[Ephesians 1:15-19] 2025.11.23 I thank my God for you, Part 3 – Paul’s call to God for the Ephesian Church 

I thank my God for you, Part 3 – Paul’s call to God for the Ephesian Church 

Big Idea: Call on God to give thanks for the Church’s faith, to show our faith in all-embracing love, and to find our hope in his glorious calling.

1.     Thank God for the Church’s faith and love

2.     Call God to reveal his hope for us

3.     Give God thanks for our glorious calling

Last year, I was invited to visit our State Premier, who happens to be our local member, Chris Minns.

Our Premier was in the State Parliament House on Macquarie Street and so I dutifully turned up ahead of time.

When I got there, I followed the rest of the crowd through the security checkpoint.

Eventually, we were led to a part of the parliament house where there was a protest speech, along with a few TV crews filming.

However, the Premier wasn’t there.

It didn’t take me long to realise that I was in the wrong place.

And so, I quickly called my contact in the State Government, and she sent someone to come and get me out of there.

I didn’t know where I was, so I called someone who knew where I was and how to get me to where I was supposed to be.

And they answered!

Wouldn’t it be great if we can just give someone a call and they can tell us exactly where we were supposed to be, and whether are on track or off course?

I’m not talking about our geographical location; I’m not talking about our longitude and latitude.

I’m talking about where we are in life.

Am I supposed to be studying this course?

Am I supposed to be working in this job?

To use the gamers’ language, am I an NPC (Non-playing character) or the hero of the game?

Do I have a calling to be someone special? Or not?

How do I know my calling?

That’s what we’re going to look at in today’s passage.

Today, we’re on the final passage in our series on ‘I thank God for you’.

We’ll be looking at how the Apostle Paul thanks God for the Ephesian Church.

And so, please open up to Ephesians chapter one, beginning from verse fifteen.

We’re going to see three things:

1.     Thank God for the Church’s faith and love

2.     Call God to reveal his hope for us

3.     Give God thanks for our glorious calling

Before we look into it, let’s pray, “Father, thank you for giving the Lord Jesus to us, and us to the Lord Jesus. By your Spirit, open the eyes of our hearts so that we can see Jesus even more clearly. For his sake we pray, Amen.”

1.  Thank God for the Church’s faith and love

The letter to the Ephesians begins with some very deep and spiritual truths about God.

In the first fourteen verses, we read that God the Father is the One who chose his people before the foundation of the world.

We read that God the Son, Jesus Christ, is the One in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our sins.

We read that God has promised to give us His very Own Spirit, the Holy Spirit, as a guarantee of our inheritance, to the praise of his glory.These are all very deep thoughts about who God is.

How does Paul respond to all these deep and incredible truths of God?

Look with me at verses 15-16, “This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.”

Paul gives thanks and prays for his readers, fellow believers in the Lord Jesus.

Paul gives thanks to God for their trust in the Lord and their love for all the saints.

Paul had explained God’s deep and profound truths to them, and Paul knew that they understood these truths.

How? They demonstrate that they genuinely believe these truths through their behaviour.

They show that they have genuinely believed in these truths through their faith and their love.

It’s a little like this.

I think we all agree that, no matter how nice some of our children are, there will be times when they show poor manners.

We know, because we were once little children.

When we were young, our parents would remind us again and again to greet the elderly and show them respect.

Hands up anyone whose parents had done that to you when you were children.

Hands up if your parents are still nagging you to greet the elderly.

By default, because we’re born sinners, we’re no good at being respectful, and so our parents have to teach us.

When we were young, we might feel like their just nagging.

We know it’s the right thing to do, but we don’t feel like doing it.

But as we grow older, we begin to see that it’s a good thing to be respectful.

That’s because you’ve seen some friends that weren’t taught to show respect to the elderly usually don’t show respect to their friends or other people either.

You start to think, ‘you know what, my parents might be right about being respectful.’

And you begin to be respectful not because your parents nag you, but because you believe in your heart that it’s a good thing to be respectful.

You understand the truth, but what’s more, you’re convinced of the truth.

That’s what it’s like to grow as a Christian.

When you first become a Christian, you might understand the truth, but you feel like it’s something that you must do instead of something you want to do.

However, as you grow in your trust in Jesus, and become convinced of the truth, you want to practice the truth.

As you grow in your trust in Jesus, you want to trust him more.

You also want to love the saints more.

Saints are people who have been made holy because they have put their trust in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

When you grow as a Christian, your love for other Christians grow.

You care before you criticize; you seek their needs above your own.

When you grow as a Christian, your growth shows.

It shows in visible, tangible actions of faith and love.

News about the faith and love from the Ephesian Church reached Paul.

And Paul thanked God for them.

When people hear about us, when people hear about our Church, will they hear about our faith in Jesus and our love for all the saints?

What stories will they tell?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been so encouraged to see members of our Church constantly pray for Range’s father, Mr Zhu.

Some of us know him well, some of us, only know him from a distance.

But it’s good, so good, to see you pray for him, because of your faith in the Lord Jesus, knowing that Jesus hears each and every single one of our prayers.

And you pray because you love Mr Zhu and his family.

Hearing your prayers of faith and love for Mr Zhu is always a joy for me.

In our area, our Church is known as the little Church that’s keen to teach the Bible.

Though we’re a little Church, we’re involved in bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to over 2,200 students across five different schools.

Right now, we’re teaching 220 students in these schools.

That is, at least one in ten students in our local schools get to hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus in their schools.

Some of us are paid, but others are volunteers, doing it out of love for Jesus and a passion for the youth.

It’s our faith and love in action!

And so, learn deep theological truths about God, and live these out by the way you trust God and by the way you love all the saints.

Thank God for those who are growing in Christ, pray for them.

But what do we pray for? How should we pray for them?

2.  Call God to reveal his hope for us

Pray to God, call on God to reveal his hope for us.

Look with me from the beginning of verse 17, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling,  what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints,”

Paul describes God as the glorious Father.

God is the Father of glory; he is full of light.

God alone is immortal and lives in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16).

Throughout the Bible, God is described as the God glory, the King of glory

He is the Father of glory, the Source of all glory.

It is God alone who can open our eyes to see his glory.

And so, Paul’s prayers for the believers in Ephesus is that God will open their eyes, so that the eyes of their hearts might be enlightened.

Their eyes were blind before; all they could see was darkness.

But Paul prays that the glorious Father will enlighten the believers, that they might see the hope of his calling.

This is not a vague wish but a certain and glorious hope of what God has prepared for us.

God has a glorious hope and he calls us to come and get it.

It’s a little like this.

David Genat is an Australian who won the game show Australian Survivor: Al Stars back in 2020.

To win, he had to go through a lot of physical challenges, work with different people to see who they should vote off the groups, or as they call it, ‘tribes’.

David Genat eventually outlasted everyone through his hard work.

He won a total of AUD$500,000.

Not bad.

Then in March 2025, eight months ago, he played the game show “Deal or No Deal Island”.

Again, David Genat and other contestants had to work through different physical challenges but this time, they have to choose random briefcases.

Some of them will be valuable, some of them would be worthless.

Again, David Genat outlasted everyone.

This time, he won AUD$9.2 million.

Again, not bad at all! 

But you know what, God has already set aside His treasure for you and he calls you to come and get it.

The treasure is worth far more than the $9.2 million David Gant had won.

God is offering us the forgiveness of all our sins.

This is God’s offer to us:  all that we owe God, God would cancel.

You cannot buy God’s forgiveness for $9.2 million.

You cannot buy God’s forgiveness for all the money in the world.

And as long as you’re not forgiven, you cannot enter heaven.

Without God’s forgiveness, your one and only option after death is to face judgement.

However, in Jesus, God wipes our debts away when we put our trust in him.

And forgiveness is but one of the treasures that God has for us.

The Bible tells us that in Jesus Christ, God gives us every spiritual blessing in the heavens.

Those who are with Jesus will live with Him and God the Father forever, in the Kingdom of heaven.

This is the hope we have; that’s what we’re called to receive in Jesus.

And so, we must pray, must call on God to understand this hope.

There are many people who remain blinded, making foolish decisions, choosing foolish options in the lives, because they don’t understand the Christian hope.

Sadly, even as Christians, we often fail to grasp how marvellous this hope is.

We need the Spirit of God to make this precious hope from God clearer, day by day.

The worries of the world, the lure of wealth, the lure of comfort and the envy of our hearts will tell us to spend our life running after a false hope.

Pray for God to help us see His hope even more clearly.

Charles Spurgeon once wrote about this account of prayer for the Spirit’s enlightenment:

 “I suggest to you all the prayer of a Puritan who, during a debate, was observed to be absorbed in writing.

His friends thought he was taking notes of his opponent’s speech;

but when they got hold of his paper, they found nothing but these words, ‘More light, Lord! More light, Lord!’ Oh, for more light from the great Father of lights!”

This puritan didn’t rely on himself to have more insights; he prayed.

Friends, we can’t live without prayer.

The less we pray, the less we see of the treasures God has in store for us.

The less clearly we see His treasure, the more hopeless we become.

The more hopeless we become, the more loveless we become and the more unfaithful we become.

Do not stop praying for God to open the eyes of our hearts to God’s hope.

3.  Give God thanks for our glorious calling

God has placed the hope of heaven right there before us, and God’s called us to receive this glorious gift that he gives us.

Friends, this is our calling!

God has called us to receive every blessing in the heavenly realms.

God has called us to receive His Son.

That’s our calling; that’s what every Christian is called to.

Many years ago, before we could record videos on mobile phones, we used video cameras.

And not digital cameras with a hard disk; we used video cassettes.

When I was a young assistant minister, I used my video camera to record children giving messages about their mothers for Mother’s Day.

I was going to record the video, transfer the file through my firewire cable (no one uses these anymore!) and put a neat little video for Church the next day.

I filmed a lot of our Church’s children and even one child who came to visit with his mother that day.

After the service, as the Sunday school children were taking the children back, the Sunday School teacher suddenly realised that the new child wasn’t there.

She was traumatised.

The rest of us started running all around Parramatta to look for this child.

I got the name of the child but I didn’t know much about him at all.

However, I had a video of him on my video camera.

And so, I ran to the train station, knowing that there’s a possibility that someone has seen him there.

I explained the situation and showed the short clip to the station staff.

After a few minutes, the staff told me that the child was safe with them in their office and asked for his mother to come and collect him.

Now I can’t tell you how the video went, but I’m sure that in God’s wisdom and providence, my most important thing that came about wasn’t the mother’s day video, but the short clip of the boy.

That was God’s purpose for me bringing the video camera to Church that day.

There are some people who describe what they do and even who they are as their calling.

They might be an accountant, or a scientist, or a teacher, or a mother.

As important as they are, these are not ultimately what God called us to be.

These are not why God has placed us where we are in our lives.

God has called us to be His children, to trust in Jesus.

God has called us to be Christians, to be followers of Jesus.

God has called us to be His holy people, His royal priesthood, a people belonging to God.

Some of us work hard to become who we are.

It might have taken years and years of practice to be a piano player.

It might have taken years and years to study to be a teacher.

But how much time do we spend working on our ultimate calling?

How much of our time and resources do we spend to make sure we’re fulfilling our calling to be God’s people?

As important as our jobs are, as important as our roles at home and work might be, they will fade away the day after we die.

In fact, all these roles often fade away long before we die.

However, if we belong to Jesus, our calling and our identity as God’s people will continue long after our bodies pass away.

Isn’t it crazy that we would spend all hours upon hours on short-term goals, performing our short-term roles,

but we would only spend mere minutes, even mere seconds, on goals that will affect our own eternity and the eternity of others?

How can we make sure we know how to spend our lives on our ultimate calling? How do we not make sure we spend our time on what’s good and temporary instead of what’s best and eternal?

We pray.

One of the most effective uses of your time is to pray to God, to call on God, to show you His calling for you even more clearly.

Call on God to show His glorious calling for you.

Ask Him to show you what He considers glorious.

And thank Him for revealing His glorious calling to you.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve attended or watched three funerals.

The first one was held here for a gentleman who used to attend church but had stopped coming many years ago.

The second one was that of John Laws on Wednesday, which I watched on television.

As far as I can tell, there’s no sign that John Laws committed his life to Jesus, though he might have done so privately.

It was held at St Andrew’s Cathedral, and all our Anglican leaders who were involved really helped focus our eyes on the hope of Jesus.

The next day, on Thursday, I went to the funeral of Colin Tse.

Colin was 47 years old.

Just this time last month, he was planning to go on holiday with his wife, Serena.

However, a few days before they were supposed to go away, Colin got very sick.

On the seventh of November, his minister, who was away at that time, texted him a prayer to encourage him.

Colin, even though he was very sick on his bed, texted a prayer back to his minister.

Colin died on the eighth of November.

These three men have travelled very different journeys in their lifetimes; over the past few weeks, all of them knew that they were dying.

One of them had plenty of time to think about their death; one of them only had a lot less time.

But there’s one thing that’s the same for all of them; all of them had to call on the Lord Jesus in order to be saved.

If they had called on the name of Jesus, then they could call on God to make their calling in him sure.

One turned back to the Lord in his last days,

one had continued trusting Jesus just as he’s ever been since the day when he first became a Christian,

and one I’m not as certain about.

There’s a sense, of course, that we’re not that different from the three men. Some of us might live for many years with hardly any sickness but some of us might get sick suddenly.

However, we allhave one thing in common.

All of us need to call on the name of Jesus to be saved.

Are you certain about your calling?

If you are, how can you be so sure?

And if you are sure, does your life show your certainty?

That’s what we gather as a Church to do.

As a Church, we want to point people to Jesus and together as a Church, call on God to help us fulfil our calling as Christians.

We call on God, we pray to God, to help us know him, to know the hope of his calling, and to know the immeasurable greatness of his power.

That’s why we set up the different checkpoints – to help us see whether we are staying on or straying from the path God’s set for us.

We want to welcome people well, we want to tell the gospel to our children, we want to be better parents, we want to be better coaches and trainers, because we want to call upon God to help us fulfil our calling.

Would you join us as we call upon our God together as a Church?

And so, how do you know your calling?

You know your calling when you read the Bible.

If you are a Christian, you are called to receive the hope that God has for you in Christ.

If you are not a Christian, God is also calling you to come to him, to call upon the name of Jesus, so that you may be saved.

And so, friends, call on God to give thanks for the Church’s faith, to show our faith in all-embracing love, and to find our hope in his glorious calling.

A Christian singer by the name of Ray Boltz wrote a song called Thank you

In the song, he imagined that a young man came up to a Christian in heaven and said, “friend you may not know me nowAnd then he said but waitYou used to teach my Sunday SchoolWhen I was only eightAnd every week you would say a prayerBefore the class would startAnd one day when you said that prayerI asked Jesus in my heart”

Or better still, I asked Jesus, take my heart.

On Friday, Jenny and I taught KOGWorx again.

I missed the children and it looks like they missed us.

Some of them were eight.

My prayer is that I’ll see some of them in heaven too.

Friends, this is our glorious calling; this is our Church’s glorious calling.

I want to see you in heaven, thanking God, and praising God with pure love and pure joy, forever.

And not just us here.

I also want to see the children and the family of the Children Centre, the students of our school, your family, my family, all in heaven together.

I want us to see people them all in heaven one day, because they have heard and received God’s glorious calling.

This is our glorious calling from God.

]How have you responded to God’s calling?

Here are three questions for us to think about this week:

1.     How would Christians outside of our Church give thanks for you, the Church?

2.     Who have you prayed to God for, that God might show them his calling for them, the members of the Church?

3.     If you are certain about God’s calling for you, what does that certainty look like in action?

Call on God to give thanks for the Church’s faith, to show our faith in all-embracing love, and to find our hope in his glorious calling.

Let’s pray, “Father, thank you for your glorious calling. Thank you that you call us in Christ, to have this hope that is far more glorious than anything this world can give. Forgive us when we don’t call on your name. Forgive us when we choose not to desire your will for us. Forgive us for our loveless, faithless, hopeless hearts. We call upon you to refresh us by your Spirit, that people will come and see the love and faith we have in Jesus, according to the glorious calling that is ours in Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.”