Title: Is It Too Good To Be True?
Text: Ephesians 3:14-21
Thesis: What God can do is not too good to be true!
Introduction
I don’t know if the adage, “If it’s too good to be true, it usually is,” holds true but as a rule, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is too good to be true.
Despite the fact that Bernie Madoff has become something of a whipping boy on several fronts, his $50 billion ponzi scheme is a prime example. In an article in a 2001 edition of MAR/Hedge, the publication was suspicious of the consistent returns and minimal volatility of his fund. Ironically, in the same article they praised Madoff for the consistent returns and minimal volatility of his hedge fund. (http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/scb/bernie-madoff-now-thenillegal-only-matters-when-someone-doesnt-get-paid/2427/)
Writing for the Harvard Business Review Karen Berman and Joe Knight pointed out, under the headline Too Good to Be True, “Madoff’s firm offered what most investors seek – low risk and high returns. This should have fallen under the ‘too good to be true’ category, as these concepts are fundamentally at odds.” (Low risk gives low returns and high risk often gives no returns.) Bernie Madoff’s firm was offering low risk investments and paying high risk returns of 12-13 per cent. Too good to be true! (http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/financial-intelligence/2009/06/what-did-bernard-madoff-do.html)
Some would say that what our bible text says today about God falls into that “too good to be true” category. God has a “too good to be true” kind of plan. But it’s not.
I. God’s plan is not too good to be true.
And this is the secret plan: The Gentiles have an equal share with the Jews in all the riches inherited by God’s children. Both groups have believed the Good News and both are part of the same body and enjoy together the promise of blessing through Jesus Christ. Ephesians 3:6 (10-11)
In the context of our story the Apostle Paul is in prison. His friends are terribly discouraged by this chain of events and Paul is writing to shake them loose so they can see the big picture. That is why he wrote, “So please don’t despair because of what they are doing to me here. It is for you that I am suffering, so you should feel honored and encouraged.” Ephesians 3:13
A. They were seeing the little picture. The only thing they could see is that the Apostle Paul was in prison.
B. There was a big picture. The Apostle Paul wanted them to see the big picture. The big picture was that God’s plan for all eternity was that Jews and Gentiles be joined together in the Church through faith in Jesus Christ.
We are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus… there is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all Christians – you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:26-28
In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. Colossians 3:11
This is the first thing that prompts us to wonder if this is too good to be true. Does God really think that the Church of Jesus Christ can be the one influence in the world that can bring all people together as one people?
There are many things that bring people together but I know of none that make people one except the Church of Jesus Christ.
If we could just get everyone wrapped around The Brickyard, AKA the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where today they are running the Allstate 400, we would have everyone in one place. If everyone could all just once smell the vaporous exhausts and burning rubber and stale beer and hear the unified cheers of every fan for the same driver… the world would be one. But that isn’t how competitive racing works. It is about cheering for Tony Stewart or Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson. Racing teams are pitted against racing teams, pit crews against pit crews, drivers against drivers and fans against fans… everyone is vying for the checkered flag, the points, the trophy and the prize money.
What Jesus says is that it doesn’t matter what team you race for or what driver you root for. What Jesus says is that it doesn’t even matter if you are or are not a NASCAR fan. All differences are covered when Christ lives in all and all are one in Christ.
It may seem to good to be true but isn’t. And
when it isn’t, it isn’t because God does not wish it so… it is because we do not let it be so.
Paul prays a too good to be true prayer. But it’s not.
II. God’s provision is not too good to be true.
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit… And may you have the power to understand how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Ephesians 3:16-19
Paul prayed that God, out of his glorious riches or unlimited resources would do a couple of pretty extraordinary things for us. Note that he states God’s resources are like glorious riches or unlimited resources.
Images of glorious riches are conjuring in our memories scenes from the pages of Sir H. Rider Haggard’s novel, Kings Solomon’s Mines published in 1885. Allan Quartermain leads a group of adventurers deep into Africa in search of the mines where they are eventually led to the fabled mines. Their guide shows them a treasure room deep in the mountain full of gold, diamonds and ivory. But before they can tote any away, she triggered a mechanism that sealed them in the vast dark chamber. After a few days and nearing death, they discover an escape route, so the fill their pockets with diamonds and return to England rich men. But what they took left not a dent in the vast treasure they left behind in that treasure room.
So we are to keep in mind that God’s resources are unlimited. His resources are vast and incalculable. What God has in store is not like what we think of as non-renewable resources that may be depleted if exploited long enough.
He asked that God give us, from his store of unlimited resources:
A. Mighty inner strength as Christ becomes increasingly at home in our lives.
Think about this for just a moment. Mighty inner strength…
A bathysphere is a miniature submarine used to explore the ocean in places so deep that the water pressure would crush a conventional submarine, like an aluminum can. Bathyspheres are sustained at great depths because they are lined with plated steel several inches thick. Amazingly, when they get down to those kinds of depths and the pilot peers out through the tiny, thick plate window he sees fish. Delicate, deep-sea creatures that swim supple and free. They have no steel-plating and yet they are not crushed. They are not crushed because they compensate for the outside pressure, through equal and opposite pressure inside themselves. (Jay Kessler in Campus Life. Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 2)
Christians are not intended to be thick-skinned and hard-headed. They are intended to compensate for the pressures of people and life with the mighty power of God within them that is equal to any pressure from without.
It may seem too good to be true but it isn’t. God wants us to be so under the influence of the Holy Spirit that we can love the unlovable, find peace in the midst of chaos, be courageous in the face of fear, trust God through despair, be disciplined when tempted to fall into sin, demonstrate humility when pride rears its head, be gentle with the person you would prefer to smack… and you get the idea.
Had Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, MA police Sergeant James Crowley both been inclined to be under the influence of God’s Holy Spirit there would have been no news worthy incident – no accusations of racism, no reverse racism, no belligerence and no need for the President to make a statement and then make a second clarifying statement suggesting that both men probably overreacted.
It’s the reacting that gets us into trouble, but it is God’s mighty inner strength that helps us respond to people and circumstances with grace rather than reacting with anger.
The second thing Paul asks is that God give us understanding.
B. Power to understand the love of Christ as immeasurable and incomprehensible.
I like the way he describes the love of God in the dimensional terms of width and length and spatial terms of depth and height. My temptation is to cite things we understand dimensionally – something really long and wide. And I am tempted to cite things we understand spatially as deep and high. If we could get a handle on God’s love in terms of area or volume capacity and if we could collect God’s love into one place we might be able to say it would just about fill the Grand Canyon.
However, written right into the text along with his desire that we measure the immeasurable, he adds that even if we could even get close… it is still incomprehensible. Try as we may, we will never be able to calculate or measure the immensity of the love of God. Such a thought seems too good to be true.
We typically think of love in terms of what we would do for it… singers sing they would climb the highest mountain or swim the deepest oceans for it. God breaks it all down in Christ and says, “I will die for the sin of all men of all time” for it. The cross extends the distance between God and man and reaches to embrace anyone and everyone who will be touched by the love of God.
The last piece of this text speaks of the power of God which also seems too good to be true. But it’s not.
III. God’s power is not too good to be true.
Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Ephesians 3:20
I am afraid that we do not typically ask much of God given the teaching that God is able to do exceedingly or immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.
A. We may hold back from asking too much of God.
When I was a kid we milked cows and it was important that when you milked a cow, you milked her out. If you don’t milk the cow out she will stop producing the milk because there is something in a cow that says, “if you don’t need it, I won’t produce it.” If you only need 8 ounces of milk for breakfast and you only milk out 8 ounces for breakfast and leave the rest, a cow will dry up and eventually you will get no milk. With a cow, the idea is that you take all there is or eventually you will have nothing.
We either hold back from asking too much of God because we are 8 ounce people and just think small. Or we do not ask for much because we don’t believe God is all that generous.
B. We do not ask because we don’t believe God is all that generous.
In his book The Divine Commodity, Skye Jethani tells of an incident with his father on the streets of New Delhi. He said a small boy, skinny and frail with stiff and contorted legs approached him and his father calling out as street beggars do, “One rupee please! One rupee!” He said his father asked the boy, “Why do you want just one rupee? Wouldn’t you like five rupees?” The boy thought his father was mocking him and began to turn away with disgust but he said his father stopped him and held out a five rupee coin and said, “How about I give you five rupees instead?”
Paul wants us to know that when it comes to who God is and what God can do, we need not hold back or fear asking too much. God is a five rupee God. God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.
Conclusion
God is a grand scale God with a grand scale plan and provides inner strength and love on a grand scale and has the power to act in our behalf on a grand scale.
In 1998 Larry Page and Sergey Brin incorporated the Google internet search engine. Google users perform over 150 million searches every day. Google can access over 2 billion pages in 74 different languages. One study showed that Google users used the search engine 13 million hours in one month.
The designers of Google were thinking on a grand scale even when they selected the name for their search engine. The word “googol” is a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. (FreshMinistry.org, 11/05/02)
It is rare for people to think on that grand a scale… but that is exactly how we are to think of God and what God can do in us, through us and for us. We may shake our heads in wonder but it is true. But what God can do is not too good to be true!
