Intro: When a sports team wins the championship game, what is their response? When you hit a home run at work and your boss notices and congratulates you with a promotion, what is your response? Think about those people who win some big multimillion dollar prize, imagine their response.
Now imagine the incongruity of someone really making a great advancement, a major victory, finding out they had inherited unconceivable wealth and then their response is one of nonchalance. The response isn’t compatible with the situation.
The Rookie is based on the true story of Jimmy Morris, a high school teacher and baseball coach who became a major-league baseball pitcher. Several of the high school players who had been on the receiving end of Morris’s fastballs encouraged him to try out for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Because of his age and past injuries, Morris dismissed their encouragement as wishful thinking. Morris knew the major-league scouts would not consider a prospect unless he could throw 90 miles-per-hour.
Inwardly, however, Morris can’t shake his curiosity. While driving his pickup down a deserted country highway, Morris spots a sign that displays the speed of oncoming traffic. Morris slows his truck and pulls to the side of the road. Looking to see if anyone is watching, Morris grabs a baseball, walks into the road, and tosses the ball past the sign. The number 46 quickly flashes on the sign. It works.
Morris smiles and walks swiftly back to the truck to grab an old baseball glove and another baseball. A car drives down the highway, and Morris quickly turns and leans nonchalantly against his truck. He walks back on to the road and takes one more look to see if any cars are coming. Then he winds up and throws the ball with everything he has. The sign stares blankly back at him for a moment, and then it flashes 76.
Discouragement falls over Morris’s face. He walks slowly to retrieve the baseballs. What Morris does not see is the sign blinking for a moment, and the 7 becoming a 9. Morris has actually thrown a fastball at 96 miles-per-hour! Yet he remains unaware of his own strength.
It is hard to imagine someone either not comprehending what riches they have or responding in an inconsistent manner. But I wonder, do we do this in our walk with God? Do we either fail to truly comprehend what we have so that our response is inconsistent with our situation in Christ?
We have been learning for weeks now about the blessings we have in Christ and today, I want to look at the appropriate response!
When we finally understand who we are in Christ and can begin to fathom the power and grace and intimacy with God, which is ours, then, how should we respond?
Jumping in the air with a shout? Throwing are arms around the nearest person in a big bear hug with great shouts of joy mingled together with smiles all around? Should we develop a winning cheer? I’m certain that all those responses are good but lets look and see what Paul’s response was to all these things in Eph. 3:14-21.
I. The benefits of knowing Christ should lead us to our knees. (14-15)
A. Prayer is a natural response to God’s Blessings.
1. Paul states clearly that He kneels before God the Father because of all the benefits he has in Christ.
a) The fact that he is redeemed and can truly know God.
b) The fact that he was now a part of God’s family with no more dividing walls between him and others.
c) The fact that he is part of a new entity called the church.
2. Because of all those things and what they mean for his life, Paul gets down on his knees to pray.
a) Kneeling before anyone is a sign of homage and lordship.
b) It is communicating with our body the reverence, respect, and honor we have for the one bowed down to.
3. Paul didn’t always pray on his knees.
a) Scripture tells of God’s faithful people praying in many different positions.
b) Standing, sitting, and falling on one’s face are all postures for prayer according to the Bible.
c) I personally would encourage people to try different postures to enhance their prayer life.
4. As Paul prayed here for the Ephesians while writing this letter to them, the apostle felt led to bow his knees before Father on their behalf.
a) Not because that position was especially sacred.
b) But because it spontaneously reflected his reverence for God’s glory in the midst of his passionate prayer.
B. Prayer is directed to God the Father and creator of everything.
1. The word used here for Father is the same term that Jesus always used to speak of God.
a) Jesus taught the disciples to pray using the term Father.
b) The use of father is appropriate and it helps communicate God’s relationship with us.
2. Because God is our heavenly Father we do not come to Him in fear and trembling, afraid that He will be indifferent or rebuff us.
a) We do not come to God to appease Him as the pagans do to their deities.
b) We come to a loving, tender, concerned, compassionate, accepting Father.
c) Unfortunately, not all of us have a positive father image to look to.
d)
ILL. In his book, Connecting, Larry Crabb writes:
A friend of mine was raised in an angry family. Mealtimes were either silent or sarcastically noisy. Down the street was an old-fashioned house with a big porch where a happy family lived. My friend told me that when he was about ten, he began excusing himself from his dinner table as soon as he could without being yelled at, and walking to the old-fashioned house down the street. If he arrived during dinnertime, he would crawl under the porch and just sit there, listening to the sounds of laughter.
When he told me this story, I asked him to imagine what it would have been like if the father in the house somehow knew he was huddled beneath the porch and sent his son to invite him in. I asked him to envision what it would have meant to him to accept the invitation, to sit at the table, to accidentally spill his glass of water, and hear the father roar with delight, "Get him more water! And a dry shirt! I want him to enjoy the meal!"
3. This is the kind of Father Paul is praying to.
4. This Father is the creator of all that Paul has been describing.
5. This new entity of all people is called the church.
a) Not just those who were presently living on earth but those who have gone before and now live in Heaven.
b) These saints are the only one’s who legitimately derive their name from God the Father.
Trans: So we see that Paul, once he has written all this down and contemplated it all has no alternative but to fall down on his knees in praise, adoration and prayer! But what should he pray?
II. Our prayers should be for one another. (16-19)
A. We pray for inner strength and power out of God’s glorious riches. (16)
1. Paul is approaching this prayer from a place of complete confidence and authority because he knows of the reserves which God has stored up to do great things.
2. God has made available to Him all the resources to bless beyond anything we can imagine.
3. Today, too many people pray without understanding the glorious riches of God to bless us.
a) They are like the man James describes in James 1:6-7 - But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord;
b) We need to pray like Paul with an understanding of the riches of Christ.
ILL. John Newton had received from the Lord some almost unbelievable answers to his petitions, and so he often engaged in "large asking." In support of this practice he would frequently tell the story of a man who asked Alexander the Great to give him a huge sum of money in exchange for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The ruler consented and told him to request of his treasurer whatever he wanted. So he went and asked for an enormous amount. The keeper to the funds was startled and said he couldn’t give him that much without a direct order. Going to Alexander, the treasurer argued that even a small fraction of the money requested would more than serve the purpose. "No," replied Alexander, "let him have it all. I like that fellow. He does me honor. He treats me like a king and proves by what he asks that he believes me to be both rich and generous." Newton concluded the story by saying, "In the same way, we should go to the throne of God’s grace and present petitions that express honorable views of the love, riches, and bounty of our King!"
3. Notice also that Paul doesn’t just pray for himself, he prays for others to be strengthened in their inner being!
B. We pray that God will strengthen those we pray for.
1. Almost every prayer of Paul’s that is recorded in Scripture was for the spiritual welfare of others.
a) Even when he was persecuted, imprisoned, and in need of many things for his own welfare, he prayed primarily for fellow believers.
b) Even when he did pray for himself his prayers were centered around his being better able to serve his Lord and the Lord’s people.
2. All of God’s people are to be like Paul in having an overriding sensitivity to the spiritual needs of others.
a) We are to be sensitive to the spiritual needs of our wife, or our husband, children, pastor, fellow church members, neighbors, friends, co-workers.
b) We are to pray for anyone whom we have contact with as well as others like government officials, Christian leaders, and missionaries whom we may have never met or known.
3. This praying must be bold, confident, and based on the power of God.
a) It is prayer for their inner strength.
b) That is the part of us that allows us to stand up under all attacks in life.
c) Isn’t that what you want? I know it is what I want you to pray for me!
4. That I would have a spiritual strength deep in my soul to handle lives hurts and pains and disappointments!
a) Don’t pray that my life would be without problems and troubles.
b) Rather, pray that God would give be the perseverance to come out the other side of problems even stronger!
c) I like what Paul wrote to the Corinthian church when he told them in 1Cor. 10:13 – that He always provides a way out of temptation.
d) I like what Jesus prayed in John 17:15 when he asked his heavenly Father not to take us out of the world but rather, that he would protect us whle we are in this world!
Trans: Once I am strong in my inner person, once I walk by faith and not by sight, then Christ can truly be Lord of my life! The good, the bad, and the ugly!
C. The purpose for strengthening is that Christ can dwell in us. (17-18)
1. The word here for dwell is katoikeo and it is from two Greek words, kata which means down and oikeo which means to inhabit a house.
a) The idea here is one of not just being in the house but settled down.
b) Of being at home in that dwelling.
c) The point is that Jesus cannot be at home in our hearts until our inner person submits to the strengthening of His spirit.
d) Until the Spirit controls our lives, Jesus Christ cannot be comfortable there, but rather, stays like a tolerated visitor.
2. Many Christians fail to experience God’s full power at work in their lives because they don’t yield to the Holy Spirit.
ILL. The story is told of a Welsh woman who lived in a remote valley in Wales. She went to a great deal of trouble to have electrical power installed in her home. They noticed she didn’t use very much electricity at all. In fact, her usage was minuscule. They sent a meter reader out to check on the matter. The man came to the door and said, "We’ve looked at the amount. Don’t you use electricity?" "Oh yes" she said. "We turn it on every night to see how to light our lamps and then we switch it off again."
3. This sounds like the way many Christians apply the power of God in their lives.
a) They suffer, the church suffers, and the world suffers because the “inner man” of most believers is never strengthened with power through His spirit.
b) There are too many people who call themselves Christians but have no idea what it means to live for Christ in the power of the HS. 2 Tim. 3:5 ..having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
4. Paul wants these believers and all of us believers to know the strength and power of God flowing through our lives.
D. The power we can experience is God’s love for us and our love for others. (19)
1. The way to achieve this power is to yield ourselves to the love of Christ!
a) You want power in your walk with God?
b) The most powerful force Christians have available to them Paul knows and God knows is LOVE.
2. Yield to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and experience first hand the love that God wants to engulf you with.
3. The strengthening that happens will also move us towards God’s love.
a) The result of our yielding to the Spirit’s power and submitting to Christ’s Lordship in our hearts is Love.
b) We cannot move closer to Christ and not be overwhelmed by His love.
ILL. Like a woman who walks into a room with way too much perfume, we can’t help but be engulfed by the sweet fragrance and the fragrance hangs on our clothes and our hair and our skin to such an extent that others can smell that fragrance later.
c) It will permeate your very being and saturate your life so that you become a strong fragrance of God’s Love.
4. As we comprehend this love of Christ towards us and then through us to others suddenly the light bulb goes on!
a) Now we can finally see that it is all about love!
b) The power is in the love!
5. The result as found here in verse 19 is that we find that we can be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God!
ILL. To be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” is like filling a thimble to its brim with water from the ocean. The thimble is filled with the ocean, but the ocean is not fully in the thimble since the thimbleful of water does not diminish the ocean. Yet, the thimble has the “fullness” of the ocean in the sense that it contains every ingredient that makes up the ocean. All the essential characteristics of the ocean are in the thimble.
Trans: So we find a wonderful model of a prayer here in this passage. We see that we need to yield ourselves to the Lordship of Christ and bath in His love for us so much that it flows out of us to others. Part of this flowing out will, by default, flow towards God as we see in the last two verses here.
III. Our Prayers should be for the church. (20-21)
A. The origin of all prayer is found in praise to God..
1. Paul uses these last two verses as a doxology.
a) He says, in essence, as a result of all that God can do to empower us.
b) As the Holy Spirit has empowered us, Christ has indwelt us, love has mastered us, and God has filled us with His fullness, then God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.
2. To this God we must give glory and thanks!
a) Because He is able to do all things.
b) Paul rightly starts his prayer in giving thanks to God who has all the power to do this great thing.
c) And Paul rightly ends his prayer with the same thought!
3. The one who has done all these wonderful things for you and me…he deserves our praise!
a) What is amazing is that this verse says He has done and continues to do more than we can even fathom!
b) See, we are blessed, no according to our idea of blessing but rather, according to God’s idea of what he knows we need!
ILL. Imagine some children and there idea of their parents just blessing them totally! In their minds that blessing would include going to bed when they wanted to, eating junk food and candy for every meal. Treating each other as they wish, doing everything they want to do. They wouldn’t last very long! They would be sick, tired, and unhappy before very long. Parents don’t always give them what they want or can imagine because wise parents know what is good for them. God the Father is the same with us, His children!
B. The purpose of the church is to bring Glory to God.
1. To Him be glory in the church!
a) That is Paul’s simple prayer for the church.
b) That God receive glory in and through His body called the church.
c) This is to go on and on forever!
2. We do this individually as we experience the power of God in our lives.
a) As we love one another God receives glory.
b) As we strive to consider others before ourselves we bring glory to God.
c) As we come together as a church and sincerely love one another enough to know what is going on in each others life and then pray for one another.
3. All this brings power to the church and glory to God!
Conclusion: Imagine for a moment that you have a very important and difficult journey ahead of you. Imagine thick jungles, wild beasts, deadly snakes, ravaging insects, and impossible terrain all laid out before you. Every decision you make, every step you take must be considered and weighed.
Suddenly, someone drops before you a large chest filled with every possible tool you could need for such a journey. There is insect repellent that the hungriest insect wouldn’t go near, there are knives and guns, ropes and machetes. You name it, it is in there. You jump up and down, you cheer because now you have every tool you could need!
But instead of loading up with the tools and using them you set out on your journey through this jungle we call life and you leave all the tools sitting back there somewhere in the chest.
Unfortunately, too many Christians in the church today are going through life as if they had no resources, no tools, nothing to help them make right choices and decisions. Nothing to help them along.
Today I want us to see here in this passage that God has give us everything! We need to thank Him in prayer and then put those tools into practice! We do that through prayer as we experience God’s love and then love those around us in the power and strength that God gives us.
Can you imagine what this church would be like if we all began to pray for each other to be strengthened in our inner being? A church where we genuinely loved one another as Christ loves us?
God would receive praise and glory for ever and ever! Amen!
