He Gives us Immeasurably More than we can Ask or Imagine (2)

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20, 21 (NIV)

A LOOK BACK – GOD’S POWER AT WORK IN US
I think we first need to identify what this power is. Paul has already defined that for us:

• What is this power at work in us?
“I pray that the eyes of your heart maybe enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. And His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 1:18-23 (NIV)

When Paul writes that God’s power is at work in us, he makes it really clear that the power he is writing about is resurrection power. The very same power that He used to raise Jesus from the grave is at work in our lives, too. I get excited about the working of the Holy Spirit’s power in our lives. The Holy Spirit is the one helping us make it day to day. Giving us the power to be overcomers in this life. Look how He's blessed you...

1. He blessed us with every spiritual blessing
…who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (1:3)

2. He chose us
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight... (1:4)

3. He predestined us to be part of His family
...In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ... (1:4, 5)

4. He graced us
...his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves... (1:6)
... the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. (1:7, 8)

5. He redeemed us
In him we have redemption... (1:7)

6. He revealed His will to us
And he made known to us the mystery of his will... (1:9)

7. He sealed us
...Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit (1:13)

8. He made us alive
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions... (2:4, 5)

9. He raised us
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus (2:6)

10. He created us for good works
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works... (2:10)

11. He reconciled us
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ (2:13)
12. He joined us together in the church
This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus. (3:6)

13. He reveals his wisdom through us
His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms (3:10)

14. He rooted and established us
...being rooted and established in love... (3:17)

15. He fills us with His fullness
...that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (3:19)

Now that’s certainly immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine. To be real honest, I can ask for a fancy car or a big house. And I can even imagine something far greater that I will ever have. But how could I ever ask God to do all that He has done for me? How could I even think about asking Him to sacrifice His own Son so that I can have all these spiritual blessings? How could I ever imagine that God would do all this for me after the way I’ve ignored and disobeyed him time after time? I understand I'm sinner and I'm not perfect. I blow it from time to time. Yet there is God still loving me for who I am; Frankly the whole idea just overwhelms me. It should overwhelm us; we need to be reminded of what God has done for us.

The power of God is alive and working in you right now! Get excited God has great things for you...you are loved.

He gives us Immeasurably More than We can Ask or Imagine

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20, 21 (NIV)

Isn’t that an awesome passage? Is God doing amazing things in your life? If you believe, then Gods power is alive and at work in you. I love this verse but it has been taken out of context over and over and used in a way that it was never intended to be used.

If we separate this verse from its context in Ephesians, it is easy to make this passage, especially verse 20, into the basis for what is known as the prosperity gospel. The proponents of that theology would claim that this verse means that God is able to give you more than what you could ask for or even imagine. So they link spiritual & material possessions together. So if you ask for a Hyundai, God will give you a Lexus. If you ask for a $250,000 house, God will give you a million dollar house. In other words, they’ve used this verse to make God into some big ATM machine, Santa, or Genie in the bottle.

That’s not what this verse is about. The Greek for Immeasurably more only appears here in Ephesians and in 1 Thessalonians 3 & 5. God’s capacity to meet our spiritual needs far exceeds anything we can either request in prayer or conceive by way of anticipation. It is actualized through his power (dynamis) which operates (energoumenen) within us.  This power is within us so we can serve God and live this life to its fullest! 

It’s not about money and material possessions. You cannot put lipstick on pig and expect to get anything but a pig with lipstick on it. Jesus made it clear we cannot “serve God and money.” But we can serve God by how we use money and our possessions. That’s called stewardship. Jesus taught us to be good stewards. Stewards are managers of something that belongs to someone else, that someone being God. We brought nothing into this world and we will take nothing out of it. We are to be stewards of all God puts in our charge.

The spiritual capacity to do all this comes from the belief that “God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”  He is working in your life, and this leads us back to verse 19, so you “know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the full measure of all the fullness of God.”

It isn’t our goal to live for material things, but spiritual things. Material blessings come from God to those who are good stewards of the wealth God allows through hard work and discipline. One of the spiritual things we do is become good stewards. About giving, All God is asking us is to give the portion to him that he’s asked. To be a cheerful giver as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 9:7. It’s a part of our life of worship. Worship is intentionally living a life that honors God (putting Him first in all we do.)

But God is obviously far more than just an ATM machine who grants our prayers when we punch our security code in. But understanding how God wants us to live our life is huge.

Taken in its proper context, this verse is far more significant than just being the basis for us to receive material blessings from God. In fact, I would suggest to you that this passage is the key passage in the entire book of Ephesians.

It provides us with a bridge, or a transition, from the doctrine contained in the first three chapters of Ephesians to the more practical application of that doctrine in the last three chapters. It causes us to look back and see how the power of God has already been at work in our lives. And it causes us to look forward to see how that same power gives us the ability to live a life that brings God glory.

When Paul writes that God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine, according to His power at work within us, he is not making some general statement about God’s power or His ability to work in our lives. I’m convinced that when Paul writes that, he is looking back at everything he has written up to this point. The next three days we will be looking at our what God has done, and looking at how we can learn to glorify Him as we live this life...you are loved!

THE ROADMAP (4)

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17b-19 (NIV)

Build on the right foundation – Practice what Jesus preached
... and established...

Paul loved to mix metaphors, so we shouldn’t be so surprised that he turns from an agricultural to an architectural picture. The word “established” literally means to have a firm foundation laid.

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV)

Most of us are pretty familiar with this passage. Jesus gives us an excellent picture of how we can make sure we are building our lives on a firm foundation. I remember when I was a young man and wanted to learn carpentry. I attempted to put up a wall in our basement so I could have my own room. Needless to say I didn't quite lay it out right nor was it plumb. So the wall looked like a snake slithering its self along. That's why it's important to not just think about and meditate on the words of Jesus, but put them into practice. If we really want to build a firm foundation, we have to act on those words. We have to put them into practice so we see them produce spiritual fruit.

If all I ever did was to think about Amy and how to meet her needs, but I never acted on those thoughts, that wouldn’t go very far in establishing a good foundation for our marriage. The same thing is true for us spiritually. If we truly want to experience the love of Christ in our lives, we have to be grounded in Him by practicing what he preached. You are loved!

THE ROADMAP (3)

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17b-19 (NIV)


Put down roots – Meditate on God’s Word
...being rooted...

As has been the case throughout his letter, Paul once again uses passive verbs here. Notice that we have been rooted – we didn’t root ourselves. We have been grounded. We didn’t ground ourselves. Obviously only God can do that. It is God’s work in our lives that provides the means for us to be rooted and grounded. But I’m convinced that Paul would agree that doesn’t mean that we have no role in the process. What we do in our lives can either facilitate or inhibit God’s work of rooting and grounding us in Christ’s love.

When Paul writes of being rooted in Christ’s love, I can’t help but think that he might be reflecting on the picture given by the Psalmist in the very first Psalm:

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.” Psalm 1:1-3 (NIV)

The Psalmist gives us a beautiful picture here of the righteous man who is like a tree planted by streams of water, where the roots can go down deep and provide stability and allow that man to produce fruit in his life season after season. I think we’d all like to be like that man or woman. So how can we develop those deep roots?

The Psalmist indicates that the key to putting down deep roots is to meditate on God’s Word day and night. Unfortunately, because of some of the new age religions, we’ve developed somewhat of an aversion to meditation. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the word meditate, I think of someone sitting cross-legged on the floor, chanting some mantra. And frankly I don’t want any part of that, because even if I ever could get in that position in the first place, I’d probably never get up again. I'd be laying on the floor begging my wife to help me up. But meditation as the Psalmist presents is different.

The Hebrew word for meditation comes from a root word that means to speak or utter. Meditation, as used here, means to speak God’s Word to yourself and to speak to yourself about what it means and how to apply it on your life. That act of meditation takes place in the heart, or in the mind. And you’ll notice that the Psalmist wrote that the man who is blessed will delight in meditating on the Word of God day and night.

So if I want to put down deep roots of the love of Christ, the first place I have to start is to delight in His Word to the point that I constantly think about it and how it applies to my life.

Do you remember the first time you fell in love? I do, because I’m still in love with that very same person. And that love that I have for Amy means that I think about her often. When we’re apart, I’m already thinking about when I’ll get to see her again. And because I love her, I think about what I can do make sure that I meet her needs and how I can be the person that she can trust and respect. Although that certainly requires some effort on my part, it is also my delight.

When we fall in love with Jesus, we ought to have that same kind of attitude. We ought to delight in getting to know Him through his Word and thinking about how we can take and apply what we’re learning so that our lives can be pleasing to Him. I think that's all God is asking of us...you are loved!

OUR VEHICLE: (2)

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17b-19 (NIV)

TO EXPERIENTIALLY KNOW THE LOVE OF CHRIST
That’s why he prays...to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge...

Paul writes that the way we get closer to our destination of spiritual maturity is by grasping the love of Christ. This is one of the places where the NIV translation probably does the best job of conveying the meaning of what Paul is writing. Other translations speak of “understanding” or “comprehending” the love of Christ. But the word that Paul uses here is much stronger than that. He truly is expressing the idea of grasping, of being able to grab and hold onto, the love of Christ.

But there is an interesting paradox here. Paul writes that Christ’s love is wide and long and high and deep and that it is the kind of love that surpasses knowledge. Then he turns around and prays that his readers would be able to know this unknowable love.

The word Paul uses for “know” is a word that means to “know by experience.” Literally here is what Paul is praying for his readers: [I pray for you to] know experientially this love that surpasses the ability to be known experientially.

On one hand that seems impossible. How can we know something that is beyond knowing? But it must be possible or else Paul wouldn’t have prayed for his readers to do that. It seems to me that Paul is emphasizing for us that this kind of knowledge we can’t figure out on our own. Only God can impart that kind of knowledge.

Paul has certainly described the love of Christ in the first three chapters of his letter. He has written about how we have been redeemed from an empty way of life by the work of Jesus on the cross and His resurrection. But Paul wants us to realize that we can never know that kind of love just by reading about it. Obviously reading about the love of Christ in His Word is the starting point, but that is inadequate on its own. We have to experience its operation in our lives in order to really know it in the sense Paul is writing about here. And that is the only way that we can move toward our destination.

Experientially knowing the love if Christ is the key to being all that we can be. But how do we do that? Tomorrow Paul gives us a roadmap to our destination that will take you to amazing spiritual places. You are loved!

OUR DESTINATION: (1)

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17b-19 (NIV)

Paul has laid out a very easy to follow roadmap for us to follow. He presents Biblical principles in a very logical order. But this week I’m actually going to start with the end of the passage and work our way toward the beginning. That’s because Paul reveals our destination at the end of the passage and before the roadmap is going to do us any good, we need to know where we’re headed. So let’s begin by identifying our destination:

TO BE SPIRITUALLY MATURE
…that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

God’s goal for the lives of His children is that they might experience a life that is filled to the very brim with the fullness of God. In fact, Jesus indicated that was the very purpose for which he came to earth:
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10 (NIV) In the beginning of this verse Jesus says that if we are not careful, Satan will try to steal, kill, and destroy us so as to take away the fullness that is rightfully ours.  

Colossians 2:9, 10 (NIV) says “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.” In other words he wants us to use this fullness that’s at our disposal. So he prays that would become spiritually mature.

Let’s say that I want to become a doctor. Right now Amy is back there thinking “not another new career!” If I wanted to do that I’d have to go back to school and take a whole bunch of science classes. Then I’d have to go to medical school and do my residency. And after a number of years of long days and hard work, I would officially be a doctor. And when I got to that point, let’s suppose that one of you here needed open heart surgery. So you came to me and I said, “I’ll be happy to do that for you. I’ve studied how to do that and even assisted on a few surgeries. When do you want to schedule it?”

Even with your bad heart, you’d probably run from my office and go find a doctor with a whole lot more experience wouldn’t you? Why? I would have those same two letters behind my name – M.D. – as any other doctor. I would be just as much of a doctor as any of them. But I certainly wouldn’t consider myself to be “filled to the measure with all the fullness of being a doctor.” It would take many years before I could be all that I could be as a doctor.

I think that’s a pretty good picture of what we’re like spiritually. When we make the decision to become a follower of Jesus Christ, we get all of Jesus we’ll ever get and in Him we get the fullness of God. But we don’t experience the entire impact of that fullness right away. In fact, none of us will be able to know all that fullness in this lifetime here on earth. But as we mature and develop our relationship with God, we are able to experience more and more of that fullness operating in our lives.

Paul is going to address this whole idea of spiritual maturity in much more detail in chapter 4, but look what he says: “to prepare God’s people so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:12, 13

What I’d like you to notice is that Paul makes a clear connection between attaining the whole measure of the fullness of Christ and our spiritual maturity. So the destination that God sets out before us is our spiritual maturity. But this is a different kind of destination, because it is one that I can never reach, at least not while I’m here on earth. That idea is foreign to our natural minds. We would never get in a car or on a plane and start out toward a destination we knew we could never reach. But God has determined that our spiritual journey will never come to a point of completion.

If there was anyone who could have ever completed his spiritual journey here on earth, it had to be Paul, But even Paul, as he approached the end of his life, recognized that he still hadn’t gotten there. And yet, he still kept striving to reach the final destination. He called it running the race to win the prize. We will never arrive, but the more mature we get, the closer we come to being all that God intends for us to be.

And what really breaks my heart is to look around and to see all of the Christians who want to settle for just getting by. They don’t seem to want to do the hard work that is needed to get on the journey toward spiritual maturity. They could have the fullness of God in their life, but they choose to settle for the cheap imitations offered by the world. It’s kind of like sitting in the garage with the engine running, but never leaving the garage to actually go anywhere. If you sit in the garage long enough with your spiritual engine running and the door closed, you generally will die spiritually; because you have chosen spiritual affixation. Choose the fullness of Christ and receive everything form God you can...if you do God will pour into your life a measure of His Holy Spirit that will transform and renew you. The one thing you can be full on in this life...is the fullness that Paul desires us to have. You are Loved...

HOW DO YOU MAKE YOUR HEART GOD’S HOME (4)

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” Ephesians 3:14-17a (NIV)

Emphasize the Eternal “in your inner being”
“in your hearts”

This principle is so important that Paul uses two different phrases to describe the idea of developing our inner lives. Both the inner being (literally the “inner man”) and our hearts describe the very center of our being. That includes our personality, thoughts, will and emotions. And it is that part of our lives we need to develop in order for Jesus to come and be at home there.

Amy and I have made a lot of cosmetic changes to our house; what is even more important to the long-term ability for our house to serve as our home are some of the things that are not nearly as visible. If I paint a wall, but the drywall hasn’t been hung properly or the builder used inferior lumber when framing, or even worse, if the foundation is not adequate, that paint job is not going to last. Or I can change out the switch plates and outlet covers all I want, but if there is a problem with the wiring inside the walls, my lights and outlets still won’t work properly.

The same thing is true with our lives. We can spend all the time we want on the outside, but if we don’t take care of the inner man, our hearts, then all the work we do won’t last. So how do we make sure that we develop that inner man? Paul gives us some hints about how we do that in another of his letters:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)
Paul makes it quite clear that the way that we are renewed inwardly day by day is to fix our eyes on those unseen things that are eternal rather that the temporary things that we can see. In other words, I need to focus on developing on those things that will last for eternity – my character, my convictions, my thought life, my devotion – rather than those things that will pass away – my body and my material possessions.
I’m not saying, and I don’t think Paul is either, that we are not to take care of our bodies or be good stewards of the material goods God has entrusted us with. In fact, the Bible clearly teaches that we should do both of those things. But he is saying that our main focus should be on developing those parts of our lives that will last for eternity.

Trust in God’s Truth
“through faith”
When Paul writes that Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, the faith that he is describing is much more than just some intellectual belief. In fact, it is even broader than what we normally think of as faith – trusting in Jesus Christ alone as the means of being made right with God. That’s certainly part of faith, but it’s really only a starting point. If we want Jesus to be at home in our hearts, we need to have a much more encompassing kind of faith. James is really helpful in describing that kind of faith:

“But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder.” James 2:18, 19 (NIV)
There are some people who will try to claim that James’ writings contradict Paul’s claim that salvation is by faith alone and not a result of our works. But if you read Paul’s letters carefully, you will find that both of them are actually very much on the same page. James is pointing out that real faith will be demonstrated by our actions. As he points out, even the demons have an intellectual belief about God and His Son. And I think we’d all agree that kind of faith is totally inadequate as a basis for our salvation or for making our heart a dwelling for Jesus.

If we want Jesus to come and make Himself at home in our hearts, then we need to have the kind of faith that trusts that as we obey the teachings of Jesus and the leadings of the Holy Spirit, God will accomplish what is the very best for us, even when we can’t see how that can be. Here’s how Jesus put it:

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” John 14:23 (NIV)
If we want Jesus to come and make His home with us, then we need to trust him enough to obey His teachings. That means when someone wrongs me, instead of trying to get revenge, I forgive and pray for the other person. It means that when I have the desire to engage in a physical relationship outside of marriage, I refrain from giving into those desires, because I trust that is in my best interest based on the words of Jesus. It means that I don’t worry about my material needs because God has promised to provide them for me.
You are loved...