Sermon Tone Analysis

A tavern was being built in a town that until recently had been dry.

A group of Christians in a certain church opposed this and began an all-night prayer meeting, asking God to intervene.

Lightning struck the tavern building, and it burned to the ground.

The owner brought a lawsuit against the church, claiming they were responsible.

The Christians hired a lawyer, claiming they were not responsible.

The judge said, “No matter how this case comes out, one thing is clear.

The tavern owner believes in prayer and the Christians do not.”

A tavern was being built in a town that until recently had been dry.

A group of Christians in a certain church opposed this and began an all-night prayer meeting, asking God to intervene.

Lightning struck the tavern building, and it burned to the ground.

The owner brought a lawsuit against the church, claiming they were responsible.

The Christians hired a lawyer, claiming they were not responsible.

The judge said, “No matter how this case comes out, one thing is clear.

The tavern owner believes in prayer and the Christians do not.”

Paul believed deeply in prayer and that is why we see him praying constantly for his people.

We now encounter the 2nd prayer for the Ephesians in this one book.

The first prayer he prays is in .

He had laid out the glorious realities of the gospel in chapter 1. God’s work in Christ to redeem sinners and restore us to God.

We’ve been forgiven and accepted in Christ.

We’ve been made alive in Christ and have had all the riches of his grace lavished on us.

So, Paul prays there that the Ephesians would understand those great realities.

Here in , he returns to praying for them.

In , he was praying that they would understand that they have in Christ.

In , he prays that they will apply it.

Paul’s prayers are not simply for enlightenment, but the also prays for enablement.

Here, he returns to praying for them.

+Our prayers sometimes are too limited.

We are content with prayers of understanding.

We think that if we simply understand the gospel that is enough.

Paul helps us see that God wants more for us than simply understanding what he has done for us.

He wants us to experience the fulness of what he has done for us.

What he wants us to experience is him.

God’s greatest gift to us is himself.

Toward the end of this prayer we see exactly what he is praying that they have.

Eph.

3:

That’s an interesting prayer, “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (v.19) “filled with fullness.”

Because if you are being filled with something, you want it to be fullness.

The worse thing in the world is to be filled with emptiness.

It’s easy to have your life filled.

But a lot of the things we fill our hearts with leave us empty.

Many people are not just empty, but they are filled with emptiness.

They are relaying on everything else in life to give their life satisfaction.

But, everything seems to fail.

You will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything else but Christ - Charles Spurgeon

You will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything else but Christ - Charles Spurgeon

So that emptiness is meant to point us to the fullness that can only come in God.

God wants your life to find fullness where it was meant to be found, in your Creator and now your redeemer.

That is where Paul found his great fullness.

When Paul found Christ, he compared everything else that he had filled his life with was rubbish or dung.

Paul says it makes perfect sense to look to God for joy since he is “the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”

(v.15)

In other words, all things came from God, all things find their identity from God, of course God would be where we find our meaning.

+This is where some Christians are scratching their heads a little.

You are thinking, I have Christ, but I’ve never known that kind of joy.

That has to do with these two prayers.

Some of you have the knowledge of the gospel, an understanding of the gospel, but not the experience of living daily with the experience of the God of the gospel.

That’s why this prayer is so important.

Paul shows us the pathway of living with the fullness of God.

It is just that, it is a pathway.

We don’t find it in one step.

Its not found going through one door.

But you have to go through one door to get to the next door.

As a matter of fact Paul says to get there we have to walk through 4 Doors.

4 Doors to Daily Joy in God

Door #1 The Power of the Spirit (v.16)

Eph.

3:15-16

Where does this spiritual power come from?

It comes from the Spirit.

But, where does the Spirit get that power to apply?

Paul tells us.

He helps us understand that from the beginning of this text.

v.14

For what reason?

The reasons that he had just given in .

In chapter 2, Paul tells us that Christ makes us spiritually alive in Him (2:5), we are His workmanship (v.10), we are “no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (v.19).

And we are “build on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone.”

(v.20)

Paul is saying that our new identity makes us a dwelling place for God, so he wants the Spirit to bring us to the point that we use the power that our great status in Christ provides us.

We do not realize the power that we have to connect with the Almighty Father.

Notice where our power comes.

“according to the riches of his glory.”

(v.16)

Notice that he says “according to” not “out of” the riches of his glory.

Why is that important?

A multimillionaire might give $50-$100 out of his riches, but that would not be “according to his riches.”

He would have to give many thousands of dollars to be according to his riches.

The power that we have to live above this world in spiritual power and communion with God doesn’t not simply come from God’s riches.

It is according to God’s riches.

When you feel defeated, or spiritually depleted or far from God.

When Satan tells you God is distant from you, remember the same power that raised Jesus saves us from our sin and is available for us to battling sin and connected to God.

So Paul believes that prayer gives us power.

In 1540 Luke’s good friend and assistant, Friedrich Myconius, became sick and was expect to die within a short time.

From his bed he wrote a tender farewell letter to Luther.

When Luther received the message, he immediately sent back a reply: “I command thee in the name of God to live because I still have need of thee in the work of reforming the church… The Lord will never let me hear that thou art dead, but will permit thee to survive me.

For this I am praying, this is my will, and My my will be done, because I seek only to glorify the name of God.”

”

Those words seem harsh and insensitive to our ears, but God apparently honored the prayer.

Myconius had already lost the ability to speak when Luther’s reply came, he soon recovered.

He lived six more years and died two months after Luther.

There is power in Christ, we just need to access it.

May we pray that the Spirit empower us all to do just that.