Power-packed Praise
Ephesians 3:20-21
Jim Dunn was serving as the pastor of the First Baptist Church, and his wife, Gladys, was very friendly and welcoming to people.
One particular Sunday when the sermon seemed to go on forever, many in the congregation fell asleep. After the service, to be sociable, she walked up to a very sleepy looking gentleman. In an attempt to revive him from his stupor, she extended her hand in greeting, and said, "Hello, I’m Gladys Dunn."
To which the gentleman replied, "You’re not the only one!"
Paul moves from telling the Ephesians about what he prays for them to burst into spontaneous praise. He has just described the indescribable, the limitless love of Christ. He just expressed his constant prayer, that the people will understand the depth of it. The simple contemplation of what he understood about the dimensions of the love of Christ, what God has taught him, is the explanation as to why he had to break into praise God. His doxology, or short expression of worship, comes from his understanding of the priceless gift of Jesus Christ.
Let’s look at this praise, slice it open and see what it is made of, what it is saying to us today.
Ephesians 3:20-21 – “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
I. The Direction (Him who is able….)
That is a loaded introduction. “To Him who is able” reminds me of Genesis 1:1.
The first phrase says it all. In Genesis 1:1, the answer to everything that confuses mankind about our beginning is answered in the first four words.
“In the beginning God….”
If you don’t get that right, you don’t get the rest of the book right. The Bible never tries to prove the existence of God. It just assume that any intellectually honest person will recognize that He is there. The verse starts with four words that tell us, without question, that everything began with God. He was the beginning.
John 1 begins with the same truth about Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. It begins with this, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1-3).
Paul doesn’t name God in this praise. It’s understood that there is only one who qualifies to receive this. His praise goes to Him who is able.
Able to do what?
II. The Description. “…to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,”
After explaining that the depth, height, wide, length and breadth of love is immeasurable, he describes the capability of God as immeasurable. It is beyond our understanding, and even above our greatest imagination.
This is not saying that man’s imagination is small. We were created in the image of God, in body, soul and spirit.
Have you heard the axiom, “If we can imagine it, we can do it?” That comes from a point in history when the creative imagination of mankind was leading us into trouble. In Genesis 11, the people began to build a city and a tower to reach into the heavens. God saw that this was another act of self-reliance, mankind trying to create normality and notoriety outside their recognition of God.
Do you remember what God said was the problem with this independence that pulled men away from God?
Gen 11:5-7 “And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.’"
Clearly, God recognized that when He empowered Adam and Eve to have creative imagination before they rebelled against them, that mankind, having rejected His pure way, would use that power of imagination and invention to further alienate them from Him.
It is interesting that their first project was an attempt to reach heaven outside of God. God knew that their tower would never reach heaven, but by the time they realized it, they would have set their rebellious imaginations into other harmful projects, many of which they could accomplish.
He, by His grace, intervened.
The point? God has given us wonderful imaginations and inventive power which is developing quickly. Our great grandparents would not never imagine that most of us would carry a thing, smaller than a small prickly pear leaf in our pockets and handbags that would allow us to talk immediately with anyone around the world who had one. But somebody imagined it, and they did it.
Our nation’s founders would not have imagined that doctors could look at the inside workings of our body, one slice at a time, without even opening up the body. But somebody imagined the power of an MRI and invented it.
The explorers of what was called the new world could not even imagine that I could sit inside my temperature controlled abode and watch competition in Olympic Sochi, Russia, in High Definition and Stereo sound. But somebody did.
But no one, not anyone in this life, will ever imagine what God could do. We can’t imagine what God has prepared for us.
1Co 2:9 “But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him…’"
So, what do we pray? Are we afraid we are asking God for too much? “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think…” How can we grasp this?
We can’t.
But if we do not have a growing understanding of this, we are building our own tower of Babel. It is important that we realize that the limit of what God will do if we ask is not on His end.
Look at the Deposit that is available.
III. The Deposit, “According to the power at work within us.”
This is what Paul is desperate to get across that we have forgotten. We get the picture that there is a supply room in heaven where all these riches reside.
Ill. I heard a story once of a man who went to heaven. Saint Peter was giving Him a tour of heaven and took him into a building, bulging with riches. The man excitedly asked, “Mr. Peter, is this what I have deposited in heaven from my obedience, sending my riches on ahead like we sang about in those good ole gospel songs?”
Peter said, “No, these are the riches that God awarded you for your asking, but you never asked for.” Great story, wrong message.
Peter is not talking about a room in heaven full of unrequested prayers. He said, “God is able to do more than you imagine OR ask, according to what He already gave you at salvation.”
Listen very slowly, if that is helpful, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…”
The power that gives us more than we think or imagine is already in us, already working. If you got anything from last week’s sermon, the week before, the week before… Paul is hoping if you get anything from the book of Ephesians, it is, this.
Let me illustrate. My family was not wealthy. When I began to make good money, we had a disable child that required $100s of thousands of dollars a year of medical attention. That is what took me out of full-time ministry for 20 years.
There was a time when I was making respectable money and Ryan, our son, was not needing as many expensive treatments and surgeries. I had a need for a nice car in which I could take customer’s.
I had never had a nice car, really. When I had gotten a fairly good car, it was a good, used car.
But this time, I did my research. A new car company was trying to break into the USA market.
It was Daewoo. Daewoo was the assembler for Mercedes in Korea for Asia. Their factories were bought and paid for by Mercedes and equipped for making luxury cars. However, trying to introduce a luxury car from Korea in the USA market would be difficult.
So Daewoo came in with a highly equipped and feature rich economy car. Not many people got one, but I jumped on it. I loved it.
For the longest time I would discover something else about the car that I didn’t know. It was so far ahead of the other cars I had, I would get lost in it. I would forget how to turn on the lights, turn on the flasher, set the temperature… I would forget on a frosty morning that the outside side mirrors had heaters, if I could figure out how to turn them on. It had features that I never used regularly because I never thought about it or never learned how to use.
That is the Christian life. God loaded us up and we cannot even imagine all we have, “according to the power already working in us.”
Let me show you something before I move on. Remember that verse I read about more than we can imagine? Let me read it to you with the verses before it and after it. You tell me if it is talking about the by and by or the here and now.
1 Corinthians 2:7-“10 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"—10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.”
OK, here is your assignment for the week. You look at 1 Corinthians 7 and see if the whole chapter isn’t talking about the here and now. And find out what that means to you. This is not for us to glory in ourselves, but in the giver. And that glory must come through the proper distribution:
IV. The Distribution. “To Him be glory in the Church”.
Now, Paul, in this prayer, which followed the glorious mystery of God, the Church, describing it as the most glorious of God’s plans, uniting all of us, both those who were near and those who were far, by simply adding this in the prayer in the way he does, communicates that the only way we can receive the proper balance, the proper environment, and give God the proper glory, is through the Church.
There is a move today to teach that the Church is not important. “I can worship God just as much on the golf-course as I can in a pew listening to a stale sermon and singing ancient songs. You see, me and God have a pact. I will love Him and serve Him if He lets me do it my way.”
Hogwash! You cannot honor God by disobeying Him. You cannot exalt yourself to the position where you can even negotiate with dishonoring the Holy One of Heaven. God said, “Love me, but love me the way that honors me. Obey me.”
There is plenty of scripture that supports that God has a growth and service plan for us through the local Church. Heb 10:24-25 “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
OK, God said that the local Church is plan A. Do you know what HE calls plan B? Disobedience….
When King Saul tried to write his own rules and discard God’s clear instructions, God sent Samuel to deliver a short but powerful message, to Saul, to me, and to you.
1Sa 15:22-23 “And Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king.’"
Now, God has called us to make Kingdom work our mission, to seek to do Kingdom work first, and HE will give you all you need.
But we can set aside Church faithfulness for a school activity. We can ignore God’s command for a family reunion. We can disobey God and look better than the rest and be satisfied with it. We can go hunting, fishing, or even stay home and mow the lawn. Our well-manicured home IS a testimony for Christ, right?
Again, let’s listen real slowly. “To Him be glory in the Church”. Do you know why? Look at the Duration.
V. The Duration. “…and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Listen to me. Do you know how you received the message of Jesus Christ two thousand years after He died? The Church.
Do you understand that God chose the Church to make sure that the next generation will get the truth? Do you not see yourself as a debtor in your salvation to the pioneers who brought the gospel to the frontier? Do you not see yourself as a debtor to the faithful Church members who were put to death for faith in Christ? o you not understand that the Gospel has come to you from faith to faith, as stated in Romans 1?
Rom 1:14-17 “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. 15 So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’"
If Christ does not come back, you will probably have a great, great, grandchild. You may never meet them on this side of glory. However, someday, in judgment, that grandchild will look you in the eye and you will remember whether you were faithful to make a strong Church. What you do today to strengthen this local Church is important to the next generation and the next generation.
What are you going to tell that precious child in judgment? What are you going to tell the judge who died for you?
I pray that when you are faced with that reality, as in a sermon like this, you make the commitment and make it concrete in your life, today.
