Sermon Tone Analysis

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens in the Cascade Range of Washington exploded with what is probably the most visible indication of the power of nature that the modern world has ever seen.

At 8:32 A.M. the explosion ripped 1,300 feet off the mountain, with a force of ten million tons of TNT, or roughly equal to five hundred Hiroshima’s.

Sixty people were killed, most by a blast of 300-degree heat traveling at two hundred miles an hour.

Some were killed as far as sixteen miles away.

The blast also leveled 150-foot Douglas firs, as far as seventeen miles away.

A total of 3.2 billion board-feet of lumber were destroyed, enough to build 200,000 three-bedroom homes.

Never underestimate the power of God

There are two main messages I like to leave you with this morning about the Scripture we just read...

First, The very powerful reason that Paul had for this prayer

Second, What the power of God gives us

Paul wrote this letter to the Ephesians while in prison for preaching the Gospel.

However, as you read it, there is no where do you notice any self-pity or depression on his part.

He wrote this letter as if he was staying in a nice house on the beach somewhere versus being in prison.

Some historians say that this letter was written within a year or two of his execution.

Yet, despite the circumstances under which it was written, it was written with great emotion and with Joy, Thankfulness and an overwhelming love for God.

A pretty good example of how in a chaotic world we can always stop and be thankful and pray.

This letter , was not meant to straighten out believers, or call out something they were doing wrong.

It was written to encourage the church at Ephesus in their walk as Christians.

The only concern he addressed in the letter was that non-jewish Christians were being treated differently and and not as a part of God's family.

This was actually the second prayer in his letter to the Ephesians the first one is in , when Paul prayed for them to have a greater understanding and wisdom of who God is and what he had done for them.

As Paul started out his prayer in verse 14 he started by saying for this reason or when I think of what God has done.

His first action was to kneel before the father This was an act of both thankfulness and to show honor to the one who created Heaven and earth and had given him a new life.

By bowing at his knees he was making sure that God knew that the words he spoke were not a matter of boasting about himself.

He wanted to show himself as a humble servant and give God all the honor he so richly deserved.

What was the reason Paul talked about?

If you look closely to what he started out saying in verse 14, he started out with the same phrase from verse 1 in this chapter, In Verse he got so carried away with talking about God's amazing grace that he actually got sidetracked in his letter and had to begin again in verse 14.

So, I guess if it's OK for Paul’s mind to wander sometimes when praying, we should beat ourselves up too much about it when it happens to us.

My wife used to say that she fell asleep while praying at night and it kind of bothered her, but, think about, what is a better way to fall asleep then doing it while talking to God.

So, what got him sidetracked and carried away?

He was suddenly overcome with the emotion on remembering the grace that God given him, and that a God who created the Heavens and the Earth and knows what we are really like, allows each of us to live out our lives as his children and a part of God's family.

Paul clearly understood the joy of serving God.

For Paul that emotion was a natural response to the undeserved mercy and grace he was given from God. Because, when Christ lives in you, just as it did Paul, the Holy Spirit is an ever present sign and reminder that what God promises, he will make happen and those promises can not be broken.

In , the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is a deposit guarantee to eternal life.

Jesus promised us eternal life if we trust in him, the Holy Spirit is the deposit left with us to ensure that promise would be kept.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.

And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--

You see, just as it says in verse 15, we are a family, and as children adopted into his family we enjoy the same privileges as the natural born children do and are heirs to everything the heavenly father holds.

In Paul’s day, anyone who was adopted, as God did for us, was entitled to the exact same privileges as the children naturally born to the parents.

Even if you were born a slave, once adopted, you were given the same treatment as their very own biological child.

So, what does that mean to us today.

No matter who you are or what you were before, once you become a child of the king you have the privileges of a child of the king, but also along with those privileges, we must remember that there are responsibilities that come with being a child of a king.

So the reason that overwhelmed Paul in verse 14 was that he knew where he had come and he knew where he was now, a child of the king, by the mercy and grace of God.

Just as Paul did, when we pray we should understand that though we were once beggars, we are now children of the King and that we have the responsibility and privilege to ask the father to help those we love and to ask for those things we really need.

Tombstone....Born a slave, died a child of the King

The power of God, has been given to us through his endless and divine riches, which allows us to grow stronger each and every day.

In Paul’s day, just like today, riches were associated with influence and power.

While rich and powerful is not always a good comparison for how we as Christians should be, because of our perception that it allows some people to get by with things they normally wouldn't be able to.

God's riches provide are just the opposite, his positive influence and power, though the Holy Spirit, gives us a stronger faith and trust in God.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

This same power and influence through the work of the Holy Spirit allows each of us to come to the knowledge of who God is, and once we have trusted our lives to him, this same spirit empowers us each day to walk out our lives trusting him to meet each of our needs.

When we fly on an airplane we trust the pilot of a plane to know where he is going and safely get us to our destination.

God knows every pothole, every curve, every roadblock on the road we travel.

He has seen the complete journey of each of our lives, and having placed our faith in him get us safely to our destination.

To him there are no surprises.

It's that same spiritual power that allows us to walk out our lives in faith in someone greater then you or I.

Once you have that faith and the Holy spirit lives in you, you will naturally start to grow and your faith develops roots.

As roots grow into the ground, they help the plants and trees with 3 thing very important things.

1. Absorbing water and food, 2. Anchoring the body to the ground, and 3. storing the food and nutrients needed for the tree or plant.

As Christians, our roots help us take in the word of God to feed our souls, they keep us grounded and anchored to a faith in God, allowing us the weather out the storms and trials we face.

Pampered trees make shallow roots, and deep roots are something to be treasured.

Trees growing wild in the forest are rugged, strong, and durable.

Tall and tough with deep roots.

Adversity and deprivation seem to have benefited them in ways that being sheltered and pampered couldn't.

These roots also allow us store up faith to help us through the dry places in our lives, often when we feel God is far away

Roots will also not grow in dry ground, they must be nourished with water, and and just like trees, believers need that living water to keep us nourished , as well as help those around us.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

Storms of life do help us grow.

When we pray we should not necessarily ask for an easier life, for that may not come in this world.

Instead, Pray like Paul did for the believers in Ephesus.

Ask that our roots will go down deep into the love of God—to experience a close relationship with Him—so we will grow up sturdy and strong.

Then when the winds of hard times blow, we won't be swept away but will stand tall and sturdy and not waver in our faith.

As we grow and mature in our bodies, from child to adult, our strength will also increase, giving us additional power to use when needed.

We also grow in wisdom as we get older, well normally anyway.

The very same thing happens as we grow spiritually, we have an increased ability to grasp certain ideas and concepts you may not have understood when you first became a Christian.

One of the first things you learn, as a Christian, is that God really loves you.

However, as I have found out, as you grow and mature in Christ we learn that God's love has no boundaries.

There is no place or situation while living here that can take you out of his immediate reach.

The power of his love is wide enough to cover any experience we may have or be going through and yet still wide enough to cover the Earth.

That power of love knows no depth and is deeper then any depression, despair or even death can reach.

Jennifer had just heard a disturbing report about an increase in cases of depression among women.

The report cited a related increase in alcoholism and an increased reliance on prescription drugs.

"So what are You doing about it, Lord?" Jennifer prayed.

But the more she thought about it, the more she felt that God was asking her to do something.

All she could see, however, were her own limitations.

To help her think it through, she listed some reasons that were keeping her from action: shyness, fear of getting involved, lack of time, a cold heart, fear of failure—a huge list!

As she finished her list, as she went to pick her children up from school, she put on her coat, then reached for her gloves.

The gloves had be lying there limp and useless—until she slipped her hands inside them.

At that moment she realized that God didn't want her to think about her limitations.

Rather, He wanted her to realize that just like the gloves, which were useless when laying by themselves.

That just like when she put those gloves on and they became useful, so Gods power would help her, when she allowed him to work in her.

So why do we feel inadequate for the work God has given us?

He wants to love others through us, "according to the power that works in us"

As far deep as you may think you can go, his arms can reach even further and bring you back into his arms.

Several hundred miles off the coast of Guam is the Mariana Trench, the deepest place in the ocean.

It reaches a depth of 6.85 Miles, over 35, 00 feet.

If Mount Everest the tallest mountain in the world was placed in it , Mount Everest would still be covered by over a mile of water.

For most of us, it's hard to fathom just how deep the Mariana Trench is.

But much more difficult to comprehend is the love of God.