Grace for Tomorrow

Text: Ephesians 3:16-21

Title: Grace for Tomorrow

Textual Theme, Goal, Need

Theme: God empowers his people.

Goal: to encourage Christians that God has empowered them.

Need: In difficult times it might be difficult to see how God is empowering Christians.

Sermon Theme: By his Grace, God empowers Christians

Goal: to encourage Christians that by God’s grace, he is empowering Christians.

Need: After centuries of faith, Christians may fail to realize that by God’s grace is empowering Christians to love.

Sermon Outline:

Introduction about Reformation Day
Point 1: grace can be seen in many ways.
Point 2: grace for salvation and empowerment.
Point 3: All GOD!!!
Conclusion: Celebrate with the doxology that Paul uses in the end of the passage.

Sermon in Oral Style:

Congregation,

Junk mail and spam emails annoy most people in the world. We all deal with them. I remember it being especially annoying in college. Living way away from home, you just can’t wait to get an email from home or a care package or letter in the mail. So when I would see a letter in my mailbox at college addressed to Nathan Kupferus, it was pretty frustrating. When they get your name wrong, you know they have no idea who you are, and probably don’t care a whole lot about what your life is all about.

You know, we get some junk mail here at church as well. Every once in a while a piece of mail will come along and it will misspell the name of the church. It will say “Ebenezer Christian Reform Church” Instead of Christian Reformed Church. Reform instead of Reformed. As little of a mistake that might be, it irritates me even more than if I get a call for Natan Cup er us.

A Reform church sounds like we are like a Reform School, known for its harsh punishments and its strict rules. It takes away one of the parts of the heritage of this congregation we can all be proud of. Being Reformed.

If you are new to this denomination or have only been visiting here for a while, the word Reformed in Christian Reformed means that our churches denomination can be traced back to the days of Martin Luther who risked his life to nail his 95 arguments against Roman Catholic doctrines on the door of the church in Wittenberg. Actually, this Halloween Day which is also called Reformation Day will be the 490th anniversary of when Martin Luther had his part in the beginning of the Reformation of the Church.

This year also happens to mark the 150th anniversary of the organization of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. I could give you a whole history lesson on how that all originated, but you can look that up on wikipedia if you want to know a little more or add the name of our council chairman as one the CRC’s notable members.

490 years of being Reformed. 150 years of being Christian Reformed. There is a lot of history. There is a lot to be proud of in that time. There are many things as a community we need to ask forgiveness for. But there are many parts about the historical reformed faith that we can celebrate together, and we can rededicate ourselves .

As a new generation of people in the Christian Reformed Church, there are many things from the past that we ought to look at evaluate and take with us as we rededicate ourselves to following God with every part.

Here’s five points the first Reformers held to. Scripture alone for truth in our life. Faith alone is necessary for salvation. Grace Alone from God rescues us. Christ alone, not anyone else is the one responsible for our salvation. And God alone deserves the glory for everything.

Statements like these drove the Reformation forward. They were heretical according to the Roman Catholic Church. They cost many reformers their lives.

In our church today, we continue to teach according to these principles.

We dedicate ourselves to continue teaching these principles, but we don’t stop evaluating. We don’t stop wondering. We don’t end the mystery of the power of God by pretending like we had it exactly figured out 500 years ago. God is mysterious. The doctrines that have been handed down to us in generations are meant to guide us in our relationship with a mysterious God, not to simply give us all the answers.

What we do hear from Scripture is that God gives inward power to people.

Ephesians 3:14-21 is a classic writing of Paul. Verse 14-19 is one big run on sentence. His grammar teacher would have failed him for this sort of sentence today. Sola Scriptura. Scritpure alone tells us the truth about God, and their basic message is understandable. But the details of Paul’s sentences aren’t always easy to catch.

The first sentence, “14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. [1]

Phew. Anyone need a rest after trying to catch all that. But in the passage there are a few words that keep on popping up. First you have the names of the Trinity. Father. Holy Spirit. Son. They are all active in that passage.

Where is the trinity active? Paul says he’s praying for the Trinity to be active on the inside of every single person. Verse 16 says Paul prays that these Christians have strength in their inner being. Then verse 17 says, that Christ will dwell in their hearts through faith.

I remember going to a rock concert when I was in High School. The band was Petra. I bet there is a least one other Petra fan here. But at the concert there was a time when the lead singer invited us all to close our eyes and just listen. He shared the gospel message about the death of Christ for our sins. Then he invited us to say a pray that would invite Jesus into our hearts. After that he talked for a long time about how important it was to let Jesus into your heart.

I didn’t think anything of it, but while studying this passage today, I found out that this is the only passage in the Bible where it talks about having Jesus in your heart. This is the only passage.

Why is that important? Is it possible that over the years and years that we have heard about having Jesus in our heart, that we forgot what Christ’s message was? Is it possible Christians today think too much about having Jesus in your heart, instead of having Jesus make a difference in your life and world?

Paul’s prayer in Ephesians is not about conversion. It is about being empowered. Verse 16 says he prays people are strengthened with power so they can have the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ in them. And in verse 18 it says he prays that people may have power to grasp deep down in our hearts, deep down in our guts what the love of Christ is all about.

Fitting with Halloween this week, it is almost as if Paul wants us to be possessed by the fullness of the incomprehensible God. What would that possession be like? . . since God is so much bigger than anything else in the world? Since God’s love and the love of Christ is… what’s it say in our passage… so high and wide and long and deep, it surpasses knowledge. Is it possible that we say we have accepted Christ in our hearts, but we haven’t begun living by the power of that unsurpassable love in our hearts.

The power of God in us makes us able over come the power of negative forces in within us, like sin and doubt. The power of God in us makes us able to influence our world through unimaginable love. You see injustice, God’s love helps you stand up for the rejected. What about when you see hopelessness around you? What about when you see deficiency or waste in your work place. What about when you see anger and unforgiveness. You have the unfathomable love of God in you. We through it we can do the unimaginable. That might even be more than we are doing right now? What do you think?

As we celebrate 150 years of CRC and 490 years of Reformation, what better place to start rededicating ourselves for the future than by acknowledging that God’s love is within us. What better way to start than admitting that something is going to happen with us. Something is going to happen in our congregation in the future because we are going to live by the love of God.

And to close, we need to spend time doing exactly what Paul does to close this prayer report. He stops telling us what he has been praying about. Its almost like his mind gets possessed by these thoughts about the love of God. He opens up into the words that pastors sometimes use as God’s blessing to the congregation as they leave worship.

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.

He starts off like he is going to praise God for this love that is in us… but he can’t yet. He gets caught up again in the sheer amazement that God will do not just some more, but he will do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. He gets so wound up on the mystery and amazement of the work of God that he has to start his praise all over again in verse 21. To God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus. Not just because of the past. Not just for todays generation. Throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Glory to God alone through every generation.

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[1] The Holy Bible : King James Version. electronic ed. of the 1769 edition of the 1611 Authorized Version. Bellingham WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995, S. Eph 3:14-19