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This Sunday
Sept. 17, 2017
Sermon Title:
"Open the Eyes of our Hearts"
Ephesians: Spiritual Riches Series
Scripture:
2 Kings 6:8-17
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September 14, 2017
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!
We are off to a great start for our study of Ephesians! Many thanks to everyone who joined a small group or Sunday School class this past week. You are welcome to join anytime - we have lots of options to fit your schedule, whether Sundays, Wednesday nights, or mid-week in homes. If you are only able to attend a few times, we would recommend the "Open Group" that meets in F101 (the former library) on Sunday mornings. Again, even if you are not able to join a group, please feel free to pick up a study guide to follow along on your own. They are available in the Narthex and the drive-thru lobby.
This Sunday, we will be looking at Paul's first prayer for the Ephesians. He gives thanks for them and then tells them all the things he prays over them. He writes in 1:18, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened" to see the hope, inheritance, and power that God offers us in Jesus Christ. What does it mean to have the "eyes of our heart" enlightened?
When I was young, my family did road trips. Boy, did we do road trips - one summer we put 3,000 miles on our car. We lived in Oklahoma for a while, and we would always drive to the East Coast once a year and sometimes to the West Coast as well. Our parents would always tell us to "keep your eyes peeled" (of course, my goofy brothers would always make jokes about how gross it would be to see a peeled eyeball). But I loved the concept of always looking out for something interesting. The American West is full of interesting things - from different forms of cactus to different forms of Cadillacs sticking up out of the west Texas dirt. We visited everything from the Grand Canyon to the only operational oil well in the middle of a street in beautiful downtown Barnsdall, Oklahoma (which we thought would more appropriately have been named Barn-stall). All along the way, the thing I remember the most was seeing the beauty of God's creation and his fingerprints all over our world.
How many times do we miss God at work? We may have our physical eyes open, but the eyes of our heart, the eyes that can see things of the Spirit, are clamped shut. We are too busy to see God placing a gift in front of us, much less to see when he places someone in need in front of us. Are your eyes open to the hope God has poured out for you? Are your eyes open to his lavish gift of spiritual riches, our inheritance as his children? Are your eyes open to his real, incredible power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead?
As with Paul, I am praying that God would open the eyes of all of our hearts. I pray that he would reveal to us his fingerprints at work around us, that he would fill us with his hope and joy, and that we would see the incredible gift of his love and his power through Jesus Christ.
Many blessings, Pastor Carolyn
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