God’s Great Plan (2)

Intro

It’s a good time for us to be discussing prayer as a young church

When I first started dreaming about what New Creation Church could be and putting to paper what I believed God was calling us to do, top of the list was that we would be a praying church

Grateful for Dave taking lead to help move us forward in that direction

Today, we are going to look at a prayer that a pastor - Paul - prays over the people he loves - the church in Ephesus

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 3:14-21

Ephesians 3:14–21 ESV

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 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. 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.

Scripture Reading from JB Phillips

When I think of the greatness of this great plan I fall on my knees before the Father (from whom all fatherhood, earthly or heavenly, derives its name), and I pray that out of the glorious richness of his resources he will enable you to know the strength of the Spirit’s inner re-inforcement - that Christ may actually live in your hearts by your faith. And I pray that you, firmly fixed in love yourselves, may be able to grasp (with all Christians) how wide and deep and long and high is the love of Christ - and to know for yourselves that love so far beyond our comprehension. May you be filled through all your being with God himself!

Now to him who by his power within us is able to do infinitely more than we ever dare to ask or imagine - to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever, amen!

(Ephesians 3:14-21, JB Phillips)

Pray

Transition

Coach Little League

Many of you know I am deeply involved in Sarasota Little League

When Jeremiah started t-ball at age 5, I offered to help be an assistant coach

Well, then came that call

“Hey, we don’t have enough coaches. Would you be willing to be the head coach?”

I figure since that time, I’ve coached about 20 seasons between fall and spring

To be honest, kinda lost count

And in one particular season of insanity, I coached 3 teams - two for Jeremiah and one for Micah

Well each spring, we have a coaches’ softball game

It’s a really foolish night where those of us in our 40s and 50s try and relive the glory days acting like we are 10 or 11 again

I mean, it’s kinda ridiculous to see a bunch of grown men and women trying to see how far we can hit a softball field on a Little League field

And I guarantee some amount of dumb is bound to unfold

One year I was playing shortstop and went back for a short fly ball and crashed into an outfielder coming in to make the catch

First thing we teach kids about catching fly balls is to call it - “Mine”

Of course we didn’t do that and I can’t guarantee it, but I probably broke a finger on that collision

Importantly that did not keep me from continuing to play!

Another year, a friend of mine on literally the first play of the game, hit the ball and started to run toward first base

About 3 steps in, he stumbled and barrel rolled for about the next 10 feet

You better believe we have never let him live that one down

But that is the pursuit of the glory days, an attempt to fill our souls with those fleeting moments of when life was good

Think about the chorus of the song Glory Days by Bruce Springsteen

Glory days, well they’ll pass you by

Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye

Glory days, glory days

It’s a song that for many is sadly ironic and for many sadly prophetic where all the good days are past and the only thing left is to try and recapture a little of those glory days

And that brings us back again to our text where Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus

He wants them to experience the fullness of life, but it’s not found in clinging to the glory days

Instead, Paul prays something much greater

God’s great plan of salvation fills us with his Spirit, fixes us in his love, and flows out of us in doxology.

The Great Plan

First, let’s consider that phrase

Ephesians 3:14 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,”

I love the phrase from the JB Phillips translation

“When I think of the greatness of this great plan”

It’s this picture of Paul being overwhelmed

It’s not just that God had a great plan

But think about just how great that great plan is!

So what, exactly, was so great about this great plan?

What is the “for this reason”?

Well, look at what came before it in Ephesians - what we have already covered in Ephesians

God the Father chose you before the foundation of the world to be adopted as his children (1:4-6)

God the Son died on the cross for you who were dead in your sins and now you are made alive with Christ (2:1-9)

God the Holy Spirit opened your heart to the gospel and drew you in so that no longer are you an outsider, but are a citizen of heaven and a member of God’s household (2:19)

God has made the worst of sinners into messengers of this great plan (3:8-9)

God has invited us, through faith in Christ, to approach God with confidence (3:12-13)

It’s almost as if reflecting on that incredible plan causes Paul to burst forth

This great plan of salvation has a greatness about it!

Transition

So what happens was Paul considers the great plan?

His prayer for the church in Ephesus is that they would be

Filled with the Spirit

Fixed in love

Flowing with doxology

Filled with the Spirit

Ephesians 3:16 “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 I pray that out of the glorious richness of his resources, he will enable you to know the strength of the Spirit’s inner reinforcement - that Christ may actually live in your hearts by your faith

The first thing that Paul prays for is that believers - both the church in Ephesus and for you and I - that we would know the strength of the Spirit’s inner reinforcement

You, believer in Jesus Christ, have the very power of the Holy Spirit inside of you

I like that picture of inner reinforcement

This imagery of something that is weak and frail and easy to crush or collapse

But the Holy Spirit goes back through and puts up this inner reinforcement to make you stronger

And he is not doing this by hitting the scrap yard to see what he can find or picking up some spare parts on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace

He is strengthening out of his own glorious riches

But Paul reiterates this over and again here

Ephesians 3:17 “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,”

“That Christ may actually live in your hearts by faith”

Ephesians 3:19 “and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

“May you be filled through all your being with God himself”

When Paul considers God’s great plan of salvation, the first thing he does is pray that the people of God - in Ephesus and us! - would be filled with the Holy Spirit

What an amazing promise and guarantee that God the Holy Spirit is the one who indwells us, who abides with us, and who is that inner reinforcement to strengthen us and sustain us when we are weak!

Fixed in Love

If the first thing Paul prays for is that the people of Ephesus would be filled with the Spirit

The second is that they would be fixed in love

Ephesians 3:17–19 “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.”

And I pray that you, firmly fixed in love yourselves, may be able to grasp (with all Christians) how wide and deep and long and high is the love of Christ - and to know for yourselves that love so far beyond our comprehension

He says that they are “rooted and grounded in love”

“Firmly fixed in love”

They have a strong foundation in the love of Christ

What he longs for them now is to know that the love of Christ is not just a foundation

He wants them to know how big it is

How wide and deep and long and high

He wants them to be overwhelmed at the bigness… at the extent… of the love of Christ

Somehow, as we “mature” as Christians, we think we can move past the love of Christ

Yeah, we’ve got that - we understand God loves us

Songs like “Jesus loves me” were for kids

Yet the invitation here is to bask in the hugeness of God’s love

A love that is beyond even your ability to comprehend

If the image of the Spirit’s inner-reinforcement was that of a support structure that gives strength to something

Here being fixed in love acts as the concrete foundation

Flowing with Doxology

So we are filled with the Spirit and fixed in love

But listen here to Paul flowing - maybe even overflowing - with doxology - with worship

It’s almost like he can’t contain himself

As he reflects on God’s great plan, he flows with praise and worship of his God

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,”

Bowing his knees

Opening of this prayer is worship

Then we get to the great outburst at the end

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.”

Or again, in the words of the JB Phillips translation

Now to him who by his power within us is able to do infinitely more than we ever dare to ask or imagine - to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever, amen!

Verses 20 and 21 here might be my 2 favorite verses in the Bible

I love the imagery - God is able to do more than we can even think of - more than we even dare to imagine

I can ask a lot and I can imagine a lot

But beyond that, I can dare to ask for even more

But catch those words again

He can do “infinitely more than we ever dare to ask or imagine”

Whatever our minds can conceive

He can do way way way way more than that!

And the result?

He gets the glory

Because he is the one who fills us with his own Spirit

Because he is the one who loves with that high and long and deep and wide love that we are fixed in

Because he does more than we dare to ask or image

He gets the glory

To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus

Now and forever!

For Paul, this prayer is framed by worship and flows with doxology

Connection to Church Planting

Briefly allow me to share how I see this connecting specifically to the work we are doing in the planting of New Creation Church

Even in this passage, I find three of the great groundings for going to plant a church

First, God’s great plan of salvation is not just for us

It’s for our friends, neighbors, all who God would call to himself

We need, like Paul, to declare the greatness of God’s great plan!

Second, being fixed in God’s love allows us to start loving as he does

I have a friend who is planting a church in Colorado

As he was discerning where to go plant, he kept asking God to give him a place to uniquely and deeply love

To love what is beautiful and to love what is broken in that place

To love the people in that place in their beauty and in their brokenness

Are we, both as individuals, able to love what is beautiful and what is broken right here in Sarasota?

There is so much beautiful

We have some of the most gorgeous beaches in the world!

But there is also a lot of brokenness

Division in our community

There can be a lot of success - personally and professionally - without any fulfillment

People who do well by all external appearances but they are hollow and hurting inside

We could elaborate on the beauty and the brokenness,

And maybe that would be a fascinating exercise for us at some point to stop and identify what we see as the beautiful and the broken in our community

But what I am clear on is the desperate need of our friends and neighbors and community is to know how high and long and deep and wide is the love of God for themselves

Third, we have a value of lagniappe

New Orleans concept of “a little extra”

Spoke about this a little last time we were together

I would love us to be a church that surprises people by going the extra mile, surprises people with our generosity and hospitality, surprises people by our kindness

But we can only do that “little extra” because we have a God who did the lot extra

He is the God who is able to do infinitely more than we even dare to ask or imagine

And we reflect that bigness of God by our surprising people by doing more and loving more than they expected

Conclusion

Ok, thanks for allowing me to take that little detour

In our passage, Paul is praying for the church in Ephesus

He prays that as they reflect on God’s great plan of salvation, that they would be filled with his Spirit, fixed in his love, and flowing with doxology

So I would like to pray that for you right now

Pray

Lord, when I think of the greatness of your great plan for New Creation Church, I fall on my knees before you, God the Father (from whom all fatherhood, earthly or heavenly, derives its name), and I pray that out of the glorious richness of your resources you will enable us as a new, young church to know the strength of the Spirit’s inner re-inforcement - that Christ may actually live in our hearts by faith. And I pray that we, firmly fixed in your love, may be able to grasp (with all Christians) how wide and deep and long and high is the love of Christ - and to know for ourselves that love so far beyond our comprehension. May we, New Creation Church, be filled through all our being with God himself!

Now to him who by his power within us is able to do infinitely more than we ever dare to ask or imagine - to him be glory in the New Creation Church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever, amen!

God’s great plan of salvation fills us with his Spirit, fixes us in his love, and flows out of us in doxology.