August 28, 2011 – “Strengthened, Established and Filled” – Ephesians 3:16-19
Charles Price, pastor of People’s Church in Toronto, says that verses 16-19 of Ephesians 3 is one prayer that you don’t really need to add: “…If it is Your will”, or “According to Your will” to. Why? Because this absolutely is the will of God for all Christ Followers. It is a prayer that flows out of the pastoral heart of the Apostle Paul.
It is the passion of every pastor called by God. It is a prayer of tremendous warmth and aspiration. It is a prayer that we might know the fullness of the abundant life offered to us in Jesus Christ.
It is probably the best prayer you can ever pray for another person. Now that we’ve read the whole chapter together, let’s focus in on the Apostle Paul’s prayer to God in verses 16-19.
Strengthened.
At a major parade a beautiful float suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was this float represented the Standard Oil Company. With its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas.
At one point or another most Christians find themselves in the same place, although created in the very image of God, with the ability to tap into the endless possibilities and power of God, they are left stalled out and sputtering.
What does it mean to you to be strengthened? What are the challenges you face right now that you don’t feel quite up to on your own? Where in your life do you feel a need for God’s power?
Paul’s prayer reminds us that we do not need to go it alone, we do not have to face the things we have to face with our limited resources and capacities alone.
It is the will of God that we be strengthened. And you know, He doesn’t strengthen us by lifting up our arms a little when we’re tired.
He doesn’t strengthen us by giving us a push to do better with what we have. We doesn’t strengthen us by giving us a little extra motivation here and there.
I suppose if that’s all we want, God might oblige us. That’s not what Paul is talking about here though. Paul is talking about strengthening us to do God’s will.
Paul never lost site of the bigger picture. What is the bigger picture in the gospels and in the life of believers? The bigger picture is the Kingdom of God.
It is the purposes of God. It is the joy of the Lord that God wants to permeate our individual lives and our corporate life as a local church, a local body.
He wants God to strengthen believers because what we do in our lives is really ultimately about God’s Kingdom. It’s bigger than us.
When you’re at work, or when you’re at school, you know that God wants you to do your absolute best. To be exemplary at what you do, because what you do, you do it for Him.
But what you do at work or school is not ultimately just about the work you are doing. It is about the witness of your life to others who are watching. If you are known as a Christian, you are being watched.
Watched by your friends, watched by everyone. I believe what they are watching for is to see where in your life there is discernable truth about God, something that stands out.
A little girl sat at the breakfast table with her parents one morning. Dad was reading the newspaper. Mom was making waffles. The little girl sat, wide-eyed, staring at her orange juice. She thought for a minute, and then asked the question, “Daddy?” “Yes, sweetie,” he said. “Jesus is God, right?” “Yes,” he answered. “Then God lives in my heart, right?” “Yes, sweetie, God lives in your heart.” “Ok,” s
he said, then she sat quietly for a while, and took a sip of her juice. Then she asked another question, “Daddy?” “Yes, sweetie,” he said. “How big is God?” “Well, God is big. Remember the song we like to sing, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands?” “Yeah,” she answers.
He says, “God is big enough to hold the world in his hands. That’s big, isn’t it?” “Yeah, that’s really big.” She seemed content with his answer, and she again sat quietly and had another sip of juice. “Daddy, if God is that big, and he lives in my heart, wouldn’t He stick out?”
People are watching. And wondering. Is there something compelling, something that sticks out, something engaging, something that testifies that the God you know and love might be for the one who is watching. Same goes for when you are simply hanging out with friends and family.
And so for daily living, yes, we need God’s strengthening that comes by the Holy Spirit.
And because it is in the ordinary conduct of our lives that our witness about Jesus is found, God wants us empowered and filled. And you know He strengthens not out of a limited supply of grace, not by the drips that may fall from a shower head, but out of His limitless supply, His glorious riches.
He strengthens you through His Spirit in your inner being. From the inside out God builds you up. From the inside out God establishes the Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life.
From the inside out God gives you power to overcome sin. From the inside out God gives you strength to do His will. Are you locked in to a pattern of sinning? Is there an area that seems like a stronghold that you can’t shake?
God will strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being to overcome and leave behind, as so much ancient history, that sin that so easily and habitually entangled you.
God doesn’t strengthen you by altering you on the surface. He strengthens you by giving you His Holy Spirit to do His transforming work on your insides.
1 Samuel 16:7 says: “The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”. And Paul’s prayer that God strengthen us is not ultimately about being strengthened. There’s a purpose beyond that. V.17 sums this up for us: “…So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith”.
God is looking for a dwelling place. In you. He wants to dwell, to habitate, to live in fullness in your life. This goes beyond simply saying that I’m a Christian. This goes beyond religion.
This goes beyond forms and appearances and religious structures and allegiances.
When God takes up residence in a life, that whole life is transformed, the past is completely forgiven, present sin and weaknesses confessed to God are absolved by God, the future pathway of that life is altered for the better. This is big, my friends.
Rooted and Established in Love.
Do we have any engineers here? In ancient times every building had a special stone, the cornerstone. Can anyone tell me what function the ‘cornerstone’ might have been in the building of a house?
A cornerstone was a big stone placed at the intersecting angle, where two walls of a building came together. In biblical times, buildings were often made of cut rock. By uniting two intersecting walls, a cornerstone helped align the whole structure and tie it together.
It set out the path of every other stone, determined how every other brick related to the final structure. Get the wrong cornerstone in the wrong place and the whole structure is out of whack.
The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the Chief Cornerstone. It says: "See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." (1 Peter 2:6).
Jesus said: "Have you never read in the Scriptures: "'The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes'? Mt 21:42
God is love. To be established and rooted in God is to live a life of self-giving love. Being rooted in Jesus is the same as being rooted in love. Paul knew how critical it is to be firm in Jesus, to have a faith that is founded on the rock that is Christ.
That’s because Paul knew and experienced incredible pressure to give up. Paul had known the privileged life of a Pharisee. He was a Roman citizen, had a great family lineage.
His life could have been so, so easy if he had not encountered Jesus, if on the road to Damascus, the risen Jesus had not asked Paul: “Why do you persecute me?”, when Paul, then Saul in his zealousness against the church, hunted down and persecuted, killed, believers in Jesus.
If you want to know more about the challenges that Paul faced, I encourage you to read the book of Acts from chapter 7 onward.
Hunted and persecuted and beaten and jailed for following Jesus and telling others about Him, Paul experienced incredible pressure to throw in the towel.
And you know, believers today are under incredible pressure to throw in the towel – either by walking away from Jesus, or by starting to believe a watered-down gospel devoid of God’s power. Just like 2000 years ago, it is hard to follow Jesus.
We are misunderstood, we are maligned, we are thought to be too narrow. Whatever the form of distain or persecution we face, we need to be deeply rooted and grounded and established in love, in Jesus, in God.
Understanding Christ and Filled with the Fullness of God.
We’re on a journey together, you and me. God wants us to know Jesus and become singularly committed to Him. But we don’t do this alone. Thank God. God wants us to be strengthened with power through His Spirit, He wants Christ to find a solid home in you and me.
He wants us, together, with all other believers – that’s what “all the saints” means – to be filled not just a little, not a splash here and a splash there, but with all the fullness of God.
One of the biggest shocks I experienced after coming to Christ was that I had, unknowingly, joined a really, really big family – the family of God.
What I first thought was simply me coming to Jesus on my own I soon discovered was part of a 2000 year-strong movement of the Holy Spirit to build a community of the beloved.
I was wooed by God to come to Jesus, and then I discovered this incredibly rich and supportive and lovely extended family, who encouraged me and loved me and forgave me when I messed up and carried me when I was weak.
I don’t know where I would be without other believers. I just don’t know. But I’m thankful that God has given us each other to walk with and bear the load with.
You know what I mean, if you are a Christ-follower. It’s awesome that God brings us together to learn how massive the love of Christ is.
How wide and welcoming to all humanity. No people group, no nation, no ethnicity is excluded or exalted within the Christian faith. We are all one in Christ.
How long the love of Christ. What began as God’s plan to bless and enfold humanity in the family of God through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, even before time began, continues to this day and will continue as long as this planet earth exists.
And then the blessing of God’s plan continues throughout eternity. That’s how long the love of Christ is.
How high the love of Christ. There is no greater love, no mightier love that comes close to the self-giving, generous love of Jesus.
There is nothing that is higher or mightier than the love of Christ, no higher or more perfect plan than God’s plan of salvation in Christ. There is simply nothing on earth that can stretch to reach the heights of the love of Christ for me and for you and for everyone on this planet.
How deep the love of Christ. Jesus made Himself nothing, compared to His full glory in heaven, He gave up everything to come to earth and to win you with His love.
His love reaches down into the miry clay, the pain and sorrow of our lives, the sin and degradation we can find ourselves in. He reaches down and He reaches in and He rescues us from the deep darkness.
A certain monk announced he would be preaching next Sunday evening on "The Love of God." As the shadows fell and the light ceased to come in through the cathedral windows, the congregation gathered.
In the darkness of the altar, the monk lit a candle and carried it to the crucifix. First of all, he illumined the crown of thorns, next, the two wounded hands, then the marks of the spear wound. In the hush that fell, he blew out the candle and left the cathedral. There was nothing else to say.
We can walk away from this. We can turn and say: ‘So what?’, as many do. But God’s will is that we know this, this love of Christ that surpasses knowledge because it is greater than the human mind can actually handle.
It is His will that we be strengthened, rooted and established in Christ and that we know in a very deep place inside of us this love of Christ, and than by this we might find our lives filled with all the fullness of God.
Are you ready, friends, to be filled? Are you ready to get a taste of eternity? Are you ready to live for Jesus and be given power from on high to serve Him and love Him with everything that you are? Let’s get ready, friends. What God wants from us is us!
The harvest is plentiful, but God needs more workers in His harvest. May we choose daily to be filled with the fullness of God. May we fill our minds and hearts with all that God has revealed in His Word, the Bible.
May we meditate deeply, reflect and repent completely, may we choose to live daily not for ourselves, but for the glory of God, and may we choose to dig in to God, to press in to His love and mercy, and to live out that love and mercy in witness to His goodness and glory among our families, our friends, our fellow students and our co-workers.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
