The primary concern of the Apostle Paul’s remarkable prayer of Ephesians 1 is that the Father would grant to the Ephesian Christians a greater measure of the Spirit’s presence and power, particularly in the realm of His ministry of revelation of the Truth of God. Of all of the facets and ministries of the Holy Spirit, the one that Paul focuses on in this prayer, is the Spirit’s particular ministry of illumination of the mind and heart of the believer. Paul prays this because he knows that it is by the means of a more accurate, enlarged, spiritually perceptive view of divine Truth, that Christians grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. So Paul prays that the eyes of your understanding be enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling. He does not pray that they might obtain the hope, but he assumes that they already have the hope. Before being called by God, one description of every human being, found in Ephesians 2:12 is: having no hope and without God in the world. The mark of every unconverted man is that he is without hope; the mark of a converted man (along with faith and love) is hope. Every single human being that ever lived are in one of two groups: either you have hope because you have been called, or you have no hope because you have not been called. Which group are you in?
This question is answered as we understand the meaning of the word calling – which is the source of the hope of the Christian. This sermon defines what the Biblical call of God entails and how it produces hope in the life of the Christian.
1) The source of the hope = the call of God
2) The substance of the hope = the consummation of redemption
3) The supremacy of the hope
