Tapped In to the Powerful Love of Christ
Love is All you Need—the Beatles
Love can be a powerful force
Hug Video (other examples in my life? getting a note from my 6th grade girlfriend. Or patience from my wife of 15 years though I don’t deserve it)
Human Love only goes so far
• I love those who love me
• Break Ups
• Divorce Neil Simon quote, p. 81 in The Unusual Suspect
• Enemies—Did Jesus REALLY say we should love them?
• Tired/Irritable/Defensive/In Jail (??!!! . . . .Paul. Implication that we called to love even if circumstances suggest/show we are left “high and dry” by those we love or we are just plain given a “raw deal” and a “happy face” would seem to any ordinary folk to be just plain impossible, if not idiotic)
I WANT to be not only more lovable, but to be a better lover (wink)
As followers of Jesus, we also have Scriptural commands that tell us to love (like mentioned earlier.)
Ephesians 5:2
2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. (NKJV)
Examples of Calls to Love in Eph:
fellow church members
wives/husbands
children
slaves toward their bosses
“Love may be all WE NEED”, but
How am I supposed to DO all this even 40-50% of the time, much less 80 or 90 or 100%
TEXT: Ephesians 3:14-21
14 For this reason I kneel 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, 17 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.
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.
How am I able to love the way God wants me to love? Paul says, we have to be given the power to know Christ’s love, in the first place.
Big Idea: Only God can tap me into the Powerful Love of Christ.
1. Only God Can Give His Powerful Love
People can Love without God, but it only goes so far. Real love comes from God. We can’t buy, steal, imitate, or grab God’s love.
v.19 this love that surpasses knowledge
I can not come by it only on my own. It is unknowable—and yet we are to KNOW it!
v. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
It is something that comes out of the store rooms of God. He rooms of treasure.
Some of you may remember a scene in Richie Rich where untold riches were overflowing, spilling out in a secure cave. Or think of a secret Pirate cave where riches from many centuries were piled up, gold and jewels and crowns and diamond necklaces all spilling out of treasure chests, forming a sparkling menagerie as far as the eye can see.
Only God’s treasure room does not come from selfish and opportunistic capitalist grabbing, or from smelly, bad-toothed, one-handed, murderous pirate thievery.
It comes from who HE IS. He IS powerful, holy, good, loving, giving, like no other.
And so,
God can supply our needs "as lavishly as only he can" (257, Obrien).
The phrase in NIV “glorious riches” may obscure the depth and quality of his riches, discovered a bit better by the translation riches of His glory
His glory is his "radiance and splendor", conveying "perfection" (PTO). Someone too bright, too perfect to gaze upon with our human vision—causing Moses to glow so much it startled people and he covered himself with a veil.
Phil 4:19 "And my God will fully meet every need of yours in accordance with his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."
“Tap” is not a word used in the Bible—at least not here, but I think it is an apt description with one possible flaw:
The aptness comes from the description in verse 16 he may strengthen you with power
I get the idea of a power supply. I take something that is pretty useless on its own, without power, like a lamp, and when I plug it in—tapping in to the power source, what happens? I get power, and the lamp is useful. It works wonderfully!
(use props to show the difference: little handled Screw Driver and Power Screw Driver)
Jamie Buckingham likened the work of the Holy Spirit to the small rockets that guide a space rocket in space. If the main rocket should get off course, these smaller rockets fire off, correcting the direction. So, the voice of the Holy Spirit speaks to us, and gives us the corrective power to live and love as God wants us to. (Power for Living, p. 84)
I think that illustration may have some limitations, but it does speak to the nudgings that Christians down through the centuries to live for God, whether they by
• like what my wife describes as just the power she needs to make it through a difficult time—even though at the time you might not feel supercharged with power
• Or whether it is something stronger and more impressionable
Paul is Praying that God will Strengthen them with POWER.
He doesn’t say “BE powerful”. He says “may GOD strengthen you with power.”
We can’t do it on our own.
HOW does he strengthen you with Power? Through his Holy Spirit.
Several scriptures link the Holy Spirit and Power. Gary Betway and I were reminded of one yesterday at a Discipling Seminar with Dr. Marvin McMickel
Acts 1:8 But you will receive POWER when the HOLY SPIRIT comes on you . . .
God doesn’t want us weak
ineffectual
powerless
at a loss for what to do
God wants to equip us and transform us and strengthen us to be able to do what he wants us to do and to take on, as His Children, the qualities that He, our Father, possesses.
His Spirit is given to us at the beginning of our faith walk: we are BAPTIZED in the HS.
Paul doesn’t have the initial baptizing in mind. He is talking about a FILLING
5:18 Instead, be filled with the Spirit, OR “keep on being filled”
This is not something we can Do. Only God can Do. And that is why Paul is praying: so God will strengthen these Christians with power.
This power is not a brute force. A clever comeback or cutting remark to keep people in their place.
It is a power that makes things whole that are broken. This was what Stephen Baldwin was thinking as he analyzed Neil Simon’s declaration that you can do nothing about marriages that start to fall apart, saying:
“With all due respect Mr. Simon, if you knew the awesome power of God and His Holy Spirit, you would understand how wrong that statement is. I know because I’ve experienced that power in my own marriage, and it is beyond words.” (The Unusual Suspect, p. 81)
Transition: Yes, this power is the power of love and:
2. It Takes on the Humble Face of Christ
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
There are a couple of connections we need to see here:
a. the link between Power and Love
(explain that our strengthening and power is to be able to know God’s love, to be filled with his love)
Love appears 19 times (agape) in Eph
b. the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ
(explain that while we talk about them often in a separate sense,
Many Commentators believe that the Spirit’s strengthening us in our inner being and "Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith are parallel images, that verse 17 explains v. 16
PTO: (258) "To be empowered by the Spirit in the inner person means that Christ himself dwells in their hearts."
(Snodgrass, p. 180)
“The Main Intent of Paul’s prayer is clear: He wants his readers strengthened by God’s Spirit so that they may know intimately Christ’s presence and love.”
Steve May, in his sermon How To Experience God’s Love (http://www.preachingtoday.com/31795) paraphrases August Hare: "Love flows downward. The love of parents for their children has always been far more powerful than that of children for their parents. In the same way, no man has ever loved God with more than 1/1000th of the love that God has given us."
And he has given us His love most fully in Jesus Christ.
• Illustration: May quotes Augustine: "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us."
How special we are, that he gave his one special son, to die for US, that we might live.
Jerome, and early “church father” pointed out that
The upper arm of the Cross points up; the lower arm points down; and the crossing arms point out to the widest horizons. Adapting Jerome’s implication of that,
it is as if Christ’s love reaches beyond anything we can imagine, reaching further than we could possibly sin (east from the west), reaching down lower than the grave (death shall not separate us), and reaching clear into heaven (both the angels know of his love and power, and that is our destination, we will never be apart from his love). (quote adapted from a sermon by Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson, (http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=60114)
3. It Fills us to the Brim to Accomplish what only God Can
PTO comments on 264 that it is noteworthy Paul has this prayer for them to be indwellt with power and to grasp--he is essentially saying they HAVEN’T yet grasped it all. He also mentions it is obvious they NEED GOD"S POWER to do so.
may grasp, may know, have power, etc
"Love is the soil in which the believers are rooted and will grow, the foundation upon which they are built.
I love this picture of roots and the building. Especially the roots. OUR FEET are firmly planted in LOVE. It rises up through us like nourishment.
Instead of “fear” or anger or hostility, or pettiness or revenge that makes me turn on people (close or not), I am being filled with “the good stuff” (elaborate) and it courses through me, the more it does the more I grasp what it means for God to still love me
(Chicago, etc.)
The implication, as far as this prayer is concerned, is that greater experience of the Spirit’s power will mean the character of Christ increasingly becoming the hallmark of believers’ lives. Lincoln, WBC
God;s love in Christ, and Christ’s love in us is what enables us to have power to love others. (PTO, 260, and Dan thought blended) It just follows that as Christ permeates our being with Himself--full of love--we are empowered to love others and be filled to the measure.
"We Cannot be as Spiritually Mature as we should be, unless we are empowered by God to "grasp the limitless dimensions of the love of Christ." (PTO, 264)
Dan: We Cannot LOVE as we should love, unless we are empowered and FILLED with his love
And when we ARE, it really makes a difference!
p. 96, 97 Baldwin, Unusual Suspect on the effect of God’s love IN his people on a Jewish woman
CONCLUSION
Paul’s prayer—and ours, as we join him—is a powerful reminder of “who owns the house” (W. Wink, quoted in Snodgrass, p. 189). It is NOT OUR house, for those of us in Christ Jesus.
We should want no other. We see what happens when we own the house
Clinton Arnold, in Power and Magic, thinks that this prayer is especially important for a group of believers that know and fear magical powers. This assures them of the Greatness and Power of God, and that they can tap into it.
Arnold, p. 100: In magic, many of the recipes and spells were used for the purpose of gaining advantage over people--winning a chariot race, {Dan: world series?}, attracting a lover, winning at dice {Dan: Santeria, CSI Miami, palm readers, spells, horoscope . . .}, etc. God’s power enables the believer to love after the pattern of Christ. The seemingly impossible demands of this kind of love require diving enablement in order for them to be fulfilled.
We don’t manipulate to get love back. We love because we are FILLED with God’s love, experiencing more joy and pleasure than we would by conniving and scheming to clutch on to a shallow or superficial love of others.
We become power lovers. by God’s grace, through it, because of it.
It was February 1941, Auschwitz, Poland. Maximilian Kolbe was a Franciscan priest put in the infamous death camp for helping Jews escape Nazi terrorism. Months went by and in desperation an escape took place. The camp rule was enforced. Ten people would be rounded up randomly and herded into a cell where they would die of starvation and exposure as a lesson against future escape attempts. Names were called. A Polish Jew Frandiskek Gasovnachek was called. He cried, “Wait, I have a wife and children!”
Kolbe stepped forward and said, “I will take his place.” Kolbe was marched into the cell with nine others where he managed to live until August 14. The Nazis then injected carbolic acid into him and his body was cremated in the camp ovens.
This story was chronicled on an NBC news special years ago. Gasovnachek, by this time 82, was shown telling this story while tears streamed down his cheeks. A mobile camera followed him around his little white house to a marble monument carefully tended with flowers. The inscription read: In memory of Maximilian Kolbe. He died in my place. Every day Gasovnachek lived since 1941, he lived with the knowledge, “I live because someone died for me.” Every year on August 14, he travels to Auschwitz in memory of Kolbe. (Cited from: Victor Knowles, Peace on Earth Ministries. Adapted from Crossroads Family Circle, located on Sermoncentral.com, pastor Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson.)
That kind of sacrifice seems almost unattainable to me, but it is born out of KNOWING the love with which Jesus died for me. Who knows if I will be called on to do such a specific act,
but I am beginning to get a glimpse this week of how REVOLUTIONARY it would be in my life to be strengthened in my “innerbeing” in such a way, to be FILLED by the INDWELLING presence of Christ,
THINK ABOUT IT!! CHRIST IN US! Dwelling with us!
I think I will go take Jesus for a walk. NOOOOoooooo. I think Jesus will teach ME HOW to WALK!
And so as I visited among you this week, in person, by phone, in my thoughts, I prayed not only that I would be filled with the powerful love of Christ through the Holy Spirit, but that you would be too.
And I pray not only that this prayer is yours, but that we will together (with all the saints) grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of Christ
WHAT could that DO in our lives? How much more real and precious and peaceful (no matter the circumstance) and LOVING would we be? Talk about quality of life!!!!!
(not stuff, Stevie B. (Baldwin) says—he’s had that—but power to experience life with GOD!)
IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE!!! TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!
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.
