The Foundation of Godly Living

Transcript

GR2320
06/20/2021
The Foundation of Godly Living
Ephesians 3:14-21
Gil Rugh

We’re going to Ephesians chapter 3, Ephesians 3. It would be hard to be in a more important book. I probably say this every time we’re in a book, but Ephesians is about the doctrine of the Church. If we the Church are not clear in what the Church is, and what God is doing in the Church, and what the Church is to be, what do we bring to the world? A flickering light, a light that seems dimmer and dimmer. Absolutely essential that we as believers know what God says about the Church. Look at Ephesians, it’s broken down into two big divisions, two major divisions. This is characteristic of Paul’s letter. For the first part, he’ll lay what we call the doctrinal foundation, it’s mainly about teaching the truths that we must understand. Then for the second part of the letter he tells us how we are to implement those truths in our lives, how we are to live based upon those truths. Both sections are essential, both are God’s message to us.
The danger that comes to the Church is we begin to get weak on the doctrinal, the teaching side, because we want to be practical. Sometimes you’re in a doctrinal section and you’re struggling with things, family things, jobs things, personal issues. You come in and you say, I just don’t see how this doctrine is practical. That’s like something… tell me how to raise teenagers, how to work when you’re dealing with an impossible job situation. But God sets out what we need, this is the foundation for our lives and for our functioning as a Church. You try to build your life with no foundation, it’s like trying to build a building, build a house with no foundation, it’s bound to come down. And that’s the subtle drift. It does concern me. I meet people from time to time, not everyone, there’s good Bible-believing churches, teaching churches, but they’ll just tell me: where we’re going the teaching is not that sound doctrine, we wish it could be a little stronger, but it’s a good church. Do we really know what a good church is? Well, a good church makes me feel good, the people are friendly, I like the music. We’re pretty at lost. If the church is the pillar and support of the truth and they’re not very solid on the truth and they’re not very focused on teaching the truth, how can you say it’s a good church?
A good church is what God says it should be. Now I’m not saying Indian Hills is the only good church, but we want to be the church that God says we are. The church is the body of Christ, as we’ve seen. At the end of Ephesians 1:22, “He put all things in subjection under His feet, gave Him as head over all things to the church.” So the analogy is the body, Christ is the head. He’ll go in in chapter 2 and as we progress along there, verse 19 he’ll talk about we are God’s household, God’s assembly, we are God’s building. All these different pictures or metaphors bringing together that God has brought us together. It is His and you can’t say it’s not important to know what His expectations and requirements are. So that’s the doctrinal section, we’re going to wrap that up today, then we’ll move into chapter 4 and that’s where all the commands are. I’ll break down the number of commandments. There are almost none in the first three chapters and there’s a pile of them in chapters 4, 5 and 6. Because he’s telling you what you have to know as the foundation, the doctrine, then he’ll tell you what you must do in light of what he is saying.
Chapter 1 emphasized the sovereignty of God. He is sovereign in the work of salvation, He planned it, He ordained it before the foundation of the world. We may have questions about that, we may struggle to understand some of it, but the fact is, verse 4 says, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” I believe that! Can I explain everything? No. He said it, it’s happened before the foundation, that means before Genesis 1:1, God had acted, chose, made discissions regarding our being drawn to Him in salvation. Verse 5, “He predestined us,” predestined, the thing that happened back at that time, that we’d be placed as His sons to the praise of His glory. What he wants to emphasis is, God is sovereign in this. He’s going to come back to it in the section we’re dealing with as we close out chapter 3. People that debate and discuss the sovereignty of God… it is a settled matter. God is sovereign, you are not, I am not, this church is not. God is sovereign. He sat down… if we don’t grasp that, we don’t have a picture of God as God.
The world’s view of God is He does what they think He should do, they adjust what they think He should be doing along the way. He tells us the way it is, that’s why we study His word to find out what He says and we submit ourselves to it. He doesn’t tell us so that we can decide whether we approve or not. This is the God who is, the only God there is. We will look at some verses on that a little bit later. So it’s important that we know what He says. We can choose not to obey Him, not submit to Him, and there are consequences for that. He is God. When it’s all said and done, He will be God. He says there is no God before Me, there’ll be no God after Me. He is the one before whom we will be judged.
So he talked about His sovereign work, not only drawing us to salvation, but His work in personally providing His Spirit in us individually and in the Church corporately, for the accomplishing of God’s work. Paul, at the end of chapter 1, wanted us to grow in our understanding of these great truths. That’s why he’s writing to the Ephesians. This is a constant process, we’ll never outgrow our need to grow. We’ll come back to that in chapter 3. He reminded us the need of God working sovereignly on our behalf as we got into chapter 2, because we’re dead in our trespasses and sins, we’re committed to a life of disobedience to God. We think we’re free but we walk, in verse 2 of chapter 2, “according to the prince of the power of the air,” that’s Satan himself. You say, I’m free, I’m making my decisions. You are, you’re doing what you want, you’re a fallen, sinful being and you’re enslaved to your sin and to the Devil. And we were all in that condition, desperately lost. God didn’t leave us there, He intervened to provide His Son to be the Savior. Because, verse 4, He’s rich in mercy, great in love. And He provided His Son, even in our wretched rebellion condition, to come, pay the penalty for our sin with His death on the cross, be raised from the dead and He provides the gift of salvation. It’s by grace we are saved.
Having established that, in verse 11 of chapter 2 down through verse 13 of chapter 3 he talked about the new work God is doing in His work of salvation today. It began after the death of Christ in Acts 2, where God put together Jews and Gentiles into a new entity. He had not revealed this before; did not exist before. There were people saved before, the nation Israel was His focus before. The law which was given as the constitution for the nation Israel governed the life of that nation. Politically, spiritually, morally, every area came under the rule of God through His appointed leaders under the governing of the Mosaic Law. But the church is something new! With Israel’s rejection of their Messiah, God revealed that in His plan from eternity included building a new entity, or as He called it at the end of verse 15 of chapter 2, a new man, bringing peace between those physical entities that were at war, Jews and Gentiles.
And it takes a supernatural work of God to break down the enmity and barrier when a Jew or Gentile… when they place their faith in Christ, spiritually they are brought together into a new entity called “one new man”, the church, as it was called at the end of chapter 1. God’s citizens, God’s household, God’s family. So that’s what God is doing now. How did Paul know that? God revealed it specially to him, directly to him. It was a mystery hidden before. It wasn’t that it was not part of God’s plan, it was part of God’s plan from before the creation, remember chapter 1, but it was a part of His plan God chose to keep secret. He’s God, He can do that. He decides what He will make known and when He will make it known. Some act (as if), well, you have to find the church in the Old Testament because… unless you think God had to come up with a new plan. I didn’t say God came up with a new plan. What was new was He made known His old plan that He kept secret, the plan the He had planned when He ordained salvation before creation, the Church. That means Gentiles are joined with Jews into one body, verse 6 of chapter 3, “Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers” of the salvation provided and promised in Christ. Paul knows because God now revealed it to him, this is new revelation.
You know, angels are powerful beings, powerful in many ways, and they have a huge intellect. Think of it, Satan is a fallen angel, he runs the world -- God is sovereign over it-- but the Bible calls him the god (small g) of the world, he keeps it organized. His demonic followers carry out his bidding, they govern the nations. All the people of the world who have not been rescued by faith in Christ do his bidding. Verse 2 of chapter 2, remember even before we were saved we walked according to the prince of the power of the air. He’s a pretty intelligent being, he’s powerful. We see he can control the weather, look at Job, he brought the storm. He can bring sickness. He is a being of awesome power but he is not omnipotent. Only God is omnipotent and all powerful. He is not omniscient, he only knows what God has chosen to reveal to him as an angel and to other angels.
That’s why we were told in verse 10, what God is doing in this period of time in the church demonstrates to the angelic world. Verse 10, “so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church, to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” He’s talking about angelic beings. We talked about this, they learn something of the wonder of God’s work of salvation by looking at us, the church, looking at the diversity. Now as Paul talks about them (we’ll get to it later in Ephesians), slaves and masters put together in one church, Jews and Gentiles as he’s been talking about together in one church, rich and poor, different races of the Gentiles, all status. Those barriers are broken down and the angels can look and see the marvelous work of God in bringing together in a unified way people so different. That’s why it’s so important we be careful. These first three chapters are laying the foundation to understand the unity, we’re one body, we’re one building, we’re one family, all these pictures.
You know where we’re going in chapter 4 when he begins to tell us how we should conduct ourselves? You’ll note chapter 4, just to jump ahead, verse 1, Paul will implore them in verse 1, “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” That will take us back to the first three chapters. And that will involve verse 4 of chapter 4, one body, one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father. There is a unity there, that’s where we must be careful, angels are observing. We don’t divide over these other things because we have been brought into God’s family. Remember when I was young, many years ago, but it was one of the few things… You know, you get older and you remember the way-past things much better than you do the yesterday things. My brothers weren’t perfect. When my sister was born they thought she was but we three boys weren’t. I was, my brothers weren’t. I remember my Dad telling me, we are family, here’s what you do because you’re part of our family. That’s what a family is. I might fight with a neighbor kid, but when I fought with my brothers that got my Dad involved in a direct way. That’s what the church is. This is God’s family. So that’s where we’re going.
What this has done for us, He’s brought us together. And you know what? He’s provided an access for us to God because now we’re God’s children, God’s family. We were told in verse 12, “we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.” We have that confident access. Not just, well, be careful, don’t come too often, don’t be overly confident. He says we have boldness! Confident access, that’s not cockiness, that’s not arrogance, He’s our Father! I’m not afraid to come to Him. He wants me to come to Him. We looked at that passage. All of this, Paul’s reminding them. We talk about God’s sovereignty. We talk about what God’s doing with the church. But then sometimes we get discouraged.
Paul’s in prison when he writes this. He said in verse 1 of chapter 3, I’m writing as the prisoner of Christ Jesus. He’s a prisoner of the Romans. And essentially he’s a prisoner of the Jews because they got him arrested. (Paul says) I’ve been talking about the sovereignty of God, I’m where God wants me, at the place where God has put me at this time for His purpose. There’s no bemoaning here, oh boy, I hope this is over soon, this is unpleasant. You know what it’s like to be chained to a Roman soldier, limited to house arrest. Some of us have gone through some limitations, pretty soon we’re getting stir-crazy. Paul has to go through this for years! At the end of the book of Acts we talked about that. But I’m a prisoner of Christ Jesus, should I complain about that? Should I be depressed and discouraged? And oh, pray for me, I’ve just… I just can’t get on top of things, I’m just so down. No! He tells them in verse 13, “I ask you not to loose heart at my tribulations on your behalf.”
You understand, this is part of what God’s doing in the world today and how God is using me. Because of my bringing the gospel, I’m in prison. And I recognize that as God’s hand. Could God do something different? Of course. You know what He did in the book of Acts? Peter was in prison with guards. God sent an angel. You know what the angel did? Put the guards asleep. Then he unlocked the door and Peter walked out. Walked past the sleeping guards and went on his way. The next day, you know what happened? They came to check with those guards, and where’s the prisoner? He’s gone. You know what they did? They led the guards away to execution. You lost a prisoner. If I was Paul, I’d have been praying, dear Lord, remember what you did with Peter? Think of how great the impact would be. If you put this guard to sleep and You just opened the chain, I walk out and I’m on my way! Everybody will be thrilled! You don’t tell God how to do. Maybe He did that for Peter and He did, but that doesn’t mean that He will for Paul. So, Paul said, don’t get discouraged because I’m suffering. See it in the perspective of the sovereign God working His purpose. Seeing that you’re saved today because I brought you the gospel. You understand what God’s doing today because I was privileged to teach you the truth. So this is all been for your benefit.
Now, this has been a side-track. He started in chapter 3:1 by saying, “For this reason,” and then he goes on to say, “I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus.” Then you saw that break at the end of verse 1. And he has to explain how he knew all this new information. God revealed it to him. He hadn’t revealed it before. But he started… he was going to pray for them, “For this reason, I Paul.” You have the exact same expression beginning in verse 14, he picks up where he left off, “For this reason.” And the reason goes back to what he just had explained at the end of chapter 2, chapter 2 verse 11 through verse 22. How God is putting together Jew and Gentile together into one new body, one new building, one new man. “For this reason” in light of what God’s doing now, verse 14, he’s going to go on and pray for them, “I bow my knees before the Father.” He’s talked about our access, we come with boldness and confidence, and I’m bowing my knee before the Father.
There’s a variety of postures for prayer. We’re not going to take time to look at. Sometimes people are praying standing in the Bible, they can be walking, they can be laying down, prostrate, they can be kneeling. Sometimes it’s good to vary. For a time I was in church when I was young and when it came time to pray, everybody knelt down at the benches and prayed. Sometimes it’s good to close the door and kneel down at your chair and pray. Because it reminds us in that position of humbling ourselves before God that you kneel before Him. He is sovereign and I’m bringing my request to You. He’s my Father! I’m bowing before the Father on your behalf.
Now, the word ‘Father’ here, that’s that relationship. Going to play off of that in verse 15. This is the “Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” He expands that concept of Father to the calling, inclusive of the creation, and all creation in every part of it gets its name from the Father. So not their Father in the spiritual sense of redemption, but He is the Father in His sovereignty over them. He brought everything that exists into existence. And something of His sovereignty is brought out when it’s said in verse 15, “every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.”
In the Bible, you’ll know when you name something it indicates your authority over it. Remember God created Adam, gave him his name. He gave Adam authority over the animals. What did Adam do? He named the animals. He created Eve out of the side part of Adam. What did Adam do? He named his wife. There is an order established in that. That’s why in the naming, through the Old Testament you see that, you see something of the authority. So when it says, “every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,” God is sovereign over them. (Look at some passages in a moment.) There’s a play on words here you don’t get. It’s in the sounding of the words in Greek that you don’t get and we’re not going to go into Greek, but the word for father is ‘pateras,’the word translated family is ‘patreas.’ You can see the sound pateras, patreas. And that word translated family, patreas, it means a clan, a division, a group. So He’s the Father, and Paul can pray to Him as Father because he is submissive to Him and through the boldness he has in Christ. But He is sovereign over all and brought everything into creation, every group.
Come back to Isaiah 40. I picked this chapter out usually because it’s a good place for you to go. Read Isaiah 40 through chapter 45, 46, and you’re constantly reminded of this. I want to just point out some verses to you. Isaiah 40, His sovereignty, verse 13, “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as His counselor has informed Him?” Verse 15, “The nations are like a drop from a bucket… a speck of dust on the scales.” Verse 17, they’re regarded as nothing before Him, they’re less than meaningless. With all that’s going on with the world, and we say, wow, they don’t even move the scale. What’s China going to do, what’s Russia going to do? You see a speck of dust on the scale, do you even bother blowing it off? That’s what God says how it is. You see His sovereignty here. Look down to verse 22, “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and it’s inhabitance are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He it is who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless.” They rise up, they’re gone. We saw this in the book of Ecclesiastes, like a breath they’re gone. These mighty powerful men of the day, we’ll say as they say, they’re in the dust bucket of history. They’re gone. These will be gone. It’s nothing.
Verse 25, “ ‘To whom then will you liken Me that I would be His equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing.” Go around the country on a clear night where you don’t have lights and look up there. We’re just seeing a fraction of what there is and He knows everyone of them. You could take a trip up there and say, I wonder what the name of this star is? He could point it out. How did you come up with all the names of all these stars? How long did that take? We say it’s a foolish question. You see His greatness, His majesty, His power. Verse 28, “Do you not know, have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth.” How great is He? Everything that exists has been named by Him. He has power and authority over it. And He never gets tired. “His understanding is inscrutable.” And in verse 31, it’s important to where we’re going at the end of chapter 3, “those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” God provides the strength for His servants. That’s key.
Look at chapter 42 verse 5, “Thus says the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and its offspring, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it.” That’s who He is. That’s what He does. Come to chapter 43, verse 13, “Even from eternity I am He, and there in none other who can deliver,” “there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?” You see the emphasis on His sovereignty, on His power. We as God’s people subtly sink down and diminish that in our thinking and pretty soon we’re seeing God more like us than like He is. It’s why we’re being reminded of this in Ephesians. When the church begins to do this, we begin to look around us for solutions instead of the word of God for what He says. And we become more shallow and weaker. Chapter 44, look at verse 24, “Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the One who formed you from the womb, ‘I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by Myself and spreading out the earth all alone.’ ” Heavens and earth, all come into existence, I didn’t need any help. I’m God!
That’s the chasm between God and everything and everyone else. Eternal God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Everything else is created. He is the eternal God. Chapter 45… why should we stop? And these are only part of the verses I have highlighted in my Bible. Verse 12, “It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands and I ordained all their host.” Verse 18, For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), ‘I am the Lord, and there is none else.’ ” God doesn’t repeat Himself just because He was running out of material. You know why He repeats it? We need to get it beat into us. You know these people who study the word of God and after a while we diminish in our enthusiasm for that. I know, I’ve studied all that before. Yeah, we have. God said that before, we read how many times He said basically the same thing. Am I going to tell Him You don’t have to repeat Yourself? There’s a reason He repeats it. We need it repeated and repeated. Remember we’ve done this in our study in other times, how many times we’re told, I will stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance.
Come back to Ephesians. So just because He said it in the Old Testament doesn’t mean He’s not saying it again. He’s told us, verse 15 of Ephesians 3, “from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” He is sovereign. That puts everything in perspective. Am I worried and frustrated and concerned of what’s happening in our country and in the world? Not a bit. I don’t even watch the news very much anymore. It’s a repeat, it’s a rerun. Sin makes you stupid. And you just get tired of watching stupid things. They’re very intelligent but they have no wisdom. They reject the word of God, what kind of wisdom do they have, Jeremiah 9 asks… rhetorical question, they have none. They’re very intelligent but they have no wisdom, because beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. But we, when the church begins to slide down, what happens? We’re the pillar and support of the truth. That’s what God established the church in this day to be. You know what happened with Israel? They lost their way and they were no longer the light that they should be. We need to be careful.
What is he praying? Verse 16, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory.” You start to talk about something of what God is doing… it’s the riches of His glory, that’s the standard, according to the riches of His glory. That glory, we read some of those passages, that’s all He is as God -- His sovereignty, His power, His incomparableness. He would grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. Does it get any greater than that?
Paul says to those Ephesians while he languishes a prisoner, I’m praying God will strengthen you with His power. We have these words again -- strength, power, energy, might, it’s like we’ve got to pile this up. He’s the standard, according to the riches, the immeasurable wealth of His glory. That’s not like the strength and power I have as an apostle. That’s miniscule compared to the power of God. I want you to be strengthened according to the riches of His glory, with power through His Spirit in the inner man. Inner man is what we are at the center of our being. He’ll call it the heart in the next verse, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts.” So again these different expressions, we use them today, I love you with all my heart. We’re talking about your inner being, what you are on the inside. It’s not superficial like picking up a piece of paper. It’s something taking place within me that comes out. I want you to be strengthened through His Spirit. You know what He provides to provide the strength that is in accord to the riches of His glory? God Himself, God the Spirit that dwells in us individually and dwells in the church, He’s going to provide the strength and power of God. Can it get any greater than that? Can it get any better than that?
You know, when I lower my vision, I’m down, overwhelmed by my weakness, my frailties, my inabilities. God didn’t say do it according to your strength. Paul’s not praying that they will get every ounce of their strength together. He’s praying that God will bring His empowerment. And there’s not limit to that! We can’t become God but we’re to be coming very much like God. I don’t say that irreverently because that’s what he’s going to say very shortly.
Right now, this is the power, the strength, His Spirit brings it. Paul, as a prisoner confined by humans. The servant of God. Who’s superior to Paul as a servant of God at this period of time in church history? And frail human beings have imprisoned him. That’s why he says, I’m a prisoner of Jesus Christ. He sees beyond it. He assumes I’m where God wants me, to do what God wants me to do. God even uses the sinfulness of man for the accomplishing of His purposes. Paul’s not frustrated by… oh, if this only had happened, if I’d only been more careful what I said, if those Jews hadn’t stirred up the Romans. I’ve got years of my life wasted. There’s no waste when I am submitting myself to what God has chosen to do with me. I just get everything out that I can. Paul is languishing in prison. Here we are, 2000 years of church history, reading the letter to the Ephesians. What could have had more impact? It’s not the only one he wrote when he was a prisoner. He wrote three others. Oh, he was so limited, he could do so little, not much accomplished. Let God make the decision of what He’s going to do. And how He’s going to do it. Of course I don’t know, He knows, He knows Paul’s life wasn’t wasted. I’m glad he spent those years as a prisoner, that God in grace used him to provide the riches of the letter to the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, Philemon, to enrich the church for 2000 years. He wasn’t limited. You might lay in a hospital bed and God use your testimony to bring somebody to Christ, that’ll matter for eternity! We don’t want to miss the opportunity. So he praying that they’ll experience this power.
Verse 17, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” I thought they already believed! He’s already talked about that. Now you think, I thought Christ had already taken up residence in them. But he’s talking about a deepening, a growing, a settled-downness. This is one way of expressing it. We’ll see it further elaborated as we move through here. He’d dwell in your hearts through faith. That faith that we said is not just a point in time. Maybe a point in time when it begins.
I can think back to when I trusted Christ. Some as not as clear for you, because you grew up in that environment. For me it’s very clear. I can remember it. My faith began, but it’s never ended. It’s been growing. My faith in Christ there was miniscule from the sense of what I knew and understood about the magnificence of His work of salvation. All I knew then is that I was a sinner and Christ was the Savior. How much more do I understand and know so that I have Him indwelling me in a more full, complete, more controlling way.
So we are being rooted and grounded in love. And that’s a process. Being rooted and grounded, that’s an ongoing process, as he somewhat mixes the metaphors as we would say here, as he’s done earlier, talking about a body and a building and so on. Different pictures and analogies and comparisons that’s saying the same thing. You’re rooted, you’re grounded and have your foundation in His love. He’s talking about the love of Christ here I think in the context and in Ephesians. But that’s not unlimited love. It’s a love that flows out. Because His love for me then reaches out beyond that. And if it doesn’t, it’s not truly the love of Christ in me.
So he wants us to be rooted and grounded so that we “may be able to comprehend with all the saints.” Note this, this is about a unity together. It has to happen individually in a life, but it has to happen to us together. Comprehend with all the saints, this brings us together, part of what God’s doing, bringing us together as a family unit. Some people think, well, you know, if I go to church, if I get together with believers, I don’t think I need to be part of church, I have the Holy Spirit, I have my Bible, I can grow. Who gives us the authority to tell God how we’ll do it? Then you back up and say, maybe you’ve never understood what it means to submit in faith to what God has provided. But we do that. Churches are looking for what’s a church ought to be. We’ll take a survey. I’ve read more books than I’d want to admit on church growth. And they tell you what you have to do to have a growing church. And there are things we can learn, practical things. You know, if people are going to come in a car, you’ll probably have to have a parking lot, that helps. But the spiritual things, you know, we go to the Word. We chase around trying to find somebody that’s successful and then we’ll pattern after them. Maybe I’ll learn how the word of God worked in their lives, I enjoy that. But a lot of what comes up… the church every time, and we just keep undergoing… this is the new thing for the church. And then people begin to pick their church like they’re picking a favorite restaurant or store to shop in. Well, this is what I like about this. This is what I like about this. Well, the doctrine, well, it’s not very strong. Well, they don’t have this doctrinally right, but we really like this about it. What have we turned the church into? Do you like to shop at this store or this store? Well, I like this store for this reason. I like this store for this reason.
Do I ever go to the Word and say, here’s what the church is? You have to learn to like it. Not only that, you have to learn to love it. You “may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.” Don’t you love… he tells you you have to know something that’s unknowable. What he’s really saying is, no matter how much you know about the love of Christ, the greatness of His love, you’ll never have a complete knowledge of it. It’s an infinite love. We sing about it. Sometimes we forget that you may know the love of Christ.
You know, you talk about a new believer and you talk about how he knows how wonderful it is. But you know what? In five years, ten years, twenty years, he ought to know it more fully. It ought to be more wonderful. We ought not grow tired and weary. How terrible was it when God told Israel, you have become weary of Me. You say, oh my, how tiresome it is. What a terrible thing to tell God… His people, supposedly His people, ah, how boring, how tiring, I’m weary of this. We express it in our actions. You know I’ve got a lot of good, important things to do in my life. You know what happens? We talk about England (to not get too personal) in 1800, all it seemed… the great preaching and teaching was going on in England. Warren Weirsbe, who wrote so much said, if he could live at one time, it would have been in England in 1800’s. He could go hear Alexander McClairen, Joseph Parker and Charles Spurgeon, and on you go with the list. In England now nobody goes to church. What, 2%? Something like that, even goes. We’re not talking about Bible-believers, we’re just talking about church. Somewhere along the line, people just lost interest. Part of it say, well they’re not saved. You know what part of it happened is, believers even begin to loose their passion for it. Well, less is better.
I had somebody tell me, well, we left Indian Hills because it just felt pressured to be part of so much of what’s going on. Well, they found a church where there’s no pressure. The word of God pressure us? I’ve no pressure, I study the Word and I say, Lord, I have to grow more in this, I have to be making some adjustments, it’s got to become more precious to me. Want to be careful.
You know what’s happening here, he wants to know all dimensions here, he’s talked about the length, breadth… You want to talk about conversations going nowhere, get some commentaries, look how much time they spend about comprehending breadth, length, height and depth. I think he’s just talking about all of it, all together. The hugeness of “the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God! We’re becoming like God. Not becoming God. But am I not to become more like Him? We are partakers of the divine nature, Peter said. It’s His character that is being produced and developed in me. That the word of God may be becoming more precious. I can’t get enough of it. My desire ought to be growing. Well, I’ve studied all this, you know, my Bible is marked. It’s like God is exhaustible. I’m a little weary of it. Can’t wait to get to glory where there’s new things to learn. I don’t think I want to stand before the Lord and say, well Lord, I had that mastered. It’s not going to happen. Because it’s all a revelation of Him. And you know how it is, you’ve had passages you’ve gone through and gone through and gone through and gone through, and all of a sudden you go through it and you say, well, that just hit me and even in a new way! In a greater way. If not, I want to get myself on track here. That’s the goal, to be filled up to all the fullness of God.
That’s the standard, not that you’d be where Paul is. Not where you’d be where somebody else is. The standard is God. I think, well, I don’t know if I need anymore study of the Word. I don’t need to be involved this way. In other words, I am fully like God Himself, my character, in all my life. Well, maybe not, but nobody is perfect. I know. That’s why we can’t quit. We act like it’s an excuse so we don’t keep on. God doesn’t say we’re perfect. We’re going to be constantly growing. We’re going to that in Ephesians 4, where we’re growing up into Christ, who is the head of the body. It’s the same thing.
So we have to close with the doxology. Doxology, usually that’s at the end of a letter. It’s in Romans 16 at the ending verses that Paul writes the doxology. A declaration of praise to God. The end of the book of Jude that we studied together, was the end of the letter where he wrote the doxology. We’re just in the middle of the letter! You know why? We pull together here now, this foundational teaching. And the next verse will be, I beseech you, “I implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.” The problem is, too many churches talk about the walk and don’t talk about the calling. So, we try to build lives without a foundation. You have to go back and say, this is the calling I have. “Be filled up to all the fullness of God.” And now I walk in a manner worthy of that calling. You don’t lower the standard. There are going to be a lot of commands here. And a lot of them are going to sometimes, I hate to say it, rub us the wrong way. We’ll get into that. But this is what God says for His people.
“Now to Him who is able.” There’s another one of our words for power. Who has the power. We get the words dynamic, dynamo, dynamite from this word. “To Him who is able,” who has the power, “to do far more abundantly beyond.” You get the idea you have to keep reading and rereading. You realize, you just have to pile this up. He just doesn’t say, now to Him who has the power to do more than we ask or think. No, “far more.” The far more doesn’t get it. “Far more abundantly” But that doesn’t get it either. “Far more abundantly beyond all,” you’ve got to add that too! “That we ask or think.” You know, sometimes we live miserably poor spiritual lives. When we have God as our God, our Father, the one who has the power to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or even think. “According to the power that works within us.” Oh, if I only had more power. You can’t get any more power than God’s. And it’s His Spirit He’s put within us. You have all the power that you could want. You may not be utilizing it. He’s going to warn us not to grieve the Holy Spirit. We move on in Ephesians.
Sometimes we want to resist this power. We don’t want to do what He says. Because that may frustrate what we think we want to do, or what we think is the best thing. And because we can only see this far. You have the power, it’s the power that works within us. So, it’s there, it’s working. Are you getting the full power? You know, you think of your car. You’ve got this big powerful engine, but it’s not going anywhere. Something’s wrong. Turn on the key. Step on the gas. You ever been behind somebody, I know impatient drivers, not me, but some. I’m hollering out the… no not me, oops, Marilyn, it came with a gas peddle, push! Push down! Go! You know? They’re going 32 miles an hour and the speed limit is 70. Maybe if I… I think I’ll get a bumper guard on the front of the car, help them, in love, move them on. We’re like that spiritually. Oh God, give me more power. Do what I tell you. Submit yourself to Me. If I put you in prison, do everything I want you to do there. If I bring problems, draw upon My power. You’ll experience it in new and different ways. Count it all joy my brethren, when you fall into multifaceted trials. The trying of your faith produces endurance. You see what God’s doing? Every trial in my life has been a blessing. When I have responded, this is God working now. When I stumble and fall on my face, God, You pick me up and move me on. That will give me strength for the next one. And I’ve learned from it. I grow like your children. God doesn’t put us in a hot house. He’s put us in this fallen world, He leaves us here, He didn’t save us and take us out. But He’s preparing us for glory.
“To Him be the glory in the church.” We better be careful how we function as a church. It’s to be the place where He is given the glory. The angels are looking in to see. They better see what we are to be as a result of God’s power working. “To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” You want to know the plan for the church? There it is. Sometimes the church ought to start and do a few years just studying the first three chapters of Ephesians. We got this down, but we have to keep coming back. Because He knows our frame, we are but dust. That’s why we have so much repetition. I have to be honest, I’ve preached some of this and I come back and I find stuff, boy I’ve forgotten about that. You know, I didn’t realize that was quite there. We need this. And “to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations.” And they go together because who’s the head of the church? It’s Christ. You understand, we’re on the stage of that which is eternal. The angels are watching. This is God’s plan for bringing glory to Himself today. We must not mess it up. We get sidetracked with our problems. We think, I have a reason not to be. I know I am unhappy and then we’re bickering.
I’m Baptist background, I know bickering. Every town had its Baptist church on the corner that came from another Baptist church. But we ought to be careful. We are the body of Christ. His love filling me, overflowing in me, reaches out to you. You know what love does? It covers a multitude of sins. You know, it’s sort of like when you’re in love, you look over the imperfections. You just see what is so beautiful about that person that you’re engaged to and going to marry. When you’re in love, love overlooks a multitude of sins. That enables us to keep together and not let these little things… Well, it’s not so little to me! Well, it ought to be. Make it little. Quit focusing on it. Let God do what only He can do. Build us and bind us together so we bring glory to Him.
Let’s pray together. Thank you Lord, for the riches of Your word. Thank you Lord, that it is an understandable word. It is clear, it has clarity. We have Your Spirit as Your children, who enlightens our thinking. Who gives us insight and understanding to the world that is closed to the Word. Thank you for all You’ve provided for us in Christ. That we as a church have the Spirit of God dwelling in us. Bind us together, to strengthen us together, to enable one another to grow as You intended. Thank you for the marvelous work of redemption that You have accomplished in us personally. It’s manifest in us as we’re brought together. Pray for the day before us. Pray for the preparation for the week ahead, with the privilege to minister to kids. Pray in all we do, our lives will be a testimony of Your grace. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen