Followed By Mercy

Eyes Opened To What God Has Done

• W. Austin Gardner • Season 3 • Episode 32

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What if the most important prayer spoken over your life wasn’t for a promotion, a healing, or a quick way out of trouble, but for your eyes to open to what you already have in Christ? That’s where we’re headed today in Ephesians 1. Paul doesn’t beg God to give believers more. He asks that we would finally see the Father as He truly is, recognize the hope wrapped up in our calling, and rest in the power that raised Jesus from the dead.

We begin with the simple truth Jesus called "eternal life": knowing God, not merely knowing facts about Him, and knowing Him. Many of us feel safe with Jesus, but picture the Father as distant and hard to please. Ephesians 1 clears that fog. The Father is the One who chose us, loved us, forgave us, and welcomed us in the Beloved. When that settles deep, striving starts to fall away. We stop trying to earn what grace has already placed in our hands. We rest in the God who is good and who calls us His children.

From there, we talk about the hope of our calling and the riches of our inheritance. Hope in Scripture isn’t a wish. It’s a steady confidence. Your life isn’t defined by whatever is weighing on you this week. Your story stretches into resurrection and renewal.

Then we look at the weariness that comes from trying to live for God on our own strength. Paul says there is “exceeding greatness” in the power working in us right now. It isn’t willpower. It isn’t determination. It’s the same power that lifted Jesus out of the grave and set Him above all authority. That power carries you when you feel empty and unsure.

If you feel tired, stuck, or unsure how to move forward, this conversation will steady your heart. I pray it gives you a clearer picture of who God is and helps you breathe again. If it speaks to you, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review so others can find hope, too.

Episode Summary

A simple walk through Ephesians 1 and the three things Paul would pray over us today.

 • to know the Father

 • to see the hope and riches of our calling

 • to live by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead

Along the way, we look at faith in Jesus, love for the saints, gratitude to the Father, a richer inheritance, and the relief that comes from letting go of performance and resting in grace. God is at work in you even now.

Trust in Jesus. And if you’ve never trusted Him, today is a good day to begin.

Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Austin Gardner:

Take your Bible, if you would, and turn with me to Ephesians chapter 1. If the apostle Paul could pray for you personally, for us, what would he pray? Well, we find that because it's what he does when he writes the church in Ephesus, he prays. And he doesn't pray what we would pray. You know, we would pray, God heal him, he's sick, God help her find a husband, help him find a girlfriend, uh, God help meet these financial needs. Uh, we would pray a whole bunch of kind of regular, everyday physical things. But the apostle Paul prays three major things in this prayer for all of us as believers. Number one, he said, God, I just wish you'd help them know you. I want them to know you. I want you to open their eyes so they'd know you. They don't know you. I think that's a pretty fair statement. I think it's pretty fair to say we don't know God that well. We need our eyes open so we can understand more who He is. The second thing he said, I wish they knew, I wish they understood, I wish you'd open their eyes so they could see all you've done for them. I want them to see all you've done for them. And because God's done a whole bunch of things for us, and Ephesians chapter 1 is full of all these things, but we don't capture that. We don't get a hold of it. We don't understand that he loved us, that he chose us, that he's doing all these things in us, that he's redeemed us, that he's forgiven us, that he's made us accepted in the beloved. We don't catch all that most of the time. And the third thing he said, I want you to pray, he said, I pray for you, is that they would that we would understand that the very power that raised Jesus from the dead and worked in Jesus is working in us. That's three massive prayers that he prayed. I want you to go with me in your Bible and we'll work our way through it. Read with me in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 15. Paul says, Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. I want you to show them, to reveal to them the knowledge of you. Then he says in verse 18, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know the hope of his calling, the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward, who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought, which he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world that is to come, and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, put everything under his feet, and he made him head over all, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. Let's put our heads for a word of prayer. Father, I pray that this morning you would touch our hearts. God, I want to know you, and I want these people to know you. I want us to understand how to what a wonderful, fabulous God you are, how kind you are, how loving you are, how full of mercy you are, how you came and sought us out. I want us to know you. God, I want us to be able to see all you've done, to realize you've done that, and it's all by your grace and all by your goodness. And God, I know I can live this life. I can honor you because you are working in me in the same way you ever worked in the life of the Lord Jesus. And I pray, God, that you just move in our midst today and help us grow in you in Jesus' name. Amen. Go with me back to Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 15, and I want you to notice that he's praying for the people, and he makes that clear in this passage of Scripture. And he's doing it because he says, he says, I have seen the work of God in you. Look in verse 15. He said, I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus. Heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus. I'd like to stop real quick and just say, do you have faith in the Lord Jesus? Have you trusted him? Have you believed him? I'd like to ask this: do people hear about that? That means that you are fully convicted of the truth, convinced of the truth, that you trust the character and the promises of the Lord Jesus. That you believe that Jesus is exactly who he says he is: God in human flesh. God come to die on a cross, be buried, and rise again to give us eternal life. A God who accomplished salvation for us. We believe that he is God. We believe that he rules over everything. And we have totally trusted him. Have you trusted Christ? That's important. We live in a very busy world. We live in a world that's eaten up with everything else. But the truth is, we are the creation of the creator. And the creator loves you, and Jesus came to earth and died for you and died for me and paid our sin debt so that we could be saved. And I hope and pray you have trusted him. I didn't ask you if you got baptized. I didn't ask you if you joined a church. I didn't ask you if you was living according to all the rules. I'm asking you, do you believe that Jesus is God, that he died for you to pay your sin debt? The second thing Paul notices about them is that they love all the brothers. They love the saints. Look in that verse. They love the saints. Not an emotion, not an attraction, but a self-giving, self-forgetting, sacrificial love. Thinking of others. You see, when Paul wrote the Ephesian church, he said, I know you guys are living above and beyond selfishness. I know that Jesus saved you, and it's really not about you anymore. It's about you loving the brothers. He's writing them because he's excited that there is no more division, no more favoritism, no more picking and choosing sides. We love Jesus. But I want you to know this. Now listen, he writes because he's thanking God for them. Look, if you would in verse 15, cease not to give thanks for you. He said, I keep praying, but I recognize this. It's the Lord God, it's the Father who's done the work. I really would like to ask you to pause a moment and think. Too much of religion is about what you do. It's about you obeying, you doing this, you being baptized, you praying, you giving, you coming, you going and you doing. But salvation is about what God does. It's one thing if I do all the things that show I love my wife because I want to, and another one if I'm trying to gain her love. And so here's what he said. I don't quit thanking God for you, because God's the one doing the work in you. Because God's the one showing his power in your life. He's thankful about that. And he prays for them on a regular basis. He's praying for them on a regular basis. He said, I cease not to make mention of you in my prayers. I constantly remember you and I pray for you. Now, here's what I'd like to talk to you about this morning. And here's the prayer request. He says, I'm praying that you wake up to what you have in Christ. I'm praying for you to wake up for what you have in Christ. In Ephesians 1, 15, if you put in your Bible and circle that word that, that's his first prayer request. He said, first thing he says is that I do pray for you. He's explaining how he prays for him. He's explaining how he's happy about him having faith and love. But then he said, now I'll tell you what I'm praying for. I'm praying that. And so here's what he's praying for. And the first thing he's praying is that they will wake up to what they have. That they will wake up to what they have. You don't need God to give you more. You need him to open your eyes to what you already have in Christ. We already have this in Christ. Now, you know, when I got married, married life was kind of new to me. I didn't understand all that entailed. I didn't understand all that happened. I remember feeling kind of weird about being married. I remember when I went into the motel room that first night to sign up, I was 18 years old, and I made sure to hold my ring up really high so the guy could see it. I'm married. I'm not just going in this room with another girl. And I signed Mr. and Mrs. W. Austin Gardner, and we were married. But I didn't understand all I had in that. I've been married 52 years. I'm understanding a little bit of it. But when you got saved, you need to realize God is at work doing big and mighty things in your life. He's already done it. And he wants you to wake up and see it. Now, here's the key. If you study Ephesians, you realize it's not about what you do, it's about what the Father does. The pressure's not on you to perform, it's on you to just realize that God has performed. Read with me if you would. That the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory. You see what's happening here? It's God who's done the work. It's God that saved you. It's God that made you a saint. It's God that made you faithful in Christ. It's God doing the work. It's the God of heaven doing the work. And so the Jesus recognizes God the Father. And somewhere along the way, in our way of thinking, we've got a really good, pretty, happy, wonderful picture of Jesus. He's a really nice guy. We got another picture of God, and we see him as kind of hard and stingy and pushy and demanding, and we got this negative picture of him, but that's not the Bible picture. The Bible picture is that the Father of Jesus Christ, the God of Jesus Christ, is doing all that. So he wants our eyes opened to it. Did you know that God is love? I've told you that a thousand times already. The Bible is clear. God is love. God doesn't just love, God is love. He is the very definition of the word. Love is God. And then I love Psalm 34, verse 8. God is good. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in him. So we find out God is good. Now I want you to open your Bible to John 17.3. I imagine I'll show it to you up here. I need you to see John 17, 3. What is eternal life? Look with me if you would. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God. Eternal life is knowing the Father. It's knowing the Father. It's knowing the Father. It is developing that relationship. Can I put it to you this way? Marriage is knowing your spouse. Marriage is knowing your spouse. It's not just the intimacy in the bedroom. It's not just the cooking and the cleaning and the providing and the protecting. It's knowing a person. And eternal life is knowing the Father. And God wants you to know him. God wants me to know him. That's what Paul's dream was. In Philippians chapter 3 and verse 10, Paul said, That I may know him. That I may know him. God, I want to know you. God, I want to know you. I want to know you in the power of your resurrection, the fellowship of your suffering. I'm willing to even die with you. I want to know you. And that's what Paul's praying, that we would know him. Do you know what? Listen, what the Old Testament said, Jeremiah 9, 24, he said this. Let him that gloryeth, if you're going to brag, brag on this, that you understand and know me. That you understand and know God. That you understand and know God. And the Lord, look at who he is. He's the Lord which exercises loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. He's the guy that fixes everything and does everything right. The goal is to know him. The goal is to know God. Paul's prayer is pray that they would know the Father. That they know the Father. You know, to be honest with you, it doesn't feel a whole lot like preaching because I'm not fussing at you. I'm not telling you what you ought not to do and what you ought to do. I'm just telling you that when Paul prayed for you, Paul was like, I just want to know God. I just want to know God. I want to know that I'm in love with him. I want to know who he is. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 18, he said, that may they may be able to comprehend, to understand with all the saints the breadth, the length, the depth, and the height. And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. The goal of the Bible is that you would know God. The goal of the Bible is that you would know God. The goal that God has is that you would hunger to know Him. He wants you to have your eyes opened. He wants you to realize there's more to life than what you see going on here. There's more to what you're about to eat, more than just about what you're going to wear, more than about where you're going to go, more than about how your money and finances are going. God wants you to know him. He wants you to know him. Do you know God? You know him through knowing Jesus Christ. You know him through getting involved in the Bible. You know him by letting the Holy Spirit speak to you. Because God wants to know you. God is coming to you. We preach about him every week and we look at him every week. But God wants you to know him. God wants an intimate, personal relationship between you and him. Not with you and the church, not with you and me, but God wants to know you. And he wants you to know him. The second thing that Paul prays for in verse 18, look at this. That you may know what is the hope of his calling. Here's what he's prayed. I need you to open their eyes. They don't see what I've done. Now, let's be honest, you don't see what God's done because I mean it's not right here on the planet. It's not like it's a sun coming up. We can see that. Not like a sun going down, we can see that. It's not like if it's raining or not raining. We feel all that, we see all that, but there's a whole bunch of things happening in the world around you that you can't see. And the Holy Spirit needs to reveal that to you. And here's what he wants: the hope of our calling. He wants us to recognize the hope of our calling. That means the confident expectation. In other words, he said, let me just tell you, I've got big plans for you. And I wish you understood. I wish you knew all the big plans that God has for you that you can fully expect. He has chosen us, he's redeemed us, he's saved us, he's forgiven us. And so now life has a purpose. There's more to life than just making money and living a life and a house and food and clothes. There's more to it than that. There's a God above all of that. We're waiting on resurrection. We're waiting on enjoying eternal life. We're waiting on all that God has for us. He has big plans for your life. You see, everything is based on the hundred years you're going to live here on this planet. Or the 75 years or the 100 years you're going to live on this planet. And God's like, open their eyes, help them see there's so much more to what's going on than that. Verse 18, Ephesians 1:18. What is the riches of the glory of his inheritance? Let them find out just how rich you are. It's kind of like the lady who was rich. She didn't know she was rich. And every month her son sent her a money order full of money, but she didn't understand it, and she just stuck them in a drawer and she died like a poverty-stricken person with hundreds and thousands of dollars in the drawer because she didn't understand what she had. That's the life we live. God has so much more for you. God wants you to have life and to have it more abundantly through Jesus Christ. God wants you to know the exceeding greatness of his power. Here's the really crazy thing. You were never meant to live alone. You were never meant to figure out life by yourself. You were never meant to deal with whether or not you got sickness, or whether or not you're having marriage issues, or whether or not you messed up your life. You were never meant to live that by yourself. You were never meant to live that on the other side. God is at work in you, and he's got great power. The power, the same power that worked in Jesus. And here's what God wants you to know: that's He, He did it. He did it. It's God who's done the work. That takes so much pressure. Chris is preaching to you the book of Galatians, which is about accepting grace and not getting messed up in rules. Well, here the Father's saying, I'm not asking y'all to do anything. I'm not asking y'all to do anything. I'm telling you what I did. I'm telling you when Jesus died on the cross, I did all of this for you. I did all of this for you. We need to realize we look at God as a guy saying, Come here, I got rules for you to follow. I got things for you to do. I got places for you to go. I got places for you not to go. I got all this for this is my plan. You better get yourself in line. And he's looking and saying, No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm telling you, I've got big plans for you. I've got big plans for you. I would like you to look at verse 19 with me real quickly. Just a couple of minutes left. Look at 19. What is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward? Exceeding great power to usward who believe according to the working of his mighty power. I have lived a great deal of my life trying to do what I ought to do. Trying to be a good guy. I've been saved. I knew I was saved. I knew it was all by grace, but somewhere along the way, I just figured like I better do this and I better do that, and I better not do this, I better not do that. I lived my life, really a whole lot of what it focused on what I did and what I didn't do. And I felt good about what I did, and I felt good about what I didn't do. And sometimes when I didn't do as much as I thought I'd do, I didn't feel good about me. And so I was focused on me way too much. Here's what he's saying in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 19. It's my power. It's the same power that worked in the life of Jesus. And Jesus died and was buried, and he was dead, dead, but God raised him from dead. And he said, if you just knew what God's doing in your life, and you're like giving up, and you're like, I can't deal with it, and things are bigger than me, and things are hard for me, and I don't know where I'm gonna go, and I don't know what I'm gonna do. And the God of heaven's looking at you and saying, I'm at work. God opened their eyes so they can see I'm at work in their life and know that it's the Father. Look at verse 20. And He wrought in Christ, He worked it in Christ, He did it in Christ. You put a circle around the word, He. You see, it's about the salvation is the good news of the Father toward us. Salvation is not what we do, but what He did, not how we earn, but what He gave. He did it all. Look at verse 20. He wrought it in Christ, and he raised him from the dead, and he set him at the right hand in heavenly places, and he put him in charge of everything. But here's what I want you to go home with. He is at work in your life. Right now. In fact, is you don't hear a wild one? You don't really have to, you don't really have to say, God, come and live in me, he already does. You don't have to come say, love me, he already does. You don't have to beg him to hear you, he already does. And what he really wants to do is say, if you just knew all I was doing. Now you've seen the thing that they put on Facebook and other places, you know, and it says there's two sets of prints that are walking together, and then there's one set, and he says, I'm carrying you, and then there's another set where it looks like they were drugged, and he said, That's where I was dragging you. You know, but here's the whole deal. Here's really what he's saying in the scripture. I am at work in your life right now, and he is at work in your life right now, and you don't see it because you choose not to see it. And God said, I'm telling you in Ephesians 1, I've done all these things. Now open your eyes, let the Holy Spirit open your eyes, and just see and realize God is at work. God is at work. God's at work in your life this week. You're not alone, you're not gonna leave here alone, you're not gonna live the life you want to live. You're gonna take care of you. Trust in Jesus. If you're not saved, today's the day to trust him. And if you are saved, trust him. Know that you are more than victorious. Know that you can have victory in Jesus. Know that Jesus has done the work. He is at work. Father, in heaven, I love you and I thank you for the chance to serve you. I thank you for your people. I thank you for the chance to share your word. And I pray, God, that you would bring glory into every life today. And I'll praise you for it. In Jesus' name. Amen.

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Austin Gardner

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