Strength From God
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Strength Form God
Strength Form God
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
Eph 3:16
The text today, takes a slight turn from some of the concerns we examined in our earlier dealing with the book of will refrain from trying to give a recap, but we will see vestiges of earlier themes in this pericope. In Chapter 3, The Apostle Paul gives us a reason for his ministry. He prays for the believers in Emphasis and gives us a doxology. There are reoccurring problems with the text from my vantage point. I have certain problems that scream out from the text and it causes problems not only for my hermeneutic but it causes me a bit of disappointment because someone told me that I would gain clarity from the scriptures.
In verse 1, the Apostle makes clear he is in jail. He further states that he is in jail for us Gentiles. Now my question is how do you have the nerve to explain to me, who is not locked up, the validity of your ministry, while you are locked up. It almost seems delusional. Are you believing that God will erect a sanctuary at the jail house? Have you received some special revelation that God will bring success to you while you are in jail?
But once again, one has to appreciate the boldness of the statement. God’s plan for me is not limited to where I am now. We are guilty of this type of imposition. We believe that God cannot do what he said because we did not do what we ought. We believe that God cannot afford or finance our word because we are broke. As a matter of fact we make decision based on our present circumstance. We cancel meeting because we don’t see what resource God has planned for us. We sabotage our own promise, cancel good promises because we don’t get.
Has your Present Circumstance ever caused you to question, “What is wrong with my Promise”?
Paul, listen, other Apostles are doing great works while you are locked up. Maybe you shouldn’t keep prophesying from there. Wait till God delivers you before you start speaking. The Apostles who actually walked with Jesus, are not doing what you’re doing, from Jail. You have said yourself. Why are you hoping when your marriage is breaking up. He walked out, what are doing worshipping here. Shouldn’t you at least leave the state where don’t nobody know you? Girl, I would move to Chicago and praise God there, how you gonna praise God from your jail? Your doctor just told you, you have cancer and you got the nerve to be out of your bed praising God. Your behavior do not fit the facts of your circumstances.
How can you be sure that God is working, when you are in Jail?
I’m not even Failing in Private! But somehow I am still hanging on to his Word?
Paul exacerbates the issue by telling us while he is locked up that God, revealed “the mystery”. Paul, you mean God has revealed the mystery of his will for us and could not tell you, the cops were coming?
Success in God’s Economy has nothing to do with where you are Now!
What is God’s Plan?
To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
Let’s look at it in the NLT
God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
Can you help me? I am having a problem wrapping my mind around this statement. What is Pastor Paul talking about?
Has he seen the church? Especially, today. We have made a mess out of our lives and God’s great plan is to use us? The very statement defies credulity. Even the church in Paul’s time was a trip. But the amazing thing is that God is trying to convince men, according to this text he showing angels. Sinless angels are being shown God’s wisdom by examining God’s church. Our messed up church. See what we need to realize is that the church is really amazing because he does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called. The church is not awesome because you do everything right. The church is awesome because he planned for you inadequacies. God knew you were a mess when he called you. What the angels are blown away by is how his love can change you to someone who wants to do right by God. What the angels are being shown is that in your weakness, he is made strong. It is incredible that we in the church could live out the prophetic utterance of Isaiah.
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion,
To give unto them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they might be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.
The angels are baffled! Most if I were to be honest, so am I.
Love lifted Me. When Nothing else would help, Love Lifted me!!!!
How could God use me? If I were to be honest, I should have dead, but God. I should have been locked up, But God. I tried to end my life, But God. I still get up in the morning thinking, how could I show my face in God’ s house? Every-time I come through the doors house, somehow, I feel I belong here. How could I be a son of God. How could obtain favor in his sight. Yet, God sanctified me. God Justified me. I don’t have to explain anything to anyone. God gave me faith. H saved me. This is why I worship God, This is why I praise him.
Then Paul says:
According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:
In the NLT
This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.
This was God’s plan. I need to communicate this better. When I was busy sinning against God, as wrong as I was, My mess did not change God’s plan. His plan is eternal. I am not. He wanted me first. He loved me first. I messed up after he loved me and he still kept me. God did not throw me away. I had to do right. I could love him on my terms, but he did not throw me away. Listen, the world is full of people who will throw me away. Not God. When I was rolling up blunts, this was his eternal plan. When I was living riotously, he had an eternal plan. His plan was that I would be saved, doing good works, praising him, loving him, he planned it in eternity past.
Wait, if he planned that, before I got here, what does God still have planned for me now? You mean, while I am in jail, he still called me to serve him. Hey, Pastor Leo, while you might have twenty people in front of you, he still called you blessed.
I need to give God praise for what he planned. i need to praise him for what I do not see.
Now the text:
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
Eph 3:
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.
Pastor, in praying for the church, is deliberate in his wording. As a Pastor, I must admit, that this is my privilege. Prayer is an opportunity to watch the divine out weigh the mundane. This is where hope meets faith. Where faith empowers actuality. Where actuality is powerless to resist the authority of God’s word. What do you mean pastor?
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth:
It shall not return unto me void,
But it shall accomplish that which I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
Pastor Paul prays and petitions God that when he blesses you, that when he grants this to you, he would grant it according to the riches of his glory. God grant it according to your riches in glory. why would Apostle Paul, pray that God would do it according to and not out of? These are the questions one of the scholars, Stephen Fowl, asked. He left the question largely unanswered, to my satisfaction but I would like to hazard a hypothesis. Go with me.
Honestly, from my vantage point, if he were to bless me out of his riches, it is still a good thing. The character of God lets me know that if he were to bless me out of his riches, I would be blessed indeed. I would be made whole. He would see my need and fulfill it. It means that I had an insufficiency and God “who is rich in mercy” made me whole. But when or if God blesses me out of, my need is defined by what makes me whole. here is the correlation. When my need is to get my mortgage paid, wholeness is defined by the amount of the mortgage. What is awesome about that is because God is rich, it doesn’t matter what the mortgage is, he can handle it.
But when you are blessed according to His riches, your limits are not considered. When he blesses you according to his riches, he blesses you according to his paradigm. If I do not think like God, I don’t expect like God. If I don’t expect like God, I don’t bless like God. But if he blesses according to His riches, my issues are not the bench mark. In other words, I may need my mortgage paid, but according to his riches, he gives till I am independent of the mortgage.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are my ways higher than your ways,
And my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8
Now Pastor Paul is praying that God would grant you strength, but he is praying for strength in the inner man. This is really interesting and I must admit that my context informs a different hermeneutic than that of many of the scholars I read. They based this hermeneutic on
2 Cor 4:16
For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
The scholars suggest the way to understand this text is that the Apostle is praying that because the outward man perishes, we should God to strengthen our inner man. I get it, but examine this with me. I am aware that my outward man, the man you see and speak too, is often the facade we use to project strength. Often, we are not as strong as we look. Often the strength you think I have is really a front so you don’t know that I am scared out of my mind. You see my suit, how I carry my self and somehow I got you all fooled that I am this dude who has it together. I often get asked questions, how did you do that? How did you get that? If the truth be told, I don’t only know how I got it, I don’t know how I am holding on to it.
And if I would really be honest, that inner man is where my doubt festers. That’s where the fear you don’t see, lives. The inner man is something I go to great lengths to make sure you never see. The real me? Good luck trying to get me to open up about that. Honestly, I need a safe place to talk about that, and even many of our churches are not safe places. Being saved in our context is often a reason for Trauma!!!! Pastor Paul, knowing the Trauma of his incarceration has on the saints prays that they would be strengthened.
But I declare that the Trauma of life, will not take hold over this church. I declare
Strength From God
I declare that your Inner Man be Strengthened. That God would deal in the places you don’t show anyone.