Ephesians 1:15-21: Paul's Prayer for the Ephesians

As a began preparing for my first sermon at a new church, I didn't have to think long before I knew where I had to start.  In writing to the Christians at Ephesus Paul addresses not only the church as a body, but also the individual disciples that together form that body.  Specifically, Paul is interested in seeing that they embrace the promises rooted in the present that come with Christ's resurrection.  In his prayer for the Ephesian church, Paul specifically asks that they "know the immeasureable greatness of His power toward us, that He worked in Christ Jesus when he raised him from the dead." (italics mine)  It's easy to miss at first, but when we slow down and actually digest what Paul is saying here we are struck with the immensity of God's grace.  A grace bound up not only in some future hope of eternal life, but also in the ability to experience Christ's resurrection in the present, as God disentangles us from our past life of sin and death.  Indeed, I would go so far as to say that if we think that resurrection is only about eternal life, then we have missed the point entirely.  Resurrection is about being alive to to God, which in turn launches us into a relationship rooted in eternity.  Living eternally without God, without the hope of redemption and unconditional love, is no life at all.  I guess the point I am trying to make is that this passage has helped me to see that the resurrected life, the life we are promised through Christ, as everything to do with quality of life rather than the quantity of our years.  Only the years illuminated by God's presence are worth enjoying in perpetuity.      
When the understand the power that resurrection has not only for our future, but also for our present, it is easy to understand why Paul prayed so fervently for the Ephesians to embrace that reality in their lives.  While Paul's prayer was grounded in the historical context of the New Testament church, its power to shape and inspire us is not limited to the 1st century.  In fact, in some sense Paul's prayer will only be answered if we, almost two-thousand years later, lift up the same petition, our words prompted by a longing for Christ and the power of His resurrection to invigorate our churches once again. 

"May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, give us a spirt of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. 
May He enlighten the eyes of our heart, that we may know the hope to which we have been called, that we may know the riches of our glorious inheritence in the saints, and what is the immeasureable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His great might that He worked in Christ Jesus when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.
Amen"