Power for the Church

Thank you, worship team. For leading us in song, beautiful song. If you can, go ahead and take your Bibles this morning and turn to Ephesians. Chapter 3, Ephesians chapter 3. And uh we'll Get to our text here shortly.

We're going to talk about the power. For the church, this is the second part of Paul's prayer for the Ephesians that began in verse 16 and makes its way through verse 21.

Okay. In fact, let's just read the text. Just read the text with me. Follow along. Short verses.

Verse 20 and 21.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. According to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations. Forever and ever. Amen. That's it this morning.

We're just going to talk about that. Think about that a little bit. and dig in to that. God does things that exceed What we would expect, certainly what he needs to do, he doesn't need to do anything. But how much does God go beyond in our lives, giving us even the basics?

You know, some of you, I think there were even some people from here, strange people who traveled to Texas to see the eclipse. Probably some of you, those are the best four minutes of your life watching that thing. Yeah. Earth is the only planet in our own solar system where you can see a perfect eclipse. I don't know if you knew that or not.

Jupiter's got like ninety moons or something like that. But you can't see a perfect eclipse. Because you have to have the right ratios.

So the moon is 400 times smaller in terms of diameter than the sun. It's the distance from Earth to the moon is 400 times smaller than the distance from the moon to the sun. And so the equations work out that this is the only planet. The closest one is Saturn with Pantera, which aside from being an 80s rock band was also a moon. And that thing is like oblong and just weird.

It looks like a kidney stone floating around Saturn. But it's only on Earth that you can see that. Isn't it interesting that Earth is the only habitable planet that we know of anywhere, and certainly in our own solar system? And yet, God gives such a sweet. Our world would not be diminished one iota if we couldn't have a perfect eclipse.

But we get one. It's just filigree that God in His creative art textures upon the world. The beautiful thing. God gives and gives and gives. And he gives in ways that we take for granted, but he also gives in ways that we might not anticipate and might not expect.

Um in your life My guess is... that you're kind of like me, that there are anywhere from about one to three or four things. that just feel So big.

So weighty That You pray about them. and you offer them to the Lord. But there's a part of you that wars inside against whether Like it can really happen. whether the stone can really move. Right?

Whether that thing can really take off. And you don't want to fall prey into some kind of power of positive thinking nonsense. You want to be a person of faith, and yet you find yourself fighting for a kind of faith that can look and see mountains. and actually really believe in space and time that they could move. This is a text about that.

So Normally, if you attend Lifeline, you go, but this is different. Brian always gets up and he prays to start the message. I'm going to pray. Don't you worry. But you have a notes page, and if you grab it, if it's anywhere near you, you grab it, and if you have a pen, I want you to think about.

One thing. One thing. That sits there for you. That thing, I abbreviate it as your BHPR. Maybe you could call it your beeper.

I don't know. But it's your big hairy prayer request. It's that thing It's that thing that that Like I I'm just going to share like Personally, there are things that I don't know, and I have a hard time sometime determining. where certain things come from. But I know that there are certain things not every day.

But some mornings I get up And I feel the weight of the world before I even put my feet on the ground. With one of those big people, they're always the same ones, but one of those big things. And then I'll turn maybe one more over in my head. Yeah. And before I even put my feet on the ground, I feel like, man.

I've been carrying a burden. Forever. And I've been awake for four minutes. It's a big hairy prayer request.

So, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to pray as we start our message. I'm going to ask you to yourself, you pray and ask the Lord. To deal with that, you offer that to the Lord. You probably do it every day, but you offer it again to the Lord. And then we're going to look at his word, and we're going to see what he might have to say about some of these kinds of things, okay?

Let's pray. Lord, we are indebted. in the healthiest of ways to you, and yet you don't call us up to that. You paid for our debts in Christ. And so we thank you as we stand before you, covered in the gospel of our Lord and Savior, your only Son.

And so at any point we come to you in our lives, it is always on the laurels of his righteousness, not our own. It's always on his reputation. It's always because of the covenant he's secured in his blood. It's always because your love has been extended to us through him. Yeah.

And so to say that we're asking in Jesus' name this morning is to say we're not asking in ours. It's to say that we're coming to you because you said that we could come. It's to say that we're coming to you because, as your children, you've granted us the right through Christ to come. And so, Lord, we lift up to you the weight of our lives. We lift up to you the large burdens that sit on our soul.

We lift up to you that thing. that weighs us down, that keeps us up. That Lord we long to see set right that we long to see move forward that we long to see relieved that we long to see healed whatever the case may be But we come to you. Lord, for as the Scripture says, where else would we go? And we offer to you.

That which sits on our heart. And we ask today that you might open our eyes. As we look in your word. to see how you, through the power of your Spirit, would like to work in our lives. And we pray that you would give us the wisdom and the expectation.

of optimism in Christ. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Yeah. If you are like me, and I'm going to assume some of you might be, that you exist.

between a couple of one a temptation and one a virtue. If you're a Christian, you know that the Scripture teaches you that you ought to be a person of faith, which means you ought to look to God to be the great supplier of all that you need and all that you lack. You know that you ought to look to God in times of difficulty where you don't see a way out because he's made a way out before. You know that you ought to hang your hat upon him because you know that he has been faithful to carry you thus far. And yet you live in a world that sings different siren songs repeatedly that pull you over to the rocks again and again and again and again.

And there is a temptation when you have prayed. And you have prayed. And you have prayed. And you have prayed? And you have knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and knocked and felt as though there was not a stirring.

on the inside of heaven's door. The temptation is that you would slide over into fatalism and you would throw up your hands in cynicism and say, forget it all. What's the point? I was thinking about this and I thought, why is it that Some cultures have deep struggles with aberrant faith. They have struggles with almost kind of a faith that's almost too naïve in certain ways.

They yield in different ways to temptations of false teachers and prosperity theology and other things. But why is it that here? Why is it that in good old America, why is it in the Western world due to the intellectual culture around us, that we seem to struggle with cynicism? That we seem to struggle between faith and being drawn over here to a kind of fatalism. of one kind or another.

I jotted down a few things. And the first was that, and I've talked about this before, and I won't belabor it, but it's that we live in a naturalistic world, and we view the world implicitly through that lens.

So that becomes the kind of thing where we start. And so we make assumptions about the way that God will even function in the world, and we assume that He'll operate through natural means. Primarily If not at times, solely. And then we begin to apply fatalism to our life. We assume that whatever it is that we do, we might contribute in some way.

In fact, we're tempted even to think in sort of fatalistic terms with our ethical lives. Right? You go to the coffee shop and you have a jar and it tells you, tip. It's good karma.

Well, trust me, you can tip if you want to. That's fine. Every place wants you to tip today. That's another story for another sermon. You can tip if you want to.

But It's not somehow putting up uh eternal bitcoin for you that you'll cash out one day. There's there's not some existential Dynamic like that. The reality is that you don't get something because you gave something. And that's one of the reasons why you see wicked people prosper and righteous people struggle and you see righteous people prosper and wicked people struggle. And yet you look and you go, I don't know that the song has a rhyme or a reason to it.

I know, because it has a heavenly melody and we're not the ones writing it.

So it becomes a frustration point for us in some pretty big ways. And we can move toward applying fatalism. There's something deeper, though, behind naturalism and fatalism. And that is that as I risk praying and talking to God about things that I think would just take a miracle to move. When I do that, I'm risking some things.

If I do that in front of you, I'm risking embarrassment. Because what if God doesn't move? I'm risking major disappointment because I'm putting my eggs in the basket of faith, and what if it doesn't work out? And I got the what if hanging with me, right? And it just hangs with me.

And so, what happens is cynicism becomes a self-protective way for me to not feel hurt. I don't want to feel hurt. Maybe I'm tired of feeling hurt. And so I wall off in cynicism, and it makes me become quite naturalistic in my Christianity. And as a result, this becomes sort of a socialized apparatus.

Where I'm in a relationship with you, and I enjoy you, enjoy me, and we're moving forward in the sort of glee club here at church. To sing once in a while and feel good about each other, give each other an attaboy pat on the back, encourage each other. It doesn't feel good because we came to church. And yet, that doesn't exactly resemble the kind of dynamic that Paul is praying for. in Ephesians.

Three. Um See you you and I have to be like here's what the will to faith looks like The will to faith looks like you are willing. you're willing to risk disappointment. But it hurts to hope. Have you ever experienced that?

It hurts sometimes to hope. You hang on to it. And there's pain in it. You have to be willing to risk embarrassment. Having faith can place you out on a limb.

You have to be willing to cultivate in your life continued. cultivated resolve. That's what faith when it intersects with the will, looks like, it looks like a kind of perseverance. But having that love maybe for someone. Yeah.

Having a love for the Lord that perseveres, that's painful. That's painful. Hope, faith, and love. excise something from us. There's no doubt about that.

So it's not as easy as just saying a bunch of mantras. In fact, sometimes our slick mantras, our coin little phrases are not real helpful. Because what we need to do is really think quite deeply. About how How it is that we can anticipate God being at work in our lives. And so I want to think about that a bit with you.

And to that end, we're going to look at six observations about the Spirit's power that show up in this section. And now, let me just remind you of the text, and then we'll see what the text has for us. Ephesians has six chapters. The first three Are clearly a kind of conceptual unit, and the next three. Are a second kind of conceptual unit that build upon the first three.

And the first three focus. On doctrine in general, with an eye toward the explanation of your salvation in particular.

Okay, so therefore, that's why in chapter one it explicates a bunch of spiritual blessings for us. It's why in chapter two you get individual salvation and its corporate implication of bringing Jew and Gentile together across ethnic barriers into this context. And why Paul centers his prayer coming out of chapter three on what he longs to see in the church. And then you'll see in chapter four, it'll start right off and talk about walking, walking as a metaphor for living, because The last three chapters are going to say, now, in light of what's been afforded you, how ought you then to live? What should you do in lieu of that?

And so there's a shift that begins to take place to that direction. We're right on the tail end of that here.

So go back with me in verse 14, which we looked at last week. And we'll read down through until we get to our text that I already read for you. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father in heaven.

Now, I mentioned to you last week if you were here that for this reason points back not to verse 13, but it points back to verse 20, really 19 through 22, even 11 through 22 of chapter 2. Because chapter 3, verse 1 says, For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles. And then he gets off on an aside. And now in verse 14, he comes back to that. And it says, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, for this reason.

Yep, I'm back on it now. For this reason. And now he's going to offer a prayer. I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, the wealth of his perfections, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being.

Now, I want you to remember that phrase. Very important for this message. To be strengthened, this is the heart of his prayer. that you would be strengthened. Right?

With power. Through his spirit in your inner being.

So there's a connection that exists between the spirit. And power. And the locus, the location of that is your inner life. All right. Keep that in view.

It's very important for what we're going to look at.

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts. That's a residual effect of that, through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love, even a further effect, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints. What is the breadth and length and height and depth? And know the love of Christ as presses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

So you want the love of Christ? In you, you want the love of Christ between you. You want Christ in you? All of those things are flowing, cascading down from the power of the Spirit that is in you.

Now, let me read again what I read for you earlier.

Now to him who's able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think. Here's the key phrase that guides us. According to the power at work within us, what is the power at work within us? He's already established it. It's the Spirit of God.

that He has placed within your inner being as a believer. Yeah. Now When we see according to that tells us this first point, this first observation. That the Spirit's power is the standard for any power in our lives. To say that it is according to the Spirit.

To say that it is according to the power at work within us is to say that it is by the standard. of the Holy Spirits Power.

Now that's really good news. That's good news because if it was by the standard Of my power, I am absolutely sunk absolutely sunk. In fact, if I think that that's not the case, I'm probably even more sunk than I realize. Because I have to reckon with the reality of my affinitude, my ineptitude, my incapacities, and my impotence before I can ever access. what it means to live by the power of another who dwells within.

To learn what it is to rely upon him.

Now this power is juxtaposed. It's unique to the believer. Let your eyes go back to chapter 2 for a second in your text, verse 2. In which, verse 1 says, And you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. What's the spirit that is at work?

in the world, that's the evil one that's at work in the world, you have a unique power at work within you that you can access in that way. But now we have to make a few comments that are quite important about the nature of accessing. that power. Because this is where Good people. Jesus loving people.

people. Passionate. Jesus-loving people. Desperate. Passionate.

Jesus loving. people. Go sideways. They go sideways.

So let me let's just make a couple of comments about this. The first is the Spirit's power is not. Listen carefully. to be lusted. After.

It's not to be. That's fascinating. Because I find good Christian people. who lust after it. They want it because they want things to be different, not because they want to grow close to him.

They want it not to feel his felt presence so that they can be who they ought to be, whatever the given circumstance is. They want to co-opt and commodify God and treat the Spirit as though the Spirit is magic. There was a guy that tried to do that. In Acts chapter 8, his name was Simon Magus. And Philip Preaching the gospel came to a city, the city of Samaria, in Samaria.

And he comes to the city. He's proclaiming the gospel. Simon begins to see, man, the power of God is at work. And Simon, who the people around there had seen him do magic and wonders and signs for years, they called him, according to Acts 8, they called him the power of God. That was the name they gave him.

Imagine walking around and that's your nickname. I mean, that's like You're you're in the WWE. Top turnbuckle, baby. The power of God. They called him the great.

So he's doing all these things. People can't believe. Philip comes to preach the gospel, he gets baptized.

So the Spirit is at work in Samaria. Peter and John in the church in Jerusalem get wind that the spirit's at work in Samaria, so they send up Peter and John, go check it out, see what's happening. They go up there and. They are doing miraculous things. And Simon, this guy that had trafficked in the miraculous for a time, sees the miraculous things that are going on, that Peter and John are doing.

Verse 18 of Acts 8.

Now, when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through. The laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You've neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Give it to me!

He lusted. to be someone. Who could have Power. In his life, he was tired. of seeing now others have a power he thought he once had.

And he longed for it. He longed for it.

Sometimes out of desperation you can take things into your own hands.

Sometimes, out of desperation, you can long for your situation to change so much, man. It's why, example, when I was over in Africa a few years ago preaching and teaching. Pastors and denominational leaders, and seminary students, and Bible college students on prosperity theology and its origins. It's all throughout the church because they're desperate for their situation to change. I remember preaching in a church, true story.

I'm preaching in this church. I give about a 45-minute, 40-minute message. Can you believe that? I kept it down to that time frame. It was unbelievable.

Work of God. I preach. And I go, and we were sitting over here, those of us partaking in this service, we're sitting over here.

So I walk over and I sit down.

Well, the guy got up and he ends up, he starts off, he says, Now we had the appetizer and now we're going to have the main course. And I thought, oh, somebody else is speaking. And my host looked at me and he goes, he wants you to get up again. I said, what? Yeah, he wants you to give another message.

All right. So later on, I got up and gave another message.

Now, in between, here's what happened. We got worship music going. And we have two ladies who are singing on microphones and they're leading worship. And this guy who's kind of leading the worship is with a microphone down off the stage down here. He actually has his back to the people.

And all of a sudden, I see him pull out, and I'm not exaggerating, he pulls out a couple of dollar bills. And I thought, oh, gracious, what's he doing? And the next thing I know, did he, did he, did he, he comes on up on the stage. And he starts stuffing the dollar bills. In the worship leaders waste.

Pants.

Now, you start stuffing. If you want to stuff dollar bills here, I'll be okay with it. But listen. I thought, what in the world is going on here? What on earth?

There's this sense in which we're worshiping and we're sowing seeds. To the Spirit. There's this sense in which Spirit power is now going to happen as we give our offerings in these ways. If you think that the Spirit is going to be triggered. by something you do.

You're wrong. You're wrong. And that's important to note. Because I hear people, I hear good Christian people talk all the time like the Spirit is just at their beck and call, and He's going to bring it on. Hold on.

God is not your dog on a leash. It's not how he functions. He lusts after it.

Now, the Spirit is to be longed for. There's a difference between lust and longing. What's the difference? It's this last word, this last phrase, because it brings the hope it brings.

Okay. When I put my hope in God, I put my hope in God because I long for the Spirit of God to show up in my life in some way and do something that only He can do. The things I'm praying for are not things I can move. I can't move those things. That's why I'm praying.

for God to move. Because the presupposition is that he has the power. Romans 15: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace, the God of hope in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may. Look at it. Abound in hope.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, you're not going to get cynical. By the power of the Holy Spirit, you're not going to get fatalistic. By the power of the Holy Spirit, you're not going to go, well, same old, same old, by the power of the Holy Spirit. You're not going to go, ah, another day, another dollar. Other shoes are gonna drop.

That's not really like other shoes gonna drop does not quite sound like faith. You know how it is. Does that sound like faith? No, no, no. The Holy Spirit comes and says, Long for me.

That m you remember? I closed last time telling you that we need God to get God. I need God to move in my life, to move me to want Him. That's one of the things you ought to pray. God.

God, make me the kind of person who just wants you day and night. Make me the kind of person that's not distracted in life. Make me the kind of person that seeks your face around every corner. Long to Because in longing is where you find hope. And finally, the Spirit's power.

And I already alluded to this, but it's important. The Spirit's power is not conjured up. How do I know that? I'm not going to read all these scriptures to you. But in Acts 2.38 and Acts 10.45, you see the language of the Spirit tied to the gift.

of the Holy Spirit. If there, it's not talking about the gifts you receive of the Holy Spirit like spiritual gifts. It's talking about the gift that is. The Holy Spirit Himself. That is, the Spirit is, according to John chapter 14.

Sent. Right? By the Father. John 16, sent Jesus. John 16, 7, by Jesus.

John 3:8, when it speaks about your conversion, it says, the wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don't know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit. It's mysterious. You don't go, wind blow. It is blows. It just happens.

And sometimes it picks up out of nowhere. He said, That's the way it is with the Spirit.

So there's no conjuring up of the Spirit. There's no magic mantras. There's no if you do A, God will do B. There's no quid pro quo. There's no divine ATM card.

If that is somehow built into the network of your theology, you need to discard that sooner than later. Because that actually I think is spirit clinching. And what happens then is it becomes Simon Magus-like imitation, where people then all of a sudden think you got something or doing something that it's not really you doing at all. The Spirit blows where he wills. What we're after is the Spirit's power in our life, and yet it is like roping the wind.

It is. And we have to sit there with that and live in contentment. In that kind of dynamic, the Spirit's power. Is at work in us. Look at your text.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work. within us. How do I know that? Additional to just that phrase, the power at work within us. Let me give you one text.

One text, John 14, 12 through 16. Oftentimes in your Bibles, there's like a paragraph separation.

So purposefully, I put these together so you could just see the continuity of thought. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these he'll do because I'm going to the Father.

So he's saying you're going to do, as a believer, amazing things as Jesus is removed.

Well, it's not because Jesus is going that you'll do amazing things, but it's because of who Jesus is sending. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

Now, keep in mind, ask in my name, it does not mean that I pray and I say, I would like a million dollars in Jesus' name. I mean Like I hear sometimes people say, they finish a sentence, in Jesus' name, as though it's like a mantra.

Well, you don't understand. I done said it in Jesus' name.

Well, just because you said it in Jesus' name doesn't mean that it maps on to his character. It doesn't mean it coheres with his will. That's an attempt at conjuring. If that's how you view it.

So here He says, You ask my name. You're going to ask something in concert with his will and something that maps on to his character. If you ask me anything in my name, I'll do it. How will he do it? Stay with it.

If you love me. You'll keep my commandments, and I will ask the, here's what I'll do: I'll ask the Father, and he'll give you another helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive. Ask something in my name. I'm going to ask the Father to send the Spirit. He's telling you this is how.

I'm going to be at work. in answering your prayers. This is how I'm going to be at work in answering you in real space and time. It's going to be through the power of the Spirit, this other. That's why.

You can pray boldly because God isn't out there somewhere. You can pray boldly. You can pray without speaking out loud. Why? Because you're praying in your inner being.

In your inner being. Understand. That yeah we have a lot another area we really get kind of Odd on sometimes is spiritual warfare at times. And I find sometimes people talking like they're scientists in spiritual warfare. They seem to know all these things out beyond the text of scripture and how to function and all of it.

Listen, Satan can, you have no indication the Bible ever. That Satan As a finite localized spirit being, can read your thoughts. None. He cannot read your mind. that is reserved for you to communicate with your Lord.

And you pray. Then you seek him. For the help that only he can give you. That's how you pray without ceasing. You go throughout your day in an inner monologue that keeps getting interrupted by these rascals who talk to you throughout the day.

It is the power at work. within us. The Spirit's power has breathtaking scope. Go back to the beginning of verse 20.

Now, to him who's able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. We already looked at according to the power at work within us. We need to look at this first clause.

So we're going to have a little Greek lesson. All right? Up here is that first phrase, the first part of verse 20 in Greek. Let's see if this guy works. There we go.

All right, now to him who's able.

Now to him was Abel. Right? More than all, that's what who pair means. Did we lose it? There we go.

More or above all to do. And then you get this word right here. Which is a word that we'll talk about in a moment, about abundance, but over and superabundance, right? All that we ask. And think.

Okay?

So let me show you this and just break this down because what happens is there's this way in which we're supposed to read this text and feel the building of it.

Okay?

So first, he's able to do what... You ask or think. You have an internal. Prayerful monologue. with the spirit.

Then it turns into a dialogue as the Spirit begins to minister to you, and you're praying. You're seeking the Lord. And he is able to do what you ask or think. It doesn't mean he will do everything you ask or think, but it means that he has all the capacity to do what you ask or think. But I have no idea what to ask or think most of the time.

That's part of my challenge, right? But he's able to do that. He's able to do Oh. Not just some, but all that we ask or think. He's able to do huper panta, more than all that we ask or think.

He is able to do, and then we get the first part of a compound word, abundantly more than all we ask or think. He's able to do more abundantly, that word when it's by itself and not in a double compound word, means something like emphatically. He can do it to the nth degree. He's able to do more abundantly than all that we ask or think, and then we get the whole kit and caboodle in this double compound word, hupere ek. Poi et sai.

You get this whole Or ek peresu, you get this whole piece. He's able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. He goes beyond. What you could even imagine And he does that not because he gives now, you ask for a million and he gives you 10 million.

You ask for $100 million, he gives you a billion. God, great. I prayed for a truck and he gave me two. I'm not talking about that. What I am saying is this.

That as you pray, You and I. Ask big. Hairy. Prayer requests. I would be way out.

Over my skis. way out over my skis. If I acted as though I know clearly. the best way that that should be answered. I would be way out over myself.

What faith is, is not faith that something will happen. That's commodification, that's prayer as magic, that's the spirit as a magician. Faith is Directed, found in, grounded in, a person. It's that I'm saying to him. I Trust.

You I trust you. Brad Homer, our pastor worship in media, likes to go to a Thai restaurant down here. It's got to know the owners.

So now sometimes he'll go in and they'll say, What do you want? And he'll say, I don't know, just make something.

Well, who?

Now, they seem like very nice people to me. I would never say that. Ever, 'cause they're gonna make something with fish and I can't ha hack it.

Okay. But Brad, just say, you just use SmankIt. There's a faith step saying, God. You do it. I don't know how.

I'm not sure when. I'm not sure where. But you do it. Don't be a cook in the kitchen. Just let him cook.

And you keep coming back. And you keep clinging in faith. Because you actually believe that he will superabundantly. Far more than anything you are able to conceive of. Or think.

That he will do. Oh, let me go back here. The Spirit's power extols the perfections of the Father in the church and in Christ. That's a mouthful. Where is it?

Look at your text.

out of him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. What's the culmination of his prayer is all of this power, where is it directed? What are you wanting? out of your prayer. Are you wanting your life to be easier?

You want what you want when you want it. What do you want from it? Or do you want the glory of God? To him be glory. In the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations.

Forever and ever. Amen. Uh The church is to be a place of praise.

Now, you've heard the verse that's sometimes translated, God inhabits the praise of his people. It comes from this verse. This is the ESV's rendition of it, and I like it a lot. It's talking about Israel, not the church, but nonetheless, it's talking about God's people at that time. Today, the church is God's people at this time.

Yet you are holy. Enthroned on the praises of Israel. You sang earlier. What are you doing? When you sing praise, You're lifting God up metaphorically.

It's as though you're saying, we want you in triumphal procession to be exalted before us so that we can bask in your perfections to a greater degree. And that is not the means to our end. That is the end of all ends. We're not praising you so that now we get spiritual karma.

So, hey, by the way, I'll be back later with a big hairy prayer request. Remember when I praised you? Right? Buttering up your wife. Oh, your husband.

This is the end, the cul-de-sac. is in the glory of God. And where is that found? To him be glory in the church. Yeah?

Here And in Christ Jesus.

Now, he's established before this. He built this out. Ephesians 1:3 through 14: all the spiritual benefits you have in Christ Jesus. Right? What he did for you on the cross, he then, the Spirit comes bringing Christ, and now he lives within you.

In Christ Jesus, you have all these things. And it's in this new community that that salvation works itself out and that's brought together, Jew and Gentile.

So in this little phrase, he brings together what he's built in chapter one, in chapter two. And you get to see, here's some connection points. Christ's work makes the church possible. There's no church without the work of Christ on the cross. It's realized.

Christ's work affords the church all of its resources. Spiritual benefits, verse 3 through 14 gives us the resources that we have in Christ. You're as adopted as I am. You're as redeemed as I am. You're as justified as I am.

On and on it goes, and we're all moving to this same end. Christ's work unifies the church. It brings us from disparate lives and discombobulated hearts and dejection and rejection of one another. And it says, no, Jew and Gentile, you come together. It says, no, black and white, you come together.

It says, no, Latino, Latina, white, you come together. It says no, if you're of Asian descent, if you are of American Indigenous descent, you come together in one community and you worship. It says if you're high class, low class, on the social spectrum. It says if you're blue collar, white collar. It says if you're a man or a woman, you come together in a context and there aren't respective benefits that somehow are just for this class, this ethnicity.

for everybody. Right? He reconciles you. The church displays the glory of God to the world. It reflects it.

They will know that you are His disciples. What is it? By your love for one another. And that's what he built. Going back in to verse 17 in his prayer.

It's why Jesus prayed in John 17, 22, The glory that you've given me, I've given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. The glory. I'm putting my glory in them. I'm making them what? We saw it in chapter 2, verse 19 through 22.

You could look at it, a temple. A place for his dwelling. He's making that you a place for his dwelling so that the people in the world look and go That's what it looks like when God shows up. That's what it looks like. It looks like people who love each other.

It looks like people filled with the love of Christ. It looks like people who are depending on his spirit. It looks like people aren't trusting themselves. It looks like that sense of dynamism. To him be glory, put on display his moral perfections in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever.

And ever Amen. That's the Randy Travis verse. Forever and ever, amen. The Spirit's power births perpetual praise. It keeps coming.

See what's coming down. Let me give you a verse and then a quote that's just so good it makes me want to jump off this. Platform. Maybe I will. Through him Then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips.

That acknowledges name. That's our job. Continually. Keep praising, keep praising. But I feel like garbage, keep praising.

I know, but I keep yep, keep going, keep going. Wake up in the morning thankful. Wake up in the morning grateful. Wake up in the morning brim full of praise. Go to bed at night, brim full of praise.

Thanking God for all that He's afforded. You didn't have to have today, and you don't have to have tomorrow. And He keeps bringing it. He keeps bringing it. He keeps bringing it.

I know, but I don't even want to see tomorrow. It's so difficult. It's so hard. I know. And God's going to show up in your life.

He's going to show up in somebody else. He's going to show up in His people. He's going to show up through the power of His Spirit. Keep hanging on. Perpetual praise.

Praise Now, here is what you ought not do. You ought not. Fall into Uh Little statements that you just kind of say to say 'em. Kind of say to say. Lord's good.

Amen, brother. The Lord's good all the time, and God is good. Amen, brother. How you doing? Lord is made.

I'll rejoice and be glad in it. You're kind of falling apart inside. He's given lip service.

Sort of hoping you can talk yourself all into it. Right. Here's what glory looks like. when you're on the praise train. Jonathan Edwards.

You ready? Great hair also. God is glorified not only by his glories being seen. but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified.

than if they only see it. His glory is then received by the whole soul, both by the understanding and by the heart. God made the world that He might communicate. And the creature receives his glory, and that it might be received both by the mind and heart. Listen to the end here.

He that testifies His idea of God's glory doesn't glorify God so much as he that testifies also his, and you might not be familiar, his approbation, his approval, or his praise of it and his delight in it. Here's the idea: he's saying, don't just say, God gets the glory. Don't just say God's glorious. Feel That God is glorious. Delight.

That God is glorious. But my big hairy prayer. request isn't answered. I know. No, there's mine.

That's why it's a big hairy prayer request. Can you still? Delight. In the glory of God in the waiting room? Or can you only praise him in the delivery room?

Is that it? And then you might wonder why you're praising him. Because your pet God did exactly what you wanted when you called him. Palette. Or Is his person just enough?

To find glory. Wonder it.

Now, if you can get there. You're going to do something. That's the final point. The Spirit's power fuels multi-generational faithfulness. You see that text?

It says, throughout all generations. Forever and ever. Here's what you need. You need to be the kind of person. that your child looks at.

In cells My father does not give just Lip service. to the glory of God. My Father glorifies God in good and bad. You need to be the kind of person. Whose child looks and says, My mother.

has endured hardship. But the smile of God remains. You need to be the kind of person. whose grandchildren Look and say, I know they're getting old. But how is it that as their bodies break down, the sweetness of Christ pervades every part of their facet of their being?

How is that? that they begin to look And see the seeds of the glory of God sown in the lives of people around them. And that's the living epistle. It's not your pithy phrase that's the living epistle. It's the disposition of your authentic heart in the midst of life as it rains down upon you in fire and brimstone, and you keep going.

And then it, okay, I could do that. I can walk. Because every child, every young person in here, here's what I can tell you: I have no idea what life holds for you, other than this: suffering. Suffering. It's the only thing I know that it holds for you.

I don't know, it won't be interminable, it won't be perpetual, it won't be all the time, but I know that it holds suffering for you. I know that.

So dad, mom. Grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt. One who people look up to.

Some of you in this room are like aunts and uncles to others. Moms and dads to others. Be the kind of person that sells multi-generational faithfulness because you have a radical commitment to the glory of God. I'll give you some scripture and we're done. One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.

That's how they're going to know.

So, even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation. Your, look at it. You see it? Your power. To all those to come, Psalm 78:4, we will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord and his might and the wonders that he has done.

So. My challenge to you is take your big hairy prayer request. To God regularly, repetitively. Leave it there. Lean in, not in faith that He will do, fill in the blank, but in faith that He's the best cook in the kitchen and you should let Him just serve up what He's going to serve up.

And you sit in that waiting room. And you glorify his name in the waiting. Because if you can't glorify him in the waiting, you are going to be a person who is using, or you won't be successful at it, but you'll be attempting to use God just for your benefit. And you'll think God exists for you when you exist for him. Father, I pray that you would guide, lead, direct us.

Give us the capacity. the wherewithal as it were Um praise your name. in difficulty and in challenge. The capacity to be leaning into the power of your Spirit to fill our hearts. With love for you.

We need you to arrive at you. And so we ask that you would cultivate within us hearts for you, brim full of praise from morn through noon. to the end of the day and on to the next. Grant us that, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.