Power With Purpose
Eph. 3:13 - 21
Have you ever heard that “America is the most powerful nation in the world ?” What does this mean? We have also been called, “The only superpower, left.” This is usually a reference to military power. It could also be applied to economic power and social influence.
If power were applied to a person, what would you think? Would you think of - their physical strength, their influence, their money, their political position, or maybe their impact on society?
In our text for today from Eph. 3: 13-21, we read that God wants us to have power, and that it was Paul’s prayer that that power manifest itself in the lives of the church and individual Christians. But what kind of power? How do we know if we have it? How can we attain it? What do we do with it?
There is a story from one of Max Lucado’s books of a lady who had a small house on the seashore of Ireland at the turn of the century. She was quite wealthy but also quite frugal. The people were surprised, then, when she decided to be among the first to have electricity in her home. Several weeks after the installation, a meter reader appeared at her door. He asked if her electricity was working well, and she assured him it was. "I’m wondering if you can explain something to me," he said. "Your meter shows scarcely any usage. Are you using your power?" "Certainly," she answered. "Each evening when the sun sets, I turn on my lights just long enough to light my candles; then I turn them off."
“She tapped into the power but did not use it. Her house is connected but not altered. Don’t we make the same mistake? Our souls are saved but our hearts unchanged - are we connected but not altered? Are we trusting Christ for salvation but resisting transformation? Do we occasionally flip the switch, but most of the time settle for shadows?” Paul was writing from prison but it was worth the pain for he was connected to the power. Because of his care for the church he was more than willing to be incarcerated.
Eph 3:13-16 I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged (and he is the one in jail) because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory. 14 For this reason I kneel (good prayer position) before the Father 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
“There was a famous oil field called Yates Pool: During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government help.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil under his feet. They asked permission to drill a well, and he signed contract. At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Other wells gave upmore than twice as much.
In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day. And Mr. Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty. The problem? He didn’t know the oil was there even though he owned it.
Many Christians live in spiritual poverty. They are entitled to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and his energizing power, but they are not aware of their birthright.”
We have the resources at our disposal but we settle for far less. Instead of working to advance the Kingdom we fight to hold on to our perceived territory. We have pretend conversations with people who have hurt us but now haunt us in our mind. What a waste of time, pouting about what we would say if we had the chance. (sad faces)
Often lacking the courage to do anything in a direct manner we gossip to any gentle soul who might listen and pine away at our puny hurts while the real world rushes toward hell on a high speed train.
We kick and dig and rearrange mole hills while true mountains await needed removal. We tap into just enough power to run our mouths but not enough power to move our feet to speak to a lost person. We spend far too much energy talking to each other about who we don’t like instead of talking to God about who He loves!
Now let us pause and pray for the first person on our revenge list. “God there is a reason why this person came to our mind. They need You and we want them to come to You. If you can use us this week to make contact with them then gives us the power and plan for us the appointment. Whether we write them like Paul did the church at Ephesus, pray for them like Paul did for those under his charge, call them like You to did Peter on the roof or send someone to them like Nathan went to David; we are going to plug into You on their behalf. Amen!” (cross with wings)
God gives all various types of purposes for His power. It could be courage to speak up, the nerve to step out or the daring to forge ahead.
But the thing that he emphasizes is the power to know and emulate the Love of Christ.
Eph 3:17-19 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Hallelujah Amen, I can’t even take it all in.
You can never out use God’s love. We are never fully filled with God’s love because we leak; we are short circuited by the world, our flesh and the devil. That is why we need to –“each and every day” plug back into the original power source. (oil trucks & riggs)
Mr. Yates was sitting in the poor house on top of an ocean of black liquid gold. But the riches under the ground would not be obtained without exerting some power. Rigging had to be shipped in. Piping had to be placed. Digging had to be commenced, people had to sweat under the Texas sun, hands had to be calloused, and the dust, dirt, grit and black river would make the whole operation a visible mess. But it was worth ever soiled shirt and inconvenience. (power)
As we advance as the people of God, it may cause some chaos and confusion but God be given the glory as we wildcat the treasure and hunker down and dig deep. The lazy need not apply, the “holier than thou” need not get too close because the oil is going to fly. The seekers of safety and security need to step back because God’s power is coming to bear and I for one want oil on my face.
Life is too short to sit on the sidelines and watch. The cause is too important to get sidetracked with trying to stop dirt from being tracked in the house. We do not have time to slip on the spilt oil of how we were not loved enough by Mommy or Daddy, we each need to make sure we get the oil in the truck and off to the pipe line where it can be pumped to as many households as possible.
Eph 3:20 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,
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Are you planning for the next baptism? Are you signed up for the next outreach? Are you pumped up for taking it to the streets at? Are you involved in a working, functioning, planning and pulsating ministry of our little band of worshippers? Are you loving people with a selfless abandoned? Are you setting sail for the future or are you just gaining barnacles on your bottom - paining over the past?
Are you dozing off in Fantasyland or taking ground from the devil in the Promiseland? Are you getting on the better side of your addiction? Are you living for God, loving for Jesus and leaning on the Holy Spirit?
If not – plug in and power up! Ballet classes are over and the battle is beginning!
Jeff Strueker was a US Army Ranger posted in Mogadishu, Somalia. He became a master of divinity student at Seminary in Louisville, KY. For him Oct 3-4, 1993 were the defining moments of his life. He was one of the troops called on to go into the center Mogadisu to secure a building as part of a larger operation. The movie “Black Hawk Down” chronicled some of the events of those two days. In the first trip into the city he and most of his friends got out through a hailstorm of bullets. One man was shot and killed. It was then that he felt the fear. He began to pray. The humvee was painted with blood as they escaped the city with their dead and wounded comrades. The news soon worsened.
A helicopter was shot down. The team received orders to return to the melee. "I began to talk to the Lord. I thought I was going to die," he said. Feeling his fear grow, he began to ask God to protect him. But his prayer soon changed. "I’ll never forget this for the rest of my life. ... A scene appeared in the landscape of my mind. The scene was Jesus in the Garden. ... He clearly and honestly knew that he was going to die. ... He also showed that he did not want to go to that cross and die. And I knew that I didn’t want to die that night. But Jesus courageously said, ’God, not my will, but yours be done.’ "If I die tonight, that’s fine, as long as your will is done," (soldiers)
For the first time in his life, Jeff -- who had been a Christian since age 13 -- was prepared to die. "God spoke to my mind and my heart and said, ’I’ve been protecting you every day of your life,’" "He did not tell me, ’You will live through the night.’ He simply showed me my life has always been in his hands." Jeff and his men returned to the field of fire in Mogadishu that night and fought with a God-given courage. The sergeant first class would later be awarded the Bronze Star Medal "V" for valor.
"I fought differently that night than everybody else ... because of my faith," God had given him a "supernatural peace" in the midst of pandemonium, further firefights and an ambush that nearly blew his humvee off the road. "I began to understand God’s omnipotent power," God chose to preserve Jeff that night.
Friends we all have to die, no better way to go then living for God. Some power -God does not give it - till we need it. Some here need the power to walk a little straighter for Jesus. Someone else needs the power to forgive; another the power to love. An adult needs the power to live for Christ at work. A senior needs the power to deal with the pain that comes with time. A saint needs the power to evangelize their friend. And we all need the power to Love like God. It is available- we need only to plug in.
