To God's Investment in Afton
Notes
Transcript
ME: Intro (Shark Tank)
ME: Intro (Shark Tank)
You ever see the show shark tank?
I enjoy it, it’s one of those easy going shows you really don’t have to follow closely.
You can put one of the episodes on randomly and it will be entertaining.
The concept is that you have these five wealthy investors that are the sharks.
Then people come in and pitch a new product or business or some other entrepreneurial start-up.
The most recent one I remember seeing is this guy created an app that allows pool owners to rent there pools out.
Similar to the way people rent their homes on air b n b.
If it were a hot day and you wanted to swim somewhere, you pull up the app and rent out a nearby pool for an hour.
Or you could get some friends together and rent one out for an entire day and have a pool party.
Seemed like an interesting concept to me.
The sharks didn’t think so however, none of them invested in his app.
But that is really the drama of the show.
The entrepreneurs are trying to convince the sharks they are worth investing in.
Based off the success of their business or product, the amount of money they value the company at, or even their go-get-em attitude.
The sharks repeatedly ask questions about how long until they get their money back.
And how much money they can make from this person and their product or business.
These sharks are already filthy rich too.
The highest shark’s net worth being 4.3 billion dollars!
Now could you imagine with me.
Your watching shark tank one day
And an average looking guy comes in with no product to pitch, no display to sell himself, nothing to offer.
He walks into the shark tank, kneels before the sharks and says;
“Hello sharks,
My name is Paul,
I’m here today asking you to invest your riches in my friends.
You know them, they have broken your agreement to them in the past,
You gave them business advice and they followed everyone else instead.
They have been completely disobedient,
Chasing after their own selfish passions and desires.
And they are also very hostile toward one another.
So much so that some of them built a wall, telling the others that if they go past that wall they will be killed.
These friends, they are hopeless.
In fact, they are dead.
But you could invest your riches in them because you are so rich!
You could empower these friends because of your love!
You could invest in them because your wealth is beyond comprehension!
You could do this and far more!
You are powerful, more than capable!
So, what do you think sharks?”
After a long period of silence where these sharks look back and forth at one another in disbelief.
They would likely burst out in laughter.
Asking something along the lines of,
“So you want us to invest in your friends, who have nothing to offer, based upon our own riches and merit as the investor?”
Then, almost in unison, all the sharks would emphatically say;
“I’M OUT!”
Well, we’re not seeing this pitch on an episode of Shark Tank.
We are seeing this pitch in Ephesians 3:14-21 this morning.
This passage is addressed to God’s Investment in Afton.
And let me tell you, the investor in our passage this morning is infinitely richer than all the sharks on shark tank combined.
Our passage will begin with Paul’s humble preparation in vs. 14-15
In vs. 16-19, we will see our Powerful Investor.
Lastly, we will see the Expected Return of His investment in vs. 20-21.
Let’s seek after God as we study this passage,
Please join me in prayer.
PRAY
Last week, in Ephesians 3:1 Paul began this prayer saying;
For this reason I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles—
Then beginning in vs. 2, he interrupted himself by outlining his unique ministry as a missionary to the Gentiles, which we looked at last week.
In our passage this morning,
Paul picks his prayer back up.
We have seen throughout Ephesians thus far.
Prayer is important!
It is a conversation with the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit.
Through prayer, we ask for Divine illumination.
Prayer is drawing near to God with boldness and confident access.
This mornings prayer continues to teach us the importance of prayer.
If you ever have seen the movie gravity where Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are astronauts.
They are suppose to be on a routine space mission,
as if there ever is such a thing,
but then debris puts them in a dire situation.
Eventually Clooney’s character sacrifices himself to give Sandra Bullock’s character, who is in space for the first time, a fighting chance.
Late in the film, she finds herself in this hopelessly dire situation.
Alone in space, she begins to embrace that she is going to die.
And she narrates these words;
“I’m going to die. I know, we’re all gonna die. Everybody knows that. But I’m going to die today. Funny that..you know, to know. But the thing is, is that I’m still scared. Really scared. No one will mourn for me. No one will pray for my soul…Is it too late… I’d say a prayer for myself but I’ve never prayed in my life. Nobody ever taught me how…nobody ever taught me how...”
What a tragic thought to hear.
This script came from somewhere, how many people have shared similar tragic thoughts when they felt death was imminent.
People know they’re gonna die,
But no one wants to.
And how many feel like they don’t know how to pray?
Ephesians has taught us that Jesus is the answer for these fears.
Ephesians 2:18 teaches that Jesus gives us access to God in prayer.
Ephesians 1:20 teaches that Jesus died and rose from the dead,
Defeating death so that, as Jesus demonstrated when raising Lazarus from the dead,
In John 11:25;
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
In our passage this morning, Paul prays in view of the magnificence of God and the neediness of us humans.
It is the conclusion of Paul’s expositional argument from chapters 1-3;
Where Paul has taught us about who God is and who we are in Christ.
This prayer, which concludes with a beautiful doxology,
Serves as a bridge from these first three chapters,
Into chapters 4-6 which are much more application.
Meaning the remaining chapters will teach us how we are to live in light of this understanding from chapters 1-3.
This bridge is a prayer for power!
Let this serve as a reminder for us,
We need God’s power to do God’s will.
WE: Humble Preparation (vs. 14-15)
WE: Humble Preparation (vs. 14-15)
So let us begin with our passage this morning,
Looking at Paul’s Humble Preparation in Ephesians 3:14-15;
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
In shark tank, you can tell that the people who come in spend a lot of time preparing to come before the sharks.
The first 5-10 minutes of their pitch is clearly some scripted skit or presentation
They understand the need to prepare because they are about to ask these rich investors to give them riches.
Paul likewise prepares himself to come before God.
But his preparation is a humble preparation.
Paul begins his prayer by saying “for this reason.”
These are the same words used at the beginning of vs. 1 as well.
The reason Paul is referring to are the words he spoke in chapters 1 and 2.
For all the spiritual blessings in Christ
For the fact that He predetermined to chose us for adoption through Christ before creation.
For the redemption in Christ’s blood.
For the forgiveness of all our trespasses.
For the riches of His grace, by which we have been saved through faith.
For the illumination, the wisdom, the insight.
For the inheritance we receive through our adoption.
For the promises, the glory, the goodness.
For the great power in the resurrection and ascension of Christ that we share share in.
For the mercy and great love.
For making us alive.
For showing immeasurable kindness toward us.
For the gift of God.
For making us into His workmanship to walk in the good works He prepared for us.
For bringing us near.
For being our peace.
For reconciling us to him and to one another.
For breaking down divisions of hostility in His flesh.
For making us into one man, fellow citizens, members of the same househould, a holy temple, the church.
For all these reasons!
Paul bows His knees before the Father in worship as he begins his prayer.
You get this idea that Paul has just gone through this inventory of all these amazing things God has done in chapters 1-2.
And as he finishes writing all these things,
He is just overcome by the majesty of God and is compelled to just drop to his knees in worship and prayer.
As the Psalmist writes in Psalm 95:6-7;
Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice,
For this reason!
I bow my knees before the Father.
[PAUSE]
It may seem strange that Paul would include this mention of bowing his knees.
During the early church, it was generally customary to pray standing up.
This likely came from Jewish tradition.
In Matthew 6:5, Jesus pointed out how religious hypocrites would stand and pray in synagogues and street corners.
Again in Luke 18:11, the Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, thanking God that he was not like the tax collector.
But it wasn’t just the hypocrites that stood
Just two vs. later in Luke 18:13, the tax collector was standing far off, when he was not even able to look up, he beat his breast,
and prayed, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’
So, it’s not as if it is hypocritical to pray standing up.
But kneeling seems to be this expression of humility and urgency or even desperation.
For example, Jesus knelt when He prayed to the Father to let the cup pass from Him in Luke 22:41.
This understanding, Further supports the theory that Paul was just undone with humility, and possibly even helplessness, in light of everything he had just listed about God in chapters 1-2.
Again, our status before Christ in Eph. 2:1-3 and 11-12 shows how helpless we are.
We should come to God urgently in prayer.
[PAUSE]
There is something else I love about Paul’s example here.
I fear that when we hear the word theology, and theology-related words,
We picture in our mind some cold, monk-like scholar out in the woods or up on a mountain.
Developing brilliant philosophical arguments.
But Paul has been writing about a lot of complex theological truths in Chs. 1-3
And all of these truths draw him to his knees in worship of the mighty God he has been meditating on.
We should be passionate about theology!
Theology teaches us marvelous truths about our glorious God!
I love theology!
And friends, I want you to love theology too!
Paul clearly loves theology, and wants us all to share in this love for theology as well.
In this humble preparation, Paul notes how every family in heaven and earth is named from the Father.
Now, it seems a bit odd that Paul would use the word family here.
If he was speaking about all people for all time,
Why not just say every person?
By saying family, he is speaking of lineage or descendants.
This word seems to be serving two purposes.
First, the reasons that have just been highlighted back in chapter 2,
Spoke of the joining together of two separated people groups.
The word for family here is also used in reference to clans or people.
So, it would seem that Paul is continuing his multi-ethnic emphasis that God has named every people group in heaven and earth.
Secondly, in God’s covenant to Abram in Gen. 12:3,
God promises Abram that in him, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Paul, a student of the OT would know and understand this well.
Seems to be making a connection to this promise from God
Highlighting how chs. 1-2 show the variety of ways God has fulfilled His promise to bless all the families.
[PAUSE]
Paul humbly prepares himself for an urgent prayer because,
Like those entrepreneurs on Shark Tank,
He understands the saints need something that can only come from a powerful investor.
GOD: Powerful Investor (vs. 16-19)
GOD: Powerful Investor (vs. 16-19)
In John 15, Jesus taught He is the vine and we are the branches,
Apart from Him, we can do nothing.
I cam across this illustration that I think presents this well.
It is titled Palm Monday and it talks about the Donkey that Jesus rode in on during Palm Sunday.
Well the donkey woke up Monday morning beaming with satisfaction and pride from the greatest day of his life.
So he strutted through town seeking attention from the same people the day before.
Instead, they paid no attention to him,
They didn’t lay down their garments or palm branches,
They did not cheer, in fact, the only reaction he received was from a man who slapped him on the tail and ordered him to move.
The donkey, perplexed and dismayed went home and muttered to his mother about the miserable humans.
“Foolish child,” she said to him gently,
“Don’t you realize that without Jesus, you are just an ordinary donkey?”
Without Jesus, we can do nothing.
Paul has humbly prepared himself to bring his urgent requests before the Powerful Investor we read about in Ephesians 3:16-19;
Paul continues by writing,
that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Unlike the investors on Shark Tank, God’s riches are limitless.
And Paul understands this,
So he brings three requests before this powerful investor in prayer.
Breaking this passage up based upon the structure of the requests looks like this;
“[I pray] that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being [and] that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” vs. 16-17a
“[I pray] that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of God’s love],
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,” vs. 17b-19a
“[I pray] that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” vs. 19b
The first request in vs. 16-17a can be summarized as a prayer for power.
The second request in vs. 17b-19a is formed of two interrelated requests.
To have the strength to comprehend the immensity of the love of Christ
And to know that you can’t know it.
To summarize this second request, Paul prays to comprehend the incomprehensible
To understand what cannot be understood
To grasp what is beyond grasping .
It is a paradoxical prayer, not meant to discourage,
Just the opposite,
It is meant to encourage believers to meditate on God’s ceaseless love that will never be fully understood by human mind.
Last, the third request in vs. 19b is an extension really, that summarizes the first to prayers.
That Paul’s requests for power and love are realized with the fullness of God.
John Stott describes these prayers as a series of steps.
Essentially, Paul is praying that Christians would experience everything he has been writing about in these first three chapters.
Let’s first go into more detail with this first request.
I’ve been using the show Shark Tank as an illustration this morning,
Vs. 16 is where I get this illustration.
Another example of a fictional rich person would be Dr. John Hammond
The founder of Jurassic Park.
Repeatedly throughout the film he would say, “spared no expense.”
The park as a whole, regarding each attraction,
when presenting the electric cars that would drive guests through the park,
on the welcome to Jurassic Park video,
Joyfully, he would say each time, Spared no expense!
Even in the small things,
Near the end of the movie,
after the dinosaurs have broken out and eaten his investors and staff,
He is eating ice cream that is melting with Dr. Ellie Satler.
She comments, wow! That’s good ice cream.
And he somberly responds, “spared no expense.”
Throughout, you can feel the love Dr. Hammond has for Jurassic Park.
That love was the driving force behind him sparing no expense.
Like Dr. Hammond, God is both rich and motivated by love.
But unlike Dr. Hammond and the sharks from Shark Tank,
God is not limited to financial riches,
He is rich in mercy and grace, and kindness, and glory.
So because of His great love, when it comes to spending His riches on you,
God spares no expense!
According to these riches, Paul requests, through prayer, to God, the Powerful Investor,
To grant strength.
Paul prays for strength in the first request in vs. 16
And the second request in vs. 18.
This strength is not physical strength that we can attain on our own,
As we see Paul’s reference to the Spirit in vs. 16,
It is a prayer for spiritual strength, that only God can provide.
Back in Eph. 1:19 Paul described God’s power as immeasurably great
The source through which God channels this power, is the Holy Spirit residing in the innermost being of believers.
This inner being speaks of the soul, or immaterial make-up of a person.
It is where this strengthening occurs.
The Holy Spirit holds influence over the immaterial part of believers.
Paul talks about the soul, the inner being, in Romans 7:22;
For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
And contrasts the soul, the inner self, against the outer self in 2 Cor 4:16;
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
Because this inner self, the soul, is the seat of spiritual influence in mankind.
This makes it the sphere where the Holy Spirit renews and saves believers.
Paul knows this is where Christians need strength and power.
It is inside where the war against sin wages,
From where the courage to proclaim the gospel comes,
From where love for God and others comes.
Paul is praying that this new nature in the saints would continue to be acted on by divine grace,
That the inner man would be enlightened by God’s law,
And that the soul would be prepared and disciplined for salvation.
The result, vs. 17 says, is that Christ may permanently dwell in the hearts of believers.
These flip or flop shows are all the rage on HGTV right now.
Well our heart is a fixer upper.
But Christ isn’t just inhabiting it for a time to flip it and move on.
He is setting up shop, settling down, moving in for good!
And He is renovating our heart for the long term.
Over time, He is cleaning the damage, repairing the infrastructure, and transforming the heart.
D.A. Carson uses a similar illustration;
“When Christ by His Spirit takes up residence within us, He finds a moral equivalent to trash, black and silver wall paper, and a leaking roof. Hes sets about turning this residence into a place appropriate for Him, a home for which He is comfortable…When Christ first moves into our lives, he finds us in bad repair. It takes a great deal of power to change us; and that is why Paul prays for power.”
This is part of the mystery that Paul talked about repeatedly earlier in this chapter.
Paul’s language here is some of his most direct and balanced language regarding the individual and corporate nature of Christianity
He makes it clear that the Holy Spirit indwells in each individual believer.
But when he speaks of Christ dwelling in your heart,
Paul is describing the Christian as a member of the community of Jesus.
Christianity is not so common that it excludes the individual, nor is it so private that it neglects the corporate nature of the church.
A prayer for power from the Powerful Investor is Paul’s first request.
Let’s look in more detail at his second request, love.
The first time Paul used the phrase “in love” in this letter was back in Eph. 1:4-5,
Where Paul said, “In love, God predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ.”
Now, Paul is praying Christians would be rooted and grounded in that same love.
Meaning, the truth that God has predetermined to adopt you through Christ, is something you can cling tightly to.
From this basis, Paul prays Christians would have the strength to know God’s love.
And you might be thinking, I already know of God’s love.
True, but we haven’t even scratched the surface!
And Paul knows that!
Which is why he prays we would even have the strength know God’s love more!
Isn’t that amazing to think about?
Think of what you already know about God’s love.
Then try to wrap your mind around the fact that God has infinitely more love for us to comprehend!
This isn’t a prayer for us to grow in love for Christ, though that is a good prayer, and a likely result of Paul’s prayer.
No, Paul is praying that you would be able to understand God’s love for you.
Because the reality is, infinite love deserves infinite gratitude.
And the appreciation you have given to God for His love is still not enough.
But fear not, you’ve got eternity to catch up!
Even though Paul is speaking about an intellectual understanding here.
We know that is just the tip of the iceberg.
It goes vastly beyond that!
Again, I’d like to share D.A. Carson’s comments here;
“Paul is not asking that his readers might become more able to articulate the greatness of God’s love in Christ Jesus or to grasp with the intellect alone how significant God’s love is in the plan of redemption. He is asking God that they might have the power to grasp the dimensions of that love in their experience.”
These quotes come from a book titled, Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation by D.A. Carson, and I would strongly recommend it to you.
The dimensions Carson is referring to is the width and length and height and depth Paul talks about in vs. 18.
I’m not sure the reason the ESV ends the vs. there.
A more full English translation ends with “of God’s love.”
But what Paul is saying is that God’s love is immense!
It is matchless!
As Paul lists in Rom 8:35-39, nothing can separate us from it!
God’s love is all inclusive, never ending, and sacrificially giving!
The breadth of God’s love from chapter two includes all ethnicities,
Jews and Gentiles are made one.
The length of God’s love is eternal, the prophet Jeremiah describes it as an everlasting love.
The height of God’s love reaches into the heavens as we see in Psalm 103:11-12.
And the depth of His love casts our sins into the bottom of the sea, the prophet Micah says in Mic 7:19.
Paul is praying you would comprehend this,
But notice, you need God’s strength to do so.
And you are to comprehend it with all the saints.
Rich saints, poor saints, black saints, white saints, young saints, old saints.
With all the saints, talk about God’s love!
Testify by retelling stories of God’s love!
Learn about God’s love in the Scriptures together!
The church comprehends God’s love together, not in isolation.
With knowledge of God’s love, comes experience of it.
In fact, the experience of this love goes beyond knowledge.
We see in vs. 19 how Paul says it surpasses knowledge.
It’s almost like you start to understand God’s love,
As you understand it, you experience it.
Then through that experience of God’s love,
You begin to realize how little you truly understand it.
How you struggle to find the words to explain the experience of God’s love you are enjoying.
I would like to share a word of caution regarding experience.
The is emotional or feeling based Christianity.
It does not start with any type of knowledge of God’s Word.
A person just “experiences” the love of God unbridled from the Scriptures,
And Satan uses this to lead a person down the path of mysticism, heresy, and danger.
Scripture is the basis of your knowledge of God’s love from which you experience His love.
But on the other end of the spectrum, don’t be tempted to say,
“I don’t want to go down that path of mysticism, heresy, and danger, so I am just going to avoid any and all experiences to guard myself.”
That is equally dangerous, you will have a cold and dead knowledge of God’s love.
Which is heresy, because God’s love is not cold and dead.
Paul has dedicated these first three chapters on the knowledge of God’s love that we are to both know and experience.
You can know what the Bible says but live in sin because you are not also walking in the experience of God’s love.
This is the object of Paul’s second request, God’s love.
Briefly, let’s look a little deeper at his third request now.
This final request seems to summarize the first to.
So that, essentially, Paul is saying you will be filled with God.
This is the conclusion of his prayer in Eph 1:23.
In that prayer, Paul is praying more for contentment.
Now, he is praying for a state of completeness or maturity.
Expressing the desire for you to have everything you need for a life of godliness.
Similar to what he expresses later in Eph 4:13;
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
As an individual you continue to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And as the church, we grow up into Him until we reach fullness.
Lord willing, we will go into more detail on this when we get to that passage in Ephesians 4.
This third request at the end of vs. 19 serves as a summary prayer because we cannot be mature,
We cannot be filled with the fullness,
Unless we know and experience both the power and love of God.
This is why Paul prays this for you.
This is why you should pray this for yourself.
And this is why you should pray this for one another.
What Paul is asking for in these verses is greater than every pitch on Shark Tank combined.
But Praise the Lord, Paul is not pitching to a group of sharks.
No, He is presenting these requests before the Most Powerful Investor in the universe.
YOU: Expected Return (vs. 20-21)
YOU: Expected Return (vs. 20-21)
Whenever an investor buys into something,
They expect a return on their investment.
As believers, when we bring our requests before the Powerful Investor,
As Paul has in this passage,
We do so with great expectation as well.
Let’s look at the Expected Return in Ephesians 3:20-21;
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Paul ends his bold prayer by exploding into this glorious benediction.
Communicating the surpassing nature of Christ,
That He is able to do far more than we can not only ask, but even imagine!
Meaning we can expect God to answer this prayer in a way that is far beyond anything we could come up with ourselves.
As Buzz Lightyear would say, Jesus’s abilities stretch “to infinite, and beyond!”
Back in vs. 16, Paul said according to the riches of His glory, He may grant strength.
God invested the riches of His glory in us, to strengthen us.
Now, in vs. 20-21, according to His power that is at work in us,
Which Paul taught about in detail in Eph. 1:19-23, and 2:5-6.
According to His investment,
To Him returns glory.
He invests glory in us,
His investment at work in us empowers us,
To return His glory back to Him.
Notice, this glory is returned to Him in the church,
And in Christ,
For all eternity!
Forever and ever!
Our praise of God’s glory knows no end!
Tony Merida’s words here are so appropriate;
“Forever, God will be glorified for His power and love. Forever, God will be glorified by His people. Forever, God will be glorified in Christ Jesus, the Lamb who was slain. Forever, God will be glorified in the Christ, who fell to His knees before the Father in the garden of Gethsemane, who took the cup of wrath that we could receive the cup of grace, who has reconciled us to the Father and to one another, and who now dwells in our hearts, through faith by the Spirit. To God be the glory forever!”
We could summarize this passage by saying,
The investment of God’s glory empowers you. Pray for His glory in the church!
Pray for it in your own life.
Pray for it here in FBC Afton.
And pray for it in Christ’s universal Church.
This should be the ultimate goal of our prayers,
His glory in the church and in Christ throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Is this the motivation behind our prayers?
His glory?
or do we have other motives?
The investment of God’s glory empowers you, pray for His glory in the Church!
Please join me in prayer.
WE: Conclusion
WE: Conclusion
Benediction: Jude 24-25