The Grand Crescendo
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Pre-sermon Comments
Pre-sermon Comments
Good morning, before we begin in the text this morning, I wanted to remind you that tonight at 6:00, we will be here in the sanctuary to sing together. Bring along a dessert to share, and after we’re done singing, we’ll head over to the Fellowship Hall for a time of fellowship.
Letter to the Ephesians
Letter to the Ephesians
Today, we will be continuing our series through the book of Ephesians, and today we will be in the second half of chapter 3.
For those that don’t know, my undergraduate degree is in music education. My senior year of college I was able to take part in a wonderful opportunity, the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra, the community chorale, and the Iowa Wesleyan Choir joined together to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is one of the absolute masterpieces in Western music. They are starting to disappear, but you all hopefully remember CDs. The original compact disc could hold 74 minutes of music on it. This wasn’t an arbitrary length, but specifically engineered long enough so that an entire recording of Herbert von Karajan directing Beethoven’s ninth symphony could fit on one CD.
For first 57 minutes of music, the orchestra establishes and develops the musical themes through four movements, until halfway through the fourth movement, solo voices enter the picture, reviewing the themes and motifs from the last hour as Beethoven starts to crescendo to the introduction of a grand theme. In the final 10 minutes, the orchestra, the soloists and the choir burst forth in a grand Ode to Joy. It leaves quite an impression, twenty years later, my poor kids will still hear me walking around the house belting out the German Fruede shone gute funken.
The Grand Crescendo
The Grand Crescendo
So far in the book, Paul has been building this grand theological picture of our spiritual family and the church, developing the themes and motifs of our great salvation, and today comes the grand crescendo in the form of this prayer Paul offers up for the church. Join me in Ephesians 3, starting in verse 14.
Ephesians 3:14–21 (CSB)
For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
For this reason...
For this reason...
So, here we have this grand prayer from Paul, in many ways echoing Jesus’s prayer in John 17. But what is the reason for this prayer? Paul starts by saying, “for this reason.” For what reason? Well, to find that we’ll need to go back to the end of chapter 2. So, Paul teaches at the end of chapter 2:
So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
Paul then begins chapter 3 with the phrase, “for this reason,” talking through the section we talked about last week, and then he repeats “for this reason,” which rhetorically, Paul is essentially saying, but I digress, and then gets back to his original point.
So, the background, the reason for Paul’s prayer today is because all believers have been built together as a holy temple for the Lord. So, passage we’re talking through today is all in the context of the church being built together.
Paul begins, Ephesians 3:14-15
For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
Right off the bat, the Ephesians would perk up. The common stance for prayer in this time was standing. Think of examples like the two men Jesus talked about in Luke 18, both the self-righteous guy and the humble guy were standing. Kneeling in prayer communicated urgency. Some examples of knelt prayer are Stephen at his martyrdom, Peter at the deathbed of Dorcas, or the greatest example is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane.
So Paul isn’t just praying for the church, he’s urgently praying for the church. He prays to the Father. Your translation might differ a bit here, but Paul uses a play on words, praying to “Pater pas patria.” A more literal translation might read something like the Father of every fatherhood.
This is also in the context of Ephesians where Paul has explained that we have been adopted as sons and daughters into His family. This family is of course those here on earth, sometimes called the church militant, and those who are in heaven, sometimes called the church triumphant. In this family, there is no Jew nor Gentile, God is Father over all.
So Paul begins this prayer, layering on truth upon truth. John Stott called it Paul’s prayer staircase, ascending higher and higher, but keeping with the music analogy from earlier, let’s think this morning of this prayer as layering on more and more elements in a grand crescendo until all of eternity is echoing with praise.
First Paul prays,
Ephesians 3:16 (CSB)
I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit
Strengthened
Strengthened
So, Paul begins by praying that the Father would grant the churches strength through the Holy Spirit. More this power is to strengthen the inner being. Paul talks with this same kind of imagery in 2 Corinthians 3:18
We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Paul goes on further in his letter to the Corinthians, saying:
Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
We live in a fallen world, and the outer being is being destroyed, yet Paul’s focus is not on that destruction, but rather on the work of the Spirit in the inner being to strengthen with power. Indeed, Paul is praying that the Spirit would strengthen the church. Paul doesn’t call us to do this work ourselves, but instead look to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the life of the church. Without the Holy Spirit, we are powerless. So, Paul prays that we would be strengthened by the Holy Spirit.
Paul continues his prayer:
Ephesians 3:17a (CSB)
and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith...
Indwelt
Indwelt
This idea of Christ dwelling in the hearts of His church is not a new one. As you remember, the context here is that Paul has been explaining that the church has been built together into a new temple. In the Old Testament, the tabernacle and later temple was fundamentally important to the Israelites as the dwelling place of God. Here is the tabernacle in Exodus:
I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. And they will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.
In 1 Kings, God promises Solomon of the new temple,
“As for this temple you are building—if you walk in my statutes, observe my ordinances, and keep all my commands by walking in them, I will fulfill my promise to you, which I made to your father David. I will dwell among the Israelites and not abandon my people Israel.”
In Ezekiel 10, God becomes fed up with the people of Judah and His glory leaves the temple. In Zechariah, as the people rebuild the temple, He comes once again to dwell.
“Daughter Zion, shout for joy and be glad, for I am coming to dwell among you”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “Many nations will join themselves to the Lord on that day and become my people. I will dwell among you, and you will know that the Lord of Armies has sent me to you.
This picture of dwelling continues with the incarnation.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
So, here in Ephesians, Paul is praying that Christ will literally “take up his dwelling” in the hearts of his people, the new, spiritual, temple that is being built together. This dwelling is complete through faith, and not through any effort of our own. Paul expounds this in Colossians when he says:
For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
I want to pause here and ask, “Is Christ is dwelling in your heart today?” Are you part of this temple that is being built up, the church? What are you trusting in today? Are you looking to Christ as the author and finisher of your salvation. Are you living with a burden today? Are you trying to brute force your way into heaven? Have you picked up somewhere that you just need to try harder. The rest of the book of Ephesians is going to talk about the implications of the Gospel. How is the church going to look different from the world because of these glorious truths?
Don’t get the order confused. If you try to live out a moralistic, almost-Christian life, it will all come crashing down on you eventually. No, Christ doesn’t wait for us to clean up our lives before he saves us,
For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person—though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
If that describes you this morning, if you are exhausted trying to make it on your own, Jesus has this to say to you,
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
That is His word to you, “Come to me.” If you want to know more about what that looks like, or you make that step of faith this morning, I would just invite you to come and talk to one of the elders or pastors this morning. Eric Carter is our elder this week who will be up front by the organ. I’ll be over at the piano, and Pastors Clint and Dennis (and Bill) are around this morning. Don’t carry that burden one more day.
So, having prayed that Christ would dwell in the hearts of the church, Paul continues his prayer,
Ephesians 3:17–18 (CSB)
I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love,
Love
Love
So, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, and indwelt by Christ, Paul calls us to love. Paul uses two pictures here, one botanical and one architectural. For the biologists in the room, we know that roots are essential to the health of any plant. Indeed, when Jesus tells the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, the difference between the seeds and their ability to grow and thrive is roots. One of the seeds fails because it is cast on rocky ground and is unable to grow deep roots and so withers away. It is only the seed growing on good ground with firm roots that flourishes and produces fruit.
In that way, Paul wants the church to be rooted in love.
Also, Paul says for the church to be firmly established. The word there for established is themelios, where we get our word, “theme” talking of a foundation. This firm foundation or theme of the church is love. The root of the church is love.
When I was a younger man, I didn’t understand this. I was quick to engage in “whatabout” or my favorite, “yeah, but...” Yeah, I know love is important, but we need truth. Yeah, yeah, love, but whatabout justice. If I could take aside 30-year-old Alan, I would say, yes, truth is important, justice is important, but neither of those things is the root. Love is the foundation on which all of the other inter-relational aspects is built.
You know what another thing I didn’t realize, though it should have been painfully obvious. Love happens in community. I’m sure you all know the wedding favorite passage from 1st Corinthians 13 about, “Love is patient, love is kind, etc.” That passage is talking about how the church works. At the end of 1 Corinthians 12, Paul is sorting through the chaos of worship in the Corinthian church. He says,
Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all do miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But desire the greater gifts. And I will show you an even better way.
He goes on to say that each of those gifts is nothing without love. All of those gifts sought after by the Corinthian church will come to an end, but not love. So for Paul, the deepest truth that needs to be learned is this.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.
The apostle John explains that love in action is the thing that will distinguish us from the world.
This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
Brothers and sisters, we are to be known by our love for one another, and for the world. John tells us to lay down our lives for one another. This is certainly not the message our American culture is shouting at us. The culture tells you that you have rights and freedoms! Satan wants you to believe that the most important person you know is you. Love says that your brother and your sister are more important to you than yourself. This kind of love is uncomfortable. And, the world will take notice of this kind of self-sacrificial love. Listen to this report from Aristides to Emperor Hadrian in the middle of the first century,
Falsehood is not found among them; and they love one another, and from widows they do not turn away their esteem; and they deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. … If there is among them any that is poor and needy, and if they have no spare food, they fast two or three days in order to supply to the needy their lack of food. They observe the precepts of their Messiah with much care, living justly and soberly as the Lord their God commanded them. Every morning and every hour they give thanks and praise to God for His loving-kindnesses toward them; and for their food and their drink they offer thanksgiving to Him.
Their love was such that the world took notice. Would the surrounding world look at our church and be struck by the love they see?
So, what is our example in this love?
Paul prays that as we are rooted and established in love, we
may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love,
So, together, our love for one another helps all of the saints together to comprehend the length and width, height and depth of God’s love. Paul prays for us to comprehend the imcomprehensible. To measure the immeasurable. One of my favorite hymns tries to express how impossible this task is:
Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made. Were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky
Do you want to know this love, then you need to be a part of the community learning how to love others, and receiving the love of others. In this way, we are able to begin to understand God’s love for us.
Paul continues to talk about this love:
and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Do you desire knowledge? Christ’s love surpasses knowledge. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 8 that “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Earlier we mentioned the passage in 1st Corinthians where Paul says:
If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
Do you want to know God, you must know love. And here is what Paul is saying, the place to get a degree in love is the local church. Is there a perfect church? Not this side of heaven. But apart from getting plugged into a body of believers, you won’t have the opportunity to grow in your understanding of love and indeed knowledge of God. One author points out that the church is how God has chosen to express himself most visibly in the world. And it is through this experience that we will be filled with the fullness of God.
And so, as Paul has layered this grand prayer for the church, the crescendo has reached it’s peak, and Paul breaks out in praise and worship.
Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Does this all sound like too much? This idea that somehow the Spirit is going to strengthen us. This vision of love working itself out in the Body leading to a comprehension of God’s love? This idea that God is going to fill us with His fullness? This prayer is huge, the vision is too great, right? Our cynical, western hearts read this and say, “Yeah, but Paul, you don’t understand the culture we’re living in.” “Yeah, but Paul, you don’t understand how I’ve been hurt by people in the church.” “Paul, your vision and prayer for the church is just too big.”
No, Paul says. Your vision of what God can do isn’t big enough! He is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think. You think the love of God is incomprehensible? You don’t even comprehend how incomprehensible it is. John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace says,
All that we have received or can receive from him, or know of him in this life, compared with what he is in himself, or what he has for us, is but as the drop of a bucket compared with the ocean, or a single ray of light in respect of the sun … O the excellency of the knowledge of Christ! It will be growing upon us through time, yea, I believe through eternity. - John Newton
Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us—to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
This glorious vision of the Body of Christ will resound through all generations (that includes you), to all eternity. What part do you play in this grand orchestra? Do you rely on the power of the Holy Spirit for strength? Do you long for Christ to dwell in your heart through faith? Are you rooted and established in love? Are you filled with all the fullness of our God? Are you not sure? Have you asked. He is able to do all of this and so much more.
Church, is this true of us? Are we content with something less than the grand vision has for our Body? Or, are we yearning together for God to work this out among us here? Will the watching world take note of our love, or will we be so influenced by the voices around us so that we are indistinguishable from the culture we are to be different from?
May this be true of us to the praise and glory of God!
Let me pray.
---------------
Amen.
Would the men serving us communion this morning please come forward as Pastor Clint comes to lead us in remembering the love of Christ shown at the cross.