THE ANATOMY OF THE NOW PEOPLE
Ephesians 3:20
My brothers and sister I wish to report to you this morning that there are three types of people in our world. There are the people that lives in the past, people who lives in the future and there are people who live in the Now. It is my opinion that two out of the three are not bad at all, and if we really think about it, those who do not know their history will most likely make the same mistakes of their past. I recall the late George Allen, a former coach of the Washington Redskins saying, “The future is now.” What he meant is that while others were taking their time building their team through the draft, Coach Allen, collected a team of old guys who other teams had let go and built a team that was motivated on the fact that others thought that they were washed up, and the surprising thing to the rest of the league is that they won with that theory. In fact it was this team called the Over The Hill Gang, that took Coach Allen to his first and the Redskins first Super Bowl in 1972. But there was one downfall with this philosophy. They were old players in a young man’s game and although, they won one conference championship to get to the Super Bowl, they never went that far again until the Joe Gibbs era.
As we look at the text we can see that the Apostle Paul is sharing with us a very fervent prayer for the Church and its believers and in this prayer is found six request.
• In verse 16 he asked that the Lord according to the riches of His glory, would strengthen them by His power within;
• In verse 17, he asked that Christ through their faith in Him would rule and reign within;
• His third request was that Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith and that they may be rooted and grounded in love;
• He prayed in verse 18 for them to have full understanding of spiritual things;
• in verse 19a he asked for them to know the love of Christ;
• and to know that love in the fulness of God;
Then he concluded that they would have encouragement to pray and trust God for the answer. But in this text one word jumped out at me and that word was “Now”. We should note that although George Allen had the mentality to say that the future was now, the mistake that George made was that he had to depend on men pass their prime and he sacrificed the future for a championship. Thus in the years to come, he had no draft choices coming in from the college ranks and no draft picks to trade to get the type of players he thought could help him win. His philosophy of “Now” was a detriment to the future of the Washington football franchise. But when you put God’s people in the “Now,” you put them with God. In other words they will know that they are on the winning side and our coach is the same today, yesterday and forever more. He wins in every generation.
Let’s take a look at the text.
First of all to determine the now people. . .
1. YOU MUST BE SEEN BY OTHERS AS WHOSE YOU ARE (V.20)
“Now unto Him who is able”
One of the things that we as Christians often forget is that we forget who we belong to. We don’t have that problem when we are gathered collectively, but when we find ourselves outside these sacred walls, we sometimes forget who we really are. The bible reminds us that we are priest and heirs of the eternal kingdom. That we can ask anything in His name or ask according to His will and He will hear us and do it for us. In other words, we because God is our True Father, we are destined to earthly and eternal riches. It is ours because of whose we are and because He promised, and if He promised it, we the church needs to stand up and lay claim to what is rightfully ours. It reminds me of a funny story that Jerry Clower, who is a Christian, but made a living telling funny stories. Once told an audience about a highly educated man and his chauffeur. He tells about a man who had a PHD in some discipline, that was chauffeured around the country making speeches at many fine universities and he was payed handsomely for doing so. One day the chauffeur who has heard this speech at least once a day for the last six months informed the PHD that he was not so hot. In fact he had heard that speech so many times, that he could deliver that speech himself better than the man with the PHD. So the educated man said to him, I’ll stop you from your bragging. The university that we are to visit had never seen me before and it would be a good time to switch positions, in other words the PHD would drive and the chauffeur would do the speech. When the moment had come, just as the chauffeur had predicted he delivered that speech just as well as the PHD himself. In fact the students hooped and hollered, threw their hats in the air and ran up and down the aisle because they had never heard a speech done so well with clarity. And when the chancellor restored order back in the auditorium, they had fifteen minutes left for Q & A. Now in the midst, there was one nerd of a student who stood up and asked him, If a dinosaur that roamed the earth twenty million years ago died and was buried under many volcanic eruptions and mud slides. And an archeologist dug this dinosaur up. My question to you professor is “What would be the PH of the dinosaur when they dug him up?” Now remember that the real professor is in the back of the auditorium and the chauffeur responded in this order. “Mister Student, I’ve been to many universities around this great land, some esteemed to be better than others and this one I was told was the best of its kind academically. But I have my doubts now because of the question you ask this morning. In fact that question was so easy that I’m going to let my chauffeur answer that question for ya’. Now as funny as that story might be, the fact is that the real professor had to stand up to give the answer. Likewise, when we the people of God stand up and realize who we are and whose we are, then we would be able to stand up and let the world know that our faith has given us credence with the Father in whom we belong.
Finally. . .
2. THE “NOW” PEOPLE KNOW THE LORD AS JEHOVAH-JIREH (V.20)
“Now unto Him who is able to do exceedlying abundantly”
Paul in this text is giving the Ephesian church and us something that was worth repeating in substance in Philippians 4:19. Now although the words are different, yet the message is the same. Here in the lesson he is letting us know that God is able to exceed our expectations in abundance and in Philippians, he is letting us know that He will supply all of our need. We should pay close attention to the last parts of both of these Scriptures. In Ephesians three and twenty it says “according to the power that worketh in us,” and in Philippians four and nineteen, it says, “according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” In these Scripture I believe that the Lord wants us to know that everything we need is found in Him and we should trust Him enough to believe that He had promised and the only way we can trust the promise is that we must first have faith in His promise. In this mornings Sunday School lesson, there was a thought provoking statement about faith. It said and I quote, “A key element of faith consists in believing that God does respond to heartfelt and persistent prayers.” My brothers and sister we have to believe that God does hear and responds to our prayers if they are not selfish and inconsistent. I believe that the more the people of God prays, the more faith they show in Him. And if you believe and do not doubt Ephesians three and twenty and also Philippians four and nineteen will become a reality. And if we lay claim on being the Lord’s “Now” people, we can Now go boldly to His throne, We can Now say to Him Abba Father, we can Now have the peace we often hear about, and not only that but most importantly we can Now say to the world that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And as a Now people we cannot allow this message to stay within these walls, or we cannot allow Satan to allow us to sleep on who we really are, but from this moment on we are a people that walk by faith and not by sight, we are a people that not only believe that our Father is rich in houses and land, but we are a people that know it. We are a people that will no longer doubt our God for our healing and blessings but we will start speaking those things that are not as though they were.
