By
Rev. Juliet Schimpf
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Broadcast
Notes
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LINK to CFRA broadcast of
Sunday, June 19th, 2016)
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'Power In Christ'
The first half of Ephesians is doctrine, and the
second half is ethics or duty—Paul bridges the two sections with prayer.
WARREN WIERSBE:
“This passage [Ephesians 3:14-21] is the second of two prayers recorded
in Ephesians, the first one being Ephesians 1:15-23. In the first prayer, the emphasis is on ENLIGHTENMENT
(last week), but in this prayer the emphasis is on ENABLEMENT (this
week).”
- The Invocation
- The Petition
- The Blessing
1. The Invocation (Ephesians 3:14-15)
Ephe. 3:14 “For this reason I bow my knees before the
Father, (15) from whom every family in heaven and earth takes its name.”
* The first
thing that strikes us is Paul’s posture:
“I bow my knees.”
* In
Ephesians, there is an emphasis on spiritual posture. As lost sinners, we were buried in the
graveyard (Eph. 2:1). But when we
trusted Christ, He raised us from the dead and seated us with Christ in the
heavenlies (Eph. 2:4-6).
* WARREN WIERSBE: “Because we are __[SEATED]__with
Christ, we can ___[WALK]___so as to please Him (Eph. 4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15) and
we can ____[STAND] against the Devil (Eph. 6:10-13). But the posture that links ‘sitting’ with
‘walking’ and ‘standing’ is ‘bowing the knee’.”
*SITTINGà BOWING THE KNEEàSTANDINGàWALKING
* WILLIAM BARCLAY: “kneels”= it means that Paul prostrates
himself. The ordinary Jewish attitude of
prayer was standing, with the hands stretched out and palms upwards. Paul’s prayer for the Chruch is so intense
that he casts himself face down before God in an agony of passionate request.
2. The Petition (Ephesians 3:16-19)
* N. T.
WRIGHT: “Love (last week) and power
(this week), power and love: these are the
two grand themes as Paul moves through His prayer.”
a. strength (Eph. 3:16)
Ephe.
3:16 “I pray that, according to the
riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner
being with power through his Spirit”
* Recall in
Ephe. 2:1: the inner man or woman of
those OUTSIDE OF CHRIST is DEAD, but the inner man or woman of those IN CHRIST
is ALIVE!
* The PRESENCE of the Holy Spirit in the life is
EVIDENCE of salvation (Rom. 8:9), whereas the POWER of the Spirit is ENABLEMENT
for Christian living.
* What does
it mean to say that the Holy Spirit enables a person for Christian living? It means that our spiritual faculties are
controlled by God—that we yield to the Spirit and let Him control the inner man
or woman.
* THE
MESSAGE: “I
ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious
inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him
in.”
* Why does
Paul pray that we would be “strengthened” with power through the Holy Spirit? Ephesians 6:10-12 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the
strength of His power. Put on the full
armour of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes [“wiles”
in NRSV] of the devil. For our struggle
is not against enemies of flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the
powers, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the
spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
*SITTINGà BOWING THE KNEEàSTANDINGàWALKING
* THE BARNA
RESEARCH GROUP, 2002: Six out of ten
Americans (59%) reject the existence of Satan, indicating that the devil, or
Satan, is merely a symbol of evil. Catholics are much more likely than
Protestants to hold this view - 75% compared to 55% - although a majority of
both groups concur that Satan is symbolic.
b. depth (Eph. 3:17)
Ephe.
3:17 “and that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”
* Paul used 3
pictures here to convey this idea of spiritual depth, and the 3 pictures
are hidden in the 3 verbs: “dwell”,
“rooted,” and “grounded”:
1. The verb “dwell” literally means “to settle
down and feel at home”.
* Christ was already RESIDENT in the hearts of
the Ephesians--or else Paul would not have addressed them as “saints” in Ephe.
1:1.
* Here Paul is praying that the Holy Spirit
would take up PRESIDENCY
* What Paul was praying for was a deeper
experience between Christ and His people.
He yearned for Christ to settle down and feel at home in their
hearts—not a surface relationship, but an ever-deepening fellowship.
2. The verb “rooted” moves us into the plant
world. The tree must get its roots deep
into the soil if it is to have both nourishment and stability, and the
Christian must have his spiritual roots deep into the love of God.
* Psalm 1:1-3 “Happy are those whose…… delight
is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of
water, which yield their fruit in its season and their leaves do not
wither. In all that they do, they
prospser….”
3.
“Grounded” is an architectural term; it refers to the foundations on
which we build.
c. comprehension (Eph. 3:18-19a)
Ephe.
3:18-19a “I pray that you may have the
power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and
height and depth, (19) and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge”
* The
English word “comprehend” stems from the Latin word prehendere which means “to grasp”.
* We say
that a monkey has a “prehensile tail.”
That is, its tail is able to grasp a tree limb and hold on.
* Our word
comprehend carries the idea of mentally grasping something—of laying hold of it
as our own.
* In other words,
it is possible to understand something but not really make it your own. Paul’s concern was that we lay hold of the
vast expanses of the love of God.
* The
paradox here is that Paul gives us dimensions to the love of God, BUT the
dimensions cannot be measured, because verse 19 explains that the love of
Christ “surpasses knowledge”. [This idea
parallels Ephe. 3:8 which describes “the unsearchable riches of Christ”.]
*
THE MESSAGE: “And I ask him that
with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all
followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and
experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights!”
* Why is it
important to know the full extent of Christ’s love?
i. Ephesians 5:1
“Be imitators of God, as beloved children”—AND GOD IS LOVE!
ii. Ephesians 5:2
“and live [‘walk’ NASB] in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up
for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
d. fullness (Eph. 19b)
Ephe. 19b “so that you may be filled with all the
fullness of God”
* It is said
that nature abhors a vacuum. This
explains why air or water will automatically flow into an empty place.
* The divine
nature abhors a vacuum; God wants us to experience His fullness.
* THE MEANS
of our fullness is the Holy Spirit (Ephe. 5:18—“do not get drunk with wine…be
filled with the Spirit”);
* THE
MEASURE of our fullness is Christ Himself (Ephe. 4:13 “the fullness of Christ.”)
* We like to
measure ourselves by the weakest Christians that we know…we boast, “Well, I’m
better than they are…”
* N.T.
WRIGHT: “Paul speaks far more often of
Christians being ____[‘IN CHRIST’]____ than of Christ being __[‘IN CHRISTIANS’]___.”
3.The Benediction (Ephesians 3:20-21)
Ephe. 3:(20) “Now to him who by the power at work within
us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,
(21) to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations,
forever and ever. Amen.”
* There is
in the heart of every child, and teenager, and adult the need and longing to
sing a doxology. We may sing it to a
hockey team carrying its captain and Stanley Cup on their shoulders; or we may
sing it during a standing ovation at the N.A.C.; or we may express it through
our waving and cheers as the troops come home from service in Afghanistan.
* You see,
we were made to worship and sing. We
were made to have a hero to brag about--the hero we were designed to sing about
is God.
* JOHN PIPER: “God makes much of us, so that we can make
much of Him!”
* WHERE DO
WE MAKE MUCH OF HIM? IN THE CHURCH!
* (Ephe. 3:22) “to him be glory in the church and
in Christ Jesus to all generations”
* Paul
conceives the church as the theater of the glory of God
* Ephe. 3:10
“through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the
principalities and powers in the heavenly places.”
Prayer:
Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you that all the power we need is available to us through your Son and
His Holy Spirit.
We thank you, Father,
that you have an offer for us, an incomprehensible amount of love, and it’s
from that awareness of love that we can grow strong and grow deep roots,
powerful roots for the days ahead.
My prayer for the
listener, today, is first of all for the listener who is feeling week, and I do
pray they’d know, but elsewhere in the Bible, Paul wrote that when we are weak,
we can truly be strong, for it’s in our weakness that Christ’s power is made
perfect.
Would you encourage
the weak listener?
I pray that you would
encourage and empower the listener whose up against some enemies, or some
adversaries at work, or maybe at school. I pray that they would comprehend what
is the full extent of your power.
I pray for the
Christian who needs power to overcome sin or temptation. Would they fill up on
your Spirit, today, and have overcoming power?
And we’ll be careful
to give you all the Glory, just like Paul does.
We were made to worship
you, Lord, and we give you the power and you the glory, and you the praise.
In Jesus’ name, AMEN.
Rev.
Juliet Schimpf
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To
listen to the above broadcast, click on the following link:
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