invite question that you are always inviting, saying, “Come this way. I pick you. I choose you. You are mine and I am yours.” Amen.