You do not have a power problem. God is your power. Dr. Tony Evans says all the power we'll ever need is within reach, but too many of us never tap into it. There's gotta be a connection in order to experience the power.
This is the alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. As the old saying goes, how much you get of God depends on how much he has of you.
Well, Dr. Evans builds on that idea today as he brings us a lesson drawn from Ephesians chapter 3. Let's join him. If you want to get more of God. Your capacity must be expanded.
Your ability to take in more must be expanded. Far too many of us are content with our spiritual level. And once you become satisfied. Once you don't want to grow anymore, develop anymore. Go deeper.
Anymore. It doesn't take much to satisfy you. But for those who are hungry for God. who are in the hot pursuit of the holy. You want to eat all the time.
Because you want About as much of God as you can possibly get. But God will only give you as much of him as you can possibly handle. Why are some Christians so Full of God and others. Nibble Differing capacities. Our passage today.
goes right to the heart. of that issue. Verse 20 is a great verse. For spiritually hungry people, but It isn't a context. Let me set forth a theme.
And then try to Expound on it. During our few moments together, the theme is simply this. Spiritual capacity is dependent upon spiritual intimacy. And that will determine spiritual power. Or let me put it another way.
The more intimate you are, the more capacity you have. And the more capacity you have, the more power you experience.
So, if you don't see a lot of God's power, it's because you don't possess a lot of God's capacity. And if you don't possess a lot of God's capacity, that's because you're not experiencing a lot of God's intimacy. Paul begins by saying, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, verse 14, from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name. First of all, he wants to pray on behalf of the church at Ephesus for increased spiritual capacity. We know this because he says in verse 16, I want God to grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through the spirit in the inner man.
He says, I'm praying for all you saints, every believer. That you will experience all the wealth involved in your great salvation. I want you to get all that's coming to you. How do you do that?
Well, verses 17 to 19, he tells us it's through spiritual intimacy. He says so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That word dwell means to be at home. He's already living in their lives. These are Christians, these are the father's children.
No, he means so that God can be at home. The dwell means to be at home.
Now, most of us lie when we have guessed. Guests come over and we say, Make yourself At home. We mean I'm gonna take you to this room As long as you stay in this room. Make yourself at home. Yeah.
Don't be just meandering over my house.
So we don't really want people to make themselves like totally at home. He says, if you want expanded capacity, Jesus Christ has to be free to visit every room. You say, but some of these rooms aren't that hot. That's why he wants to visit them. He wants to have access to every room in your.
Heart. In your life. He says that he wants Total access to you. That's enemy. Because for somebody to have total access to you, That is to go anywhere in your house whenever they want to, you have to know them pretty well.
You don't go to a stranger and you say, Well, come on in, you go wherever you want. We don't even do that with most of our relatives. He wants to dwell, that is, make himself at home in your hearts through faith. That is through our trusting in him to identify what's wrong in each room in our lives, that the process of cleaning it up. Why does he want to do it?
Because sin blocks capacity. If you're in good health in your heart today. That is because the blood can flow freely. But you know, the cholesterol deposits start to build up over the years, and it constricts the flow of blood.
So, the blood stops being able to flow as free as it used to flow, especially as we age.
Now, you can be all independent if you want to, saying, if I've got some clogging of the arteries, just leave it alone. One day it'll take care of itself. Yeah, it will. No, the idea is To be catharized and to be to have the balloon go through and to open it up.
so that the flow keeps going. Christ wants access. That's why the spiritual person isn't the one who sees no wrong in their life. The spiritual person is the person who's so close to God, God is free to show it. And reveal it that he might dwell in your hearts.
That's intimacy because you only allow people you want to be up close and personal to do that. Being rooted and grounded in love because what? It's relational. Not merely academic. It's not merely throwing out Bible verses.
It's being rooted and grounded in a relationship that you will 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. He says, to know what cannot be known. To know what cannot be known, that the love of Christ, Christ's love for you, the love he wants you to have for him, is beyond comprehension.
You cannot comprehend how much Christ loves you. Unless you get close enough. To know the love of Christ, why? That you may be filled with the fullness of God. That's capacity.
He says, I'm praying for more capacity, which is predicated on intimacy, that you might experience the capacity. You go to the doctor, one of the things they check is your pulse. They're testing your resting heart rate. The lower it is while resting, the more healthier you are. People who are very athletic have lower resting heart rates.
Why? Because they've so strengthened the chambers in their heart that the flow. But Wahat doesn't work so hard to pump the blood.
So it doesn't have to beat as often. If you're sitting here listening to me and your heart rate right now sitting there is 100. You need a doctor. Because your heart's having to work too hard while resting. It's supposed to go up that high, 100 and plus, because you're working, because you're on the treadmill, because you're running, not when you're resting.
The closer you get to God. The more at rest you are. Because he expands the capacity. You say, I wish I had more power.
Well, then you need more capacity. I wish I had more capacity.
Well, then you need more intimacy because intimacy controls capacity, and capacity controls power. Last year, my sprinkler system. Was it working properly?
So I called the sprinkler guy over to check my box. I had a power problem. It wasn't producing. Grass getting dry and Brown. In the Texas heat.
Because my sprinkler lost. Power!
Something's wrong with my... Power!
Sprinkler Man came over and looked. at my sprinkler box. Instead, you don't have a power problem. I said, but it's not working. He said, well, it's not working, but that's not the reason why.
Then the sprinkler man started messing up my yard. Because he started digging up. tracking a line and started digging up. going on the inside. And when it went down deep enough in my yard.
Long enough when he made himself at home in my yard. I called him to fix my box. He started. Digging up my grass. He said, um Here's your problem.
And he showed me where one of my lines were disconnected. My Power Box was fine. I had an intimacy problem on the front end. There was no connection. Because there was no intimacy between the wires they weren't touching.
There was no power coming out the box. Not because I had a power problem, but because I had an intimacy problem that affected my experience of the power that was okay. You do not have a power problem. God is your power. But to get the power of God to where you are.
Requires But the wires touch him. There's got to be a connection in order to experience the power. Dr. Evans will share another illustration of that point when he continues our message in just a moment. First, though, today is the final installment in Tony's inspiring compilation on the power of prayer.
Through these messages, we've been focusing on how to make our prayers more effective, more intimate, and more about God's agenda than our own. And we'd love to put all seven of these powerful lessons in your hands right now. When you make a donation to help support the alternative, we'll send you the complete Power of Prayer series, along with an added bonus, a copy of Tony's brand new devotional, Anchored by Prayer. It's designed to help you learn how to pray boldly and consistently, even when life throws distractions and doubts your way. But today is the final day we'll be offering this exclusive package on prayer, so don't wait.
Visit us today at tonyevans.org or call our resource team at 1-800-800-3222. That's tonyevans.org. Or by phone at 1-800-800-3222 anytime of the day or night to make a request for this special offer. I'll repeat that information for you after the second part of today's message. Right now, let's get right back into Ephesians 3 with Dr.
Evans. He pulls it together now. In the verse, everybody wants to get to. Verse 20. It's okay to love verse 20.
It's okay to make it one of the great memory verses of your Christian life, as long as you understand verse 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
Now To heal. It's one of the great doxologies. One of the great praise statements in the scripture.
Now to him. Who is able? First of all, we discover in this verse That God's power is personal. To him. Not to it.
Not to a thing. It's to a person. And that is why relationship is the key because you're dealing with a person.
So God's power is personal. Secondly, God's power is potent. Who is able? Jesus said, Nothing is impossible with God. Hebrews 7:25 says, He is able to save.
to the uttermost. Second Corinthians 9, verse 8 says, God is able. To supply all grace to his children. In every situation, so that they have more than enough to face any situation that pops up in their lives. He says, God is able to supply to you from his throne grace.
What does that mean? God is able to give you what you need to keep going. Nebuchadnezzar asked Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. If I put you in this fiery furnace, who... shall deliver you Meshach, Shirach, and Abednego looked at Nebuchadnezzar and said, Our God whom we serve is Abel.
To deliver us from your fiery furnace.
Now, that's as bad as you get a fiery situation by a federal government. And he says, Our God is able. I don't know what your situation is, I know he's able. Cyrus came and he says, Daniel. I know you're down there with the lions.
But I have a question because I heard you preaching. All the time when you were working in my service, I just have one question. Was your God able? To deliver you from the lions. Daniel said, my God was able.
Yeah. June 24th. Sense.
Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling. And present you faultless before his throne on high. Be glory, honor, and dominion now and evermore. Our God does not have a power problem. Anybody who can create a universe can pretty much do whatever they want.
A little boy was picking up a rock. It was a heavy rock. He couldn't quite get it all. He couldn't pick it up. The father said, pick it up.
So I said, I can't. He said, I told you, pick it up. He started crying. He said, Dad, I've told you, he said, you're not using all your strength, boy. Pick it up!
He cried harder. Why are you making me do this? Why are you making me go through this? I can't pick it up. He said, I demand that you use all of your power to pick it up.
He said, I'm using all of my power. He says, you can't be because I've been standing here for 15 minutes and you haven't asked me to do anything yet. Many of us are living in our own strain and wonder why we can't pick up the problems. Wonder why we're always under the circumstances rather than being on top of them. God's power is unprecedented.
Because he's not only able, it says he's able to do. Exceedingly. Abundantly. Beyond. Yeah.
We call these the addition of superlatives. He doesn't just want to say he's able. Because most of the things we tie to God are things that are explainable. It is when God starts doing the unexplainable. that you know your capacity has spread.
Yeah. is when he starts showing off. It's when not only he does what you ask, but the verse says he does stuff you haven't. come up with yet. When he does that which is beyond what you can ask or think.
When he outshines your brain waves. It's unprecedented because it's beyond what we can ask or think. But his power is also prejudicial. Because it says according to the power. That works.
Where? within us. If nothing's happening on the inside, don't expect to see much on the outside. Don't expect a To see heaven shake. In your situation, if nothing's happening on the inside.
It's got to be happening on the inside for it to show up on the outside because it says it's according to. The power that's working in you. And remember, the power doesn't work in you until your capacity has expanded, and your capacity doesn't expand until your intimacy has expanded. It's got to be working on the inside before you see it on the outside. It's prejudicial.
It doesn't come equally to everybody. Daniel 11:32, I love this verse. It says, But the people who know their God, shall be strong and pull off exploits. The people who know their God will pull off stuff. that go beyond the ordinary and they become downright extraordinary.
Not because they're supermen or superwomen, but because God has the freedom. on the inside. to show off for them on the outside. Because their intimacy quotient is so high. That's why verse 21 says, to him be glory in the church.
Because to give God glory, to give God glory is to highlight him, to make a big deal about him. And sometimes other folk don't understand what you're going through.
Some folk don't understand what you're having to deal with. They don't understand the development that you're going through within. But you know, when God is ready to break through.
Sophistication isn't what you're looking for. Just dressing with a three-piece suit, a shirt and tie, or a nice Sunday dress is not enough. When God is ready to break through a choir and a sermon, it's not all you want. You won't be satisfied until you see him. As long as you're satisfied with the preacher, you're not there yet.
As long as you're satisfied with the singers, you're not there yet. As long as you're satisfied with the building, you're not there yet. As long as you're satisfied with the program, you're not there yet. Because the person who is intimate and expanding capacity is not satisfied until he shows up. You're making a big deal about him.
Because of the power working within. I'm sure you and your house. Like me and mine. have made use of The electrical power strips. Electrical power strips.
that have like six outlets. You take the little strip. And you plug the strip into a wall that only has two.
Now, what that nets you It's seven outlets. Because you got six on the strip. You plug it into the one with two, so you lose one of those. The one above it is still available.
So you now have gone from two to seven because of a strip. My strip is full. Of all this stuff that needs power. I got all this stuff in the room that needs power. My problem was I didn't have enough.
natural outlets. To address all my power needs. I had so much stuff going on in the room. That I need it. extra power beyond that which was naturally possessed.
In the context of the room. I need an additional source of power.
Now, I guess I could have redid the house. Already did the wrong. Shh. I didn't have to go through all that trouble or all that expense because simply by getting a strip. Where I could plug these things into, I would increase my capacity.
For the reception of electricity. And I just want you to know all of those things work on this one strip. On this one strip, all I needed was that one strip, and all of these independent things could come together in one place, drawn from one source, and all of them work in their unique way. I know you got all kinds of stuff going on in your life. Uh You got your job and you need some power there.
You got your family and you need some power there. You've got your finances and you need some power there. You've got your health and you need some power there. You've got some problem over here. You need some power there.
Everywhere, and you say, How am I going to deal with this? I don't have enough power to deal with this. God has provided a strip. And he says, if you become intimate with me, I will add additional outlets and expand your capacity. And when I expand your capacity, if you plug in, my power will address everything you can plug into it.
Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all you can ask or think, be glory, honor, and dominion now and forevermore. To him be glory in the church. The very first step toward plugging into the power God wants to give is by surrendering your life to Him and receiving the gift of salvation. If you're not already a Christian, those ideas may sound strange, but they really are the key to a brand new life, better than anything you can imagine. Tony will explain it all to you when you visit Tony Evans.
org and click on the link at the top of the page that simply says Jesus. There he'll tell you all about what it means to be a Christian and walk you through everything you need to know to start your brand new life. Check it out today at tonyevans.org.
Well, today's message was the last installment in Tony's series called The Power of Prayer, and it's available on digital download and CD or USB flash drive to review on your own or to share with your small group or Bible study. And don't forget, if we hear from you today, we'll send you all seven messages in this collection, along with Tony's brand new devotional book, Anchored by Prayer. They're our gift to you when you help keep this teaching ministry on the air with your generous support. Learn how to pray with confidence and experience God's power like never before. Visit tonyevans.org to make your donation and request, or call us anytime 24-7 at 1-800-800-3222.
Again, that's tonyevans.org or 1-800-800-3222.
Sometimes it feels safer to hold on to the past than to step into the unknown. But God calls us to move forward into the future He's prepared. Tomorrow, we kick off a powerful series from Dr. Evans that takes us to the book of Joshua, where Israel stands on the edge of the promised land after 40 years in the wilderness. It's a powerful message that'll teach us that while God's promises are certain, Stepping into them takes courage, obedience, and faith.
I hope you'll join us.
