Prayer that Reflect the Heart of God Part 1 - Ephesians 1:15-23

0:34Chapter 1 of Ephesians is really one of Paul's wonderful prayers that we have recorded in Scripture. And really, it consumes the whole chapter. We have a brief introduction, verses 1 and 2, and then beginning in verse 3 of chapter 1, all the way through 14, we see Paul praising God. It's a prayer of praise that starts in verse 3 and runs all the way through 14. Then in verse 15 and 16, you have a brief prayer of thanksgiving.

1:08He's giving thanks. And then verses 17 through 23 is petition. It's a prayer of petition, Paul asking God and making requests to God. And so that's kind of a brief overview of the chapter, just to kind of frame our study this morning. Now, before we get started, Started analyzing Paul's prayer. Let me ask you all a question. How many of you this morning keep a prayer journal? Anybody record it? Mostly ladies. I've got some guys that are like this. It's okay. It's okay to write your prayers down.

1:48How many of you that do that would be willing to come up here and let me read a page from that? And then not only read it, but let's sit here for the next hour and study it. Let's pick it apart. Let's really analyze it. Anyone? No. In preparation for my sermon, I asked my son Stephen, we've been encouraging him to do that, to write down his thoughts and his prayers towards God. And so one morning he got up early. I was studying in our study, and he sat down. I said, Hey, what would you think about me reading, you know, taking your prayer journal and reading it up here? And he starts kind of squirming in his seat. No way. No way.

2:31And, you know, I think most of us are like that, right? We would answer the same way. No way. It makes us uncomfortable. And I asked him why, and I thought he gave a pretty good response. He said, because those are my words for God. They're not for other people. It's private. And I get that. And we see that in Scripture. Jesus says, when you pray, go into the closet, go into the inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who's in secret, right?

3:00There's something private about our prayer, an element of privacy. And I get that. But as I kept pondering that question, why does that make us uncomfortable? I came to realize that maybe privacy was only part of the answer. And I think that the real reason may be actually much deeper than that, than I realized. See, sometimes privacy, it becomes a convenient excuse, right, to not look deeper. And I think if we're truly honest, we become uncomfortable with the thought of people looking into our private prayer life because of what it might reveal, what it might reveal about our spiritual condition, about our heart. And that's what prayer is, isn't it? It reveals our heart.

3:54You know, Jesus said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks, right? And that's what prayer is. It's the overflow of our heart. It reveals our truest motives, that which really gets us going, our motives. It reveals the real attitudes of our heart. Not necessarily sometimes the facade that we put up when we come to church on Sunday morning, but it reveals what's really inside, the real attitude. Or it reveals maybe our greatest desires, the things that we want. Most, the things that we long for. So ultimately, prayer reflects the spiritual condition of our heart. And it reflects maybe how successful or maybe not successful we have been in aligning our hearts with God's.

4:48Do you see that? I mean, God reveals truth about Himself, He reveals His motives and His desires and His heart to us through the Word of God. And then we are to respond in prayer and seek to align our hearts with God's, with His motives, His desires. That's what prayer is. Now, don't worry, I'm not going to call anyone to come up here, like I said, and read their own prayer journal. Just be glad I didn't take my son's advice. He thought it would be good to ask for volunteers before I told them what they were signing up for. You know, kind of an element of surprise, if you will.

5:28And so I'm not going to do that. But fortunately for us, Paul kind of took one for the team, if you will. This morning I'm going to read an excerpt from the Apostle Paul's prayer journal. Let me read our text for us this morning, and we're just going to be studying verses 15 through 17. It says, For this reason, too, or this reason also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, I do not cease. Giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him.

6:16As you know, Paul was a man whose heart had been completely and wonderfully transformed by the grace of God. You remember from the record we have in Acts, before Paul met Christ, his primary goal in life was to persecute the church. And he thought that he was doing it as a service to God. He thought that it was pleasing to God, that that's what God wanted. And then on that road to Damascus, he comes face to face with our Lord Jesus Christ. And when he met Christ, it changed everything. Jesus revealed himself to Paul on that road to Damascus, and it changed him from the inside out.

7:03He gave him a glimpse of God's heart, God's heart for the church, and he quickly began to realize that his own heart was not in line with God's heart. And he found out that he desperately needed a heart alignment, if you will. And so by God's grace, we see this alignment begin to take place, and we find evidence of that in. Paul's prayers that are recorded here for us in Ephesians. Now, I believe this prayer here in Ephesians 1 is just a wonderful example of a prayer that truly reflects the heart of God.

7:44It reveals a heart of a person who has had their heart aligned with God's heart. And so, this morning, as we study this passage together, I want to make three observations about Paul's prayer. And I want us to observe these things so that when we pray, that when we pray, our prayers might also be a true reflection of God's own heart. So, let's begin looking at our text. What motivated Paul to pray? What was it that continually drew him into the presence of God and beckoned him to bow before God in prayer? What was it? I will submit to you that it is the glorious outpouring of God's grace. It's God's grace that was on the forefront of Paul's mind, really, from the very beginning of this prayer that began in verse 3. It says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us. So, from the very beginning, the first words out of his mouth was speaking of the grace of God, the divine favor that God has decided to look. Favorably upon us. That's what grace is. And that's what began this whole prayer towards God. And from verse 3 all the way to verse 14, like I mentioned already, he's praising God for that grace. And he's expounding upon all the riches of that grace in salvation. But he speaks of it in general terms. You look through verses 3 through 14, and you see him using pronouns like we and us and our.

9:34He's speaking to all of those who are in Christ generally. And then when we come to verse 15, our passage this morning, he directs his focus now to the grace of God in the lives of the Ephesians specifically. He says, for this reason, having heard of your faith, your love, making mention of you in my prayers. So it gets very personal. We get to verse 15, and now he's directing his prayers specifically for the believers there in Ephesus. And there's two things I want to draw out of the text for you regarding God's grace that has been displayed and two things that have motivated Paul. They should be obvious. Let me read verse 15 for us again. Says, for this reason too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints.

10:41Again, there are two things that should pop out right out of the text. Let's look at the first one. He says that he heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you. Now, this is interesting because Paul certainly already knew of their faith, right? He knew of their faith in the Lord Jesus because he was there from the beginning. You remember in Acts 18, Paul came and he preached the gospel in Ephesus on his second missionary journey, and then he left Priscilla and Aquila there to minister to them. He went to some other places, and then he returned to Ephesus on his third missionary journey in Acts 19, and he stayed there for approximately two years. And you may remember the story from Acts 19. It talks about how God was performing extraordinary miracles in their midst, extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul as he preached the word of God to those in Ephesus. And I mean, these were some really supernatural things that were going on. People were coming, and you remember taking Paul's handkerchief, taking his outer garment, and going and putting it on sick people. They were healed.

12:03People who were possessed were having diseases that left them and spirits being cast out. And so Paul was preaching the gospel, preaching the gospel, and God was authenticating that message through wonderful, extraordinary, supernatural miracles. And then now listen to the result. In verse 19, it says, chapter 19, verse 17, this became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus, and fear fell upon them, all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified. And many also of those who had believed kept coming and confessing and disclosing their practices. And many of those who practiced magic brought their books together and began burning them in the sight of everyone. And they counted up the price of them and found it to be 50,000 pieces of silver. And so the word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing among them.

13:09And Paul was here. He knew of their faith because he was there preaching the gospel when they believed. And he saw this magnificent turning away from a lifestyle of idolatry and turning to the living God that I just read. And he saw the word of God. God growing in them and working mightily in them. And so when we come back to Ephesians and we're trying to understand what it is that motivated Paul to pray, if he already knew their faith, what is it about their faith that motivated him to pray?

13:51Do you remember what was on Paul's heart before he departed from the Ephesians in Acts 20? Do you remember what he was saying to them? He said, I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves, men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. He saw their faith, but as he was leaving them and seeing them for the last time, his primary concern for the Ephesians was that their faith would not be disrupted, that someone would not come in among them and divert their faith, right? That he was concerned that it would not persevere. And so you can imagine Paul's delight when he's sitting there in that Roman prison writing this letter to the various churches. He hears of a report regarding those in Ephesus, and he hears, what does he hear? He hears that the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ exists among them, that it's still existing, that it's persevering, that what Began back in Acts several years ago when he was there preaching the gospel, he's hearing that it's still there. It's still persevering in the faith, and it was still thriving. And that delighted Paul. Now, that's the nature of true saving faith, is it not? It continues. Faith perseveres. It's not a one-and-done kind of event that we see in many churches around our country today. You know, a friend of mine would liken that kind of faith, that temporary faith, if you will, like a, he likens it to a bottle rocket. Have you all ever seen one of those? We just had the 4th of July. You know, you light it, and it kind of big show in the beginning, and then just kind of fizzles out, right?

15:55Big show in the beginning, and then it's short, but it's short-lived. But a person with saving faith is not like that. They continue to grow. They continue turning from and turning to Christ and put their full dependence upon the Lord Jesus year over year over year over year. It perseveres to the end. And so Paul is hearing this, right? And it's motivating him to pray. It's motivating him to pray. But that's not the only thing. Thing, right? The grace of God that is manifested in a person's faith will inevitably lead to something else. And that something else is what he heard as well. It says that, what does the next phrase say? It says that he heard of their love for all the saints. He heard of their love for all the saints. This is the second display of God's grace that is motivating Paul, that's drawing Paul to pray to God. He heard of their love, and not just for some of them, but for all of them, right? For all of the saints. Now, how is love for the saints a manifestation of God's grace? What is it in that that shows that God's grace is at work?

17:17Is it not that because without it, we don't have love? Isn't it that man in his unredeemed state is not loving at all? We're selfish by nature, right? We're not sacrificial. We don't sacrificially put others before us apart from God's grace. We put ourselves first, and we prefer ourselves over others. And if that selfishness is allowed to express itself fully, it ultimately leads not to love, but really to hatred in its fullest expression. Paul reminds Titus of this, speaking of Of our life before Christ, before the grace of God. It says in Titus 3: For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. This is before Christ. But when the kindness of our God, when the God of our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us, right? He changed us. And so what's on Paul's mind here is that the grace, he's hearing that the grace of God is at work, is still at work in the lives of those whom he preached to back in Ephesus a few years ago.

18:49He sees the grace of God at work, and that is really the first observation. I forgot to put this up here on the deal here. My wife made me a nice PowerPoint. I better use it. But so he begins to pray, right? He begins to pray, and his prayer is reflecting the heart of God. And I want you to see that prayers that reflect the heart of God possess the right motivation. Paul was motivated by the grace of God in the lives of others.

19:25And that grace of God was displayed through a genuine faith in the Lord Jesus. And then that faith led to a genuine love for others. That grace of God shows itself in those ways. And let me just say that I don't think you can separate the two. Faith and love, they are inseparable. You cannot have faith and say that the grace of God has been brought in your heart and expressed itself through faith without also loving the other believers.

20:00John tells us, beloved, let us love one another, for the love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. And again, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the ones who are born of him. And so, you know, Paul sees this, right? He sees God working in their lives. He hears about it as he's sitting there in the prison, and it motivates him to pray. He's moved by the grace of God in the life of the Ephesians. And so when we look at that, we have to ask ourselves, what is it that motivates us to pray?

20:48Do you find yourself not motivated to pray or maybe praying as often as you should? May I suggest to you to remind yourself of the grace of God. God that is at work. Remind yourself of the grace of God that has done a work in your own heart, right, that has caused you to believe in Him, that has caused you to exercise that faith in the love for others. Call to mind, and when you pray for others, if you find it you lack the motivation to pray for the other believers that are sitting right next to you, recall, bring to mind the fact that God has done a work of grace in their hearts as well.

21:36And as you do so, it will motivate you to pray. It'll motivate you to come before God in prayer. So, the first thing that we observed is that prayers that reflect the heart of God first possess the right motivation. They're motivated by the grace of God. Now, let's look back at the text and make a second observation. Verse 16, or let me back up. Verse 15, for this reason, too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus that exists among you and your love for all the saints, I do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers.

22:17So, the second observation that we can make is that prayers that reflect the heart of God also produce the right attitude. They produce the right attitude. When you're motivated, By the right things to pray, it will inevitably produce in you the right attitude. What is the attitude that was produced in Paul as he contemplated the grace of God, the faith and the love that the Ephesians had? Was it not thanksgiving? Was it not an attitude of thankfulness, an attitude of gratitude, if you will?

22:56He heard of these things and it produced in him a genuine thankfulness to God. Now, what does it mean to be thankful? How would we define thankfulness? I think in its simplest term, it's an expression of gratitude, right, towards someone, a particular person, for something they have done or have given, right, to be grateful. When you look at the Greek word, it's actually a combination of two words: one meaning good. The second word, karis, it's a word we get grace from, good, grace, good favor. And it's in the verb form, right? It's an action, it's something that we do, right? It's a response. Therefore, when you kind of put all that together, thankfulness, I think, could be said that it is the act of responding to the good favor of God. You see that?

23:58When God pours out his grace, On us, right? He gives us things that we don't deserve. Thankfulness is the response to that good favor. You see that? It's recognizing the grace of God in our lives and then responding by giving him all the glory for it. Is that true of our prayers when we pray? Do we have this heart attitude? Paul certainly did. He said he was continually giving thanks. It was a continual thing, and that's how God's grace works. The more we dwell upon it, the more we think upon it, the more we come to know it in our own life, the more it produces that response of thankfulness, that attitude of thankfulness in our hearts.

24:48One example of thankfulness that comes to my mind is actually an example from the scriptures. Turn with me to Luke 17. Luke chapter 17. You probably remember the story beginning in verse 11. It was the story of the ten lepers. Just read it briefly for us. It says in verse 11 through 19, it says, While he was speaking of Jesus, while he was on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, ten leprous men. Who stood at a distance met him. And they raised their voices saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they were going, they were cleansed.

25:47There's the grace of God, the mercy of God, the giving of something they certainly didn't deserve. And in verse 15, now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, he turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at his feet, giving thanks to him. And he was a Samaritan. And then Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine, where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, Stand up and go. Your faith has made you well. Here you have these ten men.

26:33God pours grace out upon them, has mercy upon them, heals their infirmity, which they, I think, had for quite some time, a terrible disease, and he removed it from them. And then you see this example, this wonderful example of someone, what it looks like to appropriately respond to the grace of God. You see this Samaritan turning back, right? He says he. When he was healed, when he saw that he was healed, he turned back and he glorified God. He glorified God. He fell at his feet in worship. And what is the last phrase he said? He did. He gave thanks. He gave thanks to the one to whom it was due. Jesus deserved that response of thankfulness. And so when we come back to our text in Ephesians, this is what is going on in the heart of Paul.

27:31He sees the grace of God and he responds by turning to God in prayer and giving him the glory for that which he has done in the lives, not only his life, but the life of the Ephesian believers. It produced the right attitude. And this was the example that we see in Paul, all of Paul's prayers, really. I mean, you go through the scriptures and time and again, I thank God for speaking to the Philippians. I thank God for you in all my remembrance of you. In Colossians, we give thanks to God the Father for our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.

28:14In the Corinthians, right, even the Corinthians, he was dealing with some issues. He says, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus. You see that? You see that connection? The grace of God inevitably leads to a thankfulness for that grace. And if we're going to pray prayers that reflect the heart of God, it must be coming from a heart of thankfulness towards Him.

28:47All right, so again, we must consider the attitude of our prayers. So first, the first thing we observe, they possess the right motivation. The second is that they must possess the right attitude, expressed in a heart of thankfulness. And then the third one, which I want us to look at, is put it up there, is that our prayers must petition the right request. It must petition the right request. Let's look back at our text in verse 17.

29:26It says, I do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers. What is he praying? That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him. Now, in verse 17, this is really the main thrust of Paul's prayer, okay, right here. I mean, you begin to see Paul's heart for the Ephesian believers come out in his request on their behalf. And it's Where we begin to see really Paul's deepest longing for them revealed. I mean, this is the juicy stuff, right, in a prayer journal, right? This is the good stuff.

30:13And verse 17 is really sort of a summary statement. He kind of summarizes his primary request in verse 17, and then he elaborates and he expands upon that request by giving three additional ones in verses 18 through 23. So we're not going to look at those additional ones this morning. We're only going to focus our attention on the primary one in verse 17. Now, the first thing I want you to notice about this request is who he makes the request to. Who is it that Paul is directing his petitions to? Well, it says very clearly that he is petitioning the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory. He identifies it, that he's praying to God, and he ascribes to God two titles. You see that there? Let's look at the first one. It says, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, this is a common title that we see Paul use when he's addressing God. In fact, he's already used it and addressed God in this manner in verse 3, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

31:30But I want you to see that it's more than just a title, right? It's just more than just something that he's thrown out there. The name in which God addresses, or that which Paul addresses God, it serves as a constant reminder of the fact that the only basis that we have, the only basis that Paul has to come before God at all is through the Lord Jesus Christ, right? Through his Son. He is the God of who? Of our Lord Jesus Christ.

32:05John 1, verse 18 reminds us that no one has seen God at any time, right? Except the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained him. It's the Lord Jesus Christ alone who declares to us everything that we need to know about the Father. And so when Paul uses this phrase, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, he is saying, he's acknowledging that he's coming to the one who has explained himself in the Son. And that it's only through Christ that we can come to know God in any meaningful way. Do you see that? And it's only through Christ that we can enter into God's presence. It's by his life and his death and his resurrection that make it even better. Impossible for someone like you and I to approach God, much less ask Him something.

33:08And so that's what Paul is doing when he mentions the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's acknowledging that fact. He's acknowledging and confessing his own insufficiency to come before the throne of God. And I wonder, do we approach God that way? Or have we become so familiar with God that we lose sight of the fact that Christ is the only reason we can even offer up prayers at all? Paul certainly had this in mind as he approached God, and we should as well. But he doesn't stop there. He describes God with a second title.

33:54What does it say? That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Father of glory. The Father of glory. Now, the Father of glory is by far one of my favorite titles that are ascribed to God in the Scriptures. There are many names or titles that the authors of Scripture have attributed to God. James describes him as the father of lights, in whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. That's a pretty good one. Isaiah talks about. God being the eternal Father, the Father of eternity.

34:35Hard to wrap your mind around that one. But this one, the Father of glory, is just so rich. It's so rich when you think about the implications of what that means. When God is said to be the Father of glories, he is the source of all things that are glorious. Everything that could be considered glorious comes from the Father. Glory is generated by Him, it comes forth from Him. God the Father is glory, and glory is God the Father. They're one and the same. His person defines what glory even is. Martin Lloyd-Jones said it this way: He said, Glory is the summation of all of the excellencies and all of the perfections and all of the attributes that exist in the Lord God Almighty Himself. It's a pretty good definition. He is the Father of glory. Glory is what defines His being. And not only that, but everything that He does is glorious. Everything that proceeds forth from Him is glorious. What does Psalm 19 remind us? The heavens are telling of what?

35:55The glory of God. The heavens are telling His creation speaks. Of the glory of God, all that He has created. In Ephesians, in our text, or at least in chapter 1 of Ephesians, it reminds us that all of salvation is of the glory of God. Verse 11, in him we have also obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to his purpose, who works all things after the counsel of his will. For what reason? To the end that we who were first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of his glory.

36:34The whole purpose of salvation, yes, is to redeem us, right? To pull us out of our mess and clean us up. But the end goal is that that act of saving us might bring glory to God, that might reflect God's glory. Now, when we're addressing someone like that, someone who has the name Father of glory, who is so glorious, what in the world do you even ask when you stand in front of someone like that? Well, I want to show you what Paul asked. He made a simple request, and it's a request that I believe that God delights to answer every single time.

37:21It reveals not only Paul's heart for the Ephesians, but I think it reveals God's heart for us. So, what does he request? Well, he says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him. A spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him. Now, this is interesting. I found it interesting anyway that Paul had just finished. I mean, the last 14 verses has been Paul, I mean, just going through all the things that God has already given. He's already given them everything they could possibly need. I mean, everything, right? All of the blessings, all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.

38:14We looked at that the last time we were in this text. But all the glorious riches that come with being chosen before the foundation of the world in Christ, right? All of the blessings that come from being adopted into God's family and redeemed and forgiven by the blood of Christ. He talks of the inheritance that they have been given and the inheritance that was sealed forever, right, for all eternity. It was guaranteed. And yet, there's still one thing that comes to Paul's mind that is on Paul's heart for those for whom he is praying, and that is that God would give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him. Now, some commentators kind of make this more complicated than I think it really is.

39:06What is Paul asking? Well, he's asking that the Father of glory reveal himself and reveal his glory to them. He prays that they would come to the knowledge of God, to the epi gnosis is the Greek word, full knowledge, right? Epi being full gnosis, knowledge, the full knowledge, that they would come to a precise, a complete knowledge of God, to know all of God. Now, how in the world can anyone come to that kind of knowledge of God? How can you come to a complete and precise, a full knowledge of God? God has to give it to them, right? God has to enable them. He has to give them the ability to understand and to perceive the truths that God has revealed about himself.

40:02Man cannot come to know God like this on his own. None of us here came to know God that way, nor can you. You can't, through your own intuition, your own reason, your own logic. You will never come to know God that way. Man's ability to know God is so very limited. And so we must not only rely upon the fact that God is not a man. Father to reveal himself to us, but we must rely upon God to also illumine our hearts and to help us to see, as in verse 18 says, to enlighten the eyes of our heart, right, so that we could see the glory and understand it. And this is what is on the mind of Paul when he asked God to give them a spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him. He's not asking for God to give them more of the Holy Spirit, right? The Spirit has already been given. They have the Spirit. He's asking God to pull back the curtain, right, to reveal more of His glory. And as He does so, He wants God to help them to see it, right? That's what wisdom is, isn't it? It's the ability to apply knowledge. And so we gain knowledge of God, and then we need God to give us wisdom, give us the ability to comprehend and apply it accurately and completely to our lives.

41:36This is what happens when the truths of God are understood. It leads to a full knowledge of God. And we must have God help us do that. And I'll end with this, as we're running short on time. This becomes the pattern of the Christian life, really, is that God reveals truths. Truth about himself, right? He and He shows his glory, and he's done that, right? We have that in the scriptures. We have that in the person and work of Christ. John reminds us, the Word became flesh, and He dwelt among us, and we saw His what? We saw His glory, the glory of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. And so we have this complete revelation of the glory of God. He's shown Himself, and we have it recorded in Scripture. And then we must ask God to help us rightly understand that revelation, right? We need God to enlighten our eyes and give us wisdom for what purpose? So that we can know Him, right? That we can come to that full knowledge of that glory that exists in God and not only know it, but be transformed by it, right? Be transformed. That's what God is doing. He's transforming you into the image of His Son, into the image of glory, from glory to glory, as He tells us in Corinthians, in 2 Corinthians. But that's God's heart here. That was Paul's heart for the Ephesians, that they would know God, that they would understand the truths of God, and that that would result in a transformed heart, in a transformed life.

43:25And that's ultimately, that's what God's heart is for you and I here this morning. That we would be transformed. The passage I read as a scripture reading this morning, I'll end with this. This was Jesus' prayer for his disciples. He says, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, even as you gave him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, that he may give eternal life. And this is eternal life. You know what eternal life is? It's that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. That is what eternal life is. It's coming to that full knowledge of God and seeing God in all his glory and being transformed by that glory as we live our lives here on earth. And ultimately, he will come. Christ will come in all that glory, and he will give us glorified bodies, and we will live with him in that glory forever.

44:36So, how do you pray? What motivates your prayers? Is it the grace of God that brings you to prayer? When you pray, is your heart filled with a deep gratitude for that grace that God has bestowed upon you and in the lives of those around you? And what are the things you ask for? And what is it that you long for? Do you? Long to know God, like we just talked about here. I hope that is the case, and hopefully, this will begin to transform our prayers as we continue to pray and respond to the grace of God in our hearts. Let me pray for us, and y'all bow in prayer, and we'll have the musician come and play and just meditate upon these truths. Lord, again, we come to you humbly, acknowledging that, and indeed, our only hope, our only basis of which we can come before you this morning is by the grace that you have shown us through Christ.

45:48God, the work of his life, the work on the cross, God, that you've saved us, you've changed us. And Father, we just ask that you continue to transform us, continue to enlighten our hearts as we read through the scriptures and study them. Make these truths come alive to us, and we see your glory. Father, we ask these things in your name.