Spiritual Strength
Notes
Transcript
We are taking a pit stop in the gospel of Mark. We will resume after Easter. But between now and then, we are going to be in Ephesians, specifically chapters 3-4. I want to highlight aspects of our church family that we should really value. So next week, we will begin looking at what I see as our core values here at Immanuel. Today, I want to lay the groundwork for that. And the groundwork for that is our hearts. The focus will be on the strength we get from God and how that shapes who we are as followers of Jesus.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
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,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 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,
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Intro - Worlds strongest man competition; began in 1977; different events; competitors from all over the world; current champ is Tom Stoltman(3rd title); specialty is the Atlas Stones; holds record for lifting a 631 lb stone and placing on 4 ft tall podium
strength is desirable; physical strength can help us improve quality of life; but more important is spiritual strength
think of someone who you consider spiritually strong; their life isn’t perfect, but it is focused
lives ebb and flow; sometimes stronger than others; I think of personal revival; think back to a time when you were truly on fire for the Lord; how great did you feel; problems didn’t go away but you were focused
Main Idea - God strengthens us with the Holy Spirit through the love of Jesus Christ
Main Idea - God strengthens us with the Holy Spirit through the love of Jesus Christ
my prayer for each of us is that we are strengthened spiritually; our text will show how important it is to our strength for us to focus on the work of God in our life
Probing question - Does Christ dwell fully in your heart? Do you need personal renewal/revival?
really burdened this week by the idea of revival/renewal/restoration; experiencing a personal renewal; renewal is a new strengthening of God in your life; the text ultimately is focused on our life in Christ; if you need a personal revival, this scripture is what you need today
background - letter from Paul to church in Ephesus; large busy city; lots of attractions there; heavily influenced by Greek culture(pagan worship); Roman emperor cult(worshiped Caesar Augustus); Christians were really against the grain; “Jesus is Lord”=Caesar is not; whole letter emphasizes the Lordship of Jesus
Strengthened by the Spirit
Strengthened by the Spirit
In the section were are starting with in this letter, Paul speaks of the power of prayer. Prayer is something that is extremely important in the life of a believer. It is our communication with God. We use it to vocalize adoration to God, we use it to confess sin to God, we use it to thank God for what he has done for us, and we use it to ask God to do things as well.
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
Paul understands the importance of prayer and is telling his audience how important it is. He even vocalizes this picture of bowing our knees to God. When you bow your knee to someone or something, you are showing both honor and adoration. And both of these things are to be shown to God from followers of Christ.
Lets see the reverence that Paul gives to God. He names him Father. But not because he is Paul’s father, but because he is father of all. V.15; every family in heaven and on earth is underneath the fatherhood of God.
For this reason, what is the reason?
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,
How often do we lose sight of who God truly is? Maybe this is something that we don’t spend enough time thinking about or maybe this is something that you have never truly thought about. There is a comparison culture today about how much people are worth. And you may think that this isn’t quite true but when we spend so much time comparing homes in value and size and vehicles by their luxury and clothes and shoes and jewelry, we are focused on peoples riches. But none of our riches will ever compare to the riches of God.
Why? Because of his glory. God’s glory is what we see when we receive spiritual strength. His glory working in our lives. It is his glory working in us that gives us spiritual strength. I see too many Christians walking around who are not experiencing this. This is why we use terms like revival/renewal/restoration. I too have been in this position. I am no super Christian who has everything together. I struggle and I fail. But that same Holy Spirit that Paul talks about here with the Ephesians is the same Holy Spirit that you and I have in us.
God’s glory working through the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul uses the term “inner being”. I talked about the worlds strongest man competition and we know that these men have physical strength. But being strong on the outside does not mean that we have strength in our inner being. This is where everyone needs strength. There are people who will live their entire lives and never get into a physical altercation with someone. But everyone, and I mean everyone, will have a spiritual struggle where they need strength from the Holy Spirit to make it through.
The Christian life is not an easy one. If someone told you it would be, they lied. And if you think it is as you feel like you are walking it, then you may want to look at your life through the lens of scripture. Because the Christian life is a life of death. And death is not easy. We are constantly dying to ourselves. We are dying to sin in our life. And we are putting our lives on death row in this world to be the hands and the feet and the mouthpieces of Jesus.
So we need strength. I don’t know what everyone is going through. Sometimes we are open to our struggles and sometimes we go through struggles all alone because we feel like we don’t need everyone knowing what we are going through and we want to look strong. Whether you are in financial troubles, relationship troubles, work troubles, my prayer is that you bow your knee to the father and that you ask for strength through the Holy Spirit working in and through you.
Strengthened by the Son
Strengthened by the Son
First, in his encouragement to the Ephesians and also to us today, he points out the Holy Spirit. Next, he points out the Son, Jesus Christ.
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
We are strengthen by the Spirit so that Christ may dwell in us. This word “dwell” is an interesting one. Maybe you read this and think, well Jesus saved me so I know he dwells in my heart. And you are right. This is taking this word as Jesus inhabiting your heart. But Paul is talking about Christ ruling in our hearts. This word here carries with it the idea of a permanent residence.
Several years ago, when me and Brittany were looking for a new home, she made me to promise her one thing. That the house would not need any major projects. See, the last 2 homes that we had, we remodeled a large portion of it. And she didn’t want to have to do any remodeling. But now, as we have been there several years, we are starting to see things that we want to do to our home.
Jesus dwelling in our lives is like someone finding that home that they really want. And they buy it and move into it and they know that for the whole time that they are there, it will be one project after another. Jesus dwells in our lives with this long term view of ownership. And over time, he remodels our lives.
And because of this, our roots grow deeper and deeper. They grow in love. There is this direct correlation between Jesus restoring our souls and the love that we have. Not only to God, but to others as well. As Jesus restores us, our focuses will change. We will focus more and more on Jesus working in our lives while at the same time, we will focus more and more on others and how we can love them and serve them.
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
God’s love knows no bounds. I have heard it said that you can never outrun God. And I find that to be completely true. Paul knows this himself to be very true. Paul used to be a man named Saul who hunted Christians down to kill them. But then, Saul was met on the road one day by Jesus and was transformed. We read this in the book of Acts, chapter 9. Saul was killing Christians. You would think, if anyone would ever be too far from God to be saved, it would be Saul.
This mentality still continues. People feel like that are too far from God. They think for God to accept them, that they need to clean themselves up. But that is the opposite. When Paul came to faith, he was a terrible man. God did not let him stay that way though and because of the Spirit working in him and the son loving him, his love continued to grow. If you feel like you are too far for God to rescue you or use you, you are wrong. And I pray that Jesus speaks to you through his word today and draws you in through the Holy Spirit.
19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Not only does the love of God know no boundaries, but it also is beyond the common human understanding. The world does not understand the forgiving love of Christ. It lives by the eye for an eye rule. You do me wrong, it is only right if I do wrong back to you. But that is the opposite of Christ’s example for us. One of the main tenants of the Christian faith is receiving the forgiveness of Jesus when we don’t deserve it. This is grace. This is the good news.
We as Christians believe what we call the Gospel, which literally means good news. (gospel presentation)
But, not only is the love of Christ so prevalent in our lives, we are also to be filled with the fullness of God. So, everything that we can get from God, we are to continuously seek this out. This is where spiritual disciplines become so important for us as believers. Prayer, reading God’s word, worship, evangelism, serving, being good stewards, etc.
We do these individually as we grow. But there is a corporate sense to this as well. When we put this together, we go back to v.18 and see that these things are done together with all the saints. Yes, we are to focus on ourselves. But there is this camaraderie and relational aspect of the Christian life that we have together.
I mentioned earlier about revival. Many churches pray for revival to happen. People think that it will happen church wide without it happening in the personal lives of the people. There is this cohesion between our personal lives and the life of the church. And Paul is tying together having spiritual strength personally into a corporate, whole church sense.
Our strength does not come from within ourselves. Our strength does not come from having certain friends or family. Our spiritual strength comes from the Holy Spirit working in our lives and the love of Christ changing our lives, and often this happens together within the church with the individuals.
Strengthened by God
Strengthened by God
20 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,
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
I love these verses. If you want to sum up how much grace and mercy we are shown by God, this is a good one to go to.
Now to him(God) who is able; who is able to do far more; who is able to do far more abundantly; who is able to do far more abundantly than we ask; who is able to do far more abundantly than we can ask or think.
To think of how great God is would be near impossible to put into words. But Paul does a wonderful job of it here. If you want to compare our human ability to do something to God’s ability to do something, there is no comparison. Thinking back to the strong man competition. This would be like you and I going and competing against those men. Actually, it would be more like a 6 month old baby competing against them.
God can do so much more than any of us can. So why do we try to be strong on our own? Scripture opens our eyes here in our passage to our complete lack of ability to do anything outside of the power of God. Any strength or power that you gain on your own, it will diminish. But the power of God will last forever. It was here long before you came around and will be here long after you are gone.
Our humanity cannot come close to touching the holiness and glory of God. God gives us power, not our own but his, for His glory. He doesn’t have to do that but he does. Just thinking about something like this should cause humility, reverence, worship in us. And because he is displaying his glory in us through this, we should give him glory. Look at verse 21 as we begin to close.
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Glory in the church and Jesus. The bride and the bridegroom. The bride brings glory to God through the love and power of the bridegroom. It was happening then and it still happens now. All generations, forever.
Conclusion
I know that Paul is talking about the entire church here. All believers over all time. But, I want to narrow this down here because I am not presently speaking to all believers of all time. I am speaking to Immanuel Baptist Church right now. For God’s glory to be full in the church, it must first be full in the people. I asked a question to begin with.
Does Christ fully dwell in your heart? Such a simple yet profound question. We have heard what God’s word has to say today. Maybe the answer to that is yes. Maybe you have felt such a growth in your relationship with Christ lately that you feel closer to him than ever and you can’t imagine Christ dwelling in your heart more than he already does.
But maybe the answer to that question is no, Christ does not fully dwell in your heart. God is calling you to surrender fully to Jesus working in your life today. Stop trying to live this life by your own power and strength and submit to Jesus. You have heard the gospel. Turn away from your life and turn to Jesus.
This idea of renewal/restoration/revival is so important to us as believers. We live in the ebbs and flows of life and we need renewal when those times come that we feel weak because we are trying to live in our own strength and power.
I want us to close differently today. I usually try to have some very practical application for us. But the only application that I have today is for us to bow before God and ask him for strength. To ask him for renewal/restoration/revival. So I am going to ask that everyone, if you can, get up and come down front and we are all going to pray. If you feel led to pray out loud, please do that. Pray for God to move in us, to work in us, for Christ to dwell in us fully, for God to revive us personally and for God to revive us as a church.
