November 13, 2022
Message Text: Ephesians 3:14-21
“Inconceivable”
Aux Text: Isaiah 40:12-31
Call to Worship: Psalm 121
Service Orientation: Nothing will encourage you to be faithful to Jesus like a good dose of reality when you really see Who Jesus is and the scope of His promises for you!
The Word for the Day: “Inconceivable”
Memory Verse: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. — Ephesians 3:20-21
Background Information:
- (v. 14) Every time Scripture speaks of prayer offered kneeling the occasion is serious. (Leon Morris, Expository Reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians, 101)
- (v. 14) The “reason” for what Paul is about to write is the state of the Ephesians as outlined at the end of chapter 2: their being built together spiritually so that they are God’s household in the Spirit. Because of their position, and because they are still being built together in the divine household, Paul looks for them to make further progress and he prays for them. (Leon Morris, Expository Reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians, 100)
- (v. 18) The writer is not thinking in mathematical terms, nor employing technical language, whether of mathematics or of astrology. He is simply trying to express with rhetorical fullness the magnitude of the vision which opens before Christian faith as it seeks to comprehend the ways of God: there is no region of the universe that is not embraced in his purpose and governed by his love. (George Arthur Buttrick, The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. X, 679)
- (v. 20) Paul is fond of words expressing the idea of abundance and uses them cheerfully even though many of them are used by nobody else. Which leaves us wondering whether he coined them because the words people generally used were not expressive enough for him. (Leon Morris, Expository Reflections on the Letter to the Ephesians, 108)
Why Does God Promise Inconceivable Gifts?:
- To strengthen you with power through His Holy Spirit towards hope. (Eph 3:16; see also: Acts 9:31; 14:22; 15:32, 41; 16:5; 18:23; 1 Cor 14:26; 2 Cor 12:19; Col 1:11; 2:7; 1 Thess 3:2, 13; 2 Thess 2:17; 3:3)
Christ is able to do all that we ask or even think.
Christ is able to do above all that we ask or think.
Christ is able to do abundantly above all that we ask or think.
But that is not all! Christ is able to do EXCEEDINGLY abundantly above all we ask or think! (Oliver B. Greene, Commentary on Ephesians, 133)
The Spirit provides power for our new lives. He begins a lifelong process to make us more like Christ (2 Cor 3:17-18). When we receive Christ by faith, we begin an immediate personal relationship with God. The Holy Spirit works in us to help us become like Christ. He aids in prayer (Rom 8:26-27; Eph 2:18; 6:18); he inspires us to worship (Eph 5:18; Phil 3:3); he shapes our character (Gal 5:22-23). Furthermore, the Spirit unites the Christian community in Christ (Eph 2:19-22). The Spirit can be experienced by all, and he works through all (1 Cor 12:11; Eph 4:4). As such, the Spirit constantly provides us with the moral power to stand for Christ and to serve him. We access this power through prayer and through worship. (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Ephesians, 68)
A- For love (Eph 3:16-19; see also: Luke 6:35; Jn 13:34-35; 15:9-10, 12-13, 17; 17:26; Rom 5:5-8; 8:35-39; 15:30; 1 Cor 14:1; 2 Cor 5:14; 6:6; 13:11, 14; Gal 5:22-23; Eph 4:15-16; 5:2; Phil 2:1-2; Col 1:4-5, 8; 1 Thess 1:3; 4:9-10; 1 Tim 1:14; 2 Tim 1:7; Heb 10:24; 1 Pet 1:22; 2:17; 3:8; 4:8; 1 Jn 2:5, 15; 3:16-18, 23; 4:7-21; 5:2-3; 2 Jn 1:3)
The apostle is simply telling us that the love of Christ, exemplified in his magnanimity to the Gentiles, is too large to be confirmed by any geometrical measurements. It is wide enough to reach the whole world and beyond (1:9, 10, 20). It is long enough to stretch from eternity to eternity (1:4-6, 18; 3:9). It is high enough to raise both Gentiles and Jews to heavenly places in Christ Jesus (1:13; 2:6). It is deep enough to rescue people from sin’s degradation and even from the grip of Satan himself (2:1-5; 6:11, 12). The love of Christ is the love he has for the church as a united body (5:25, 29, 30) and for those who trust in him as individuals (3:17). (Frank E. Gæbelein, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 11, 52)
When God’s love is taken for granted, we paint Him into a corner and rob Him of the opportunity to love us in a NEW AND SURPRISING way, and faith begins to shrivel and shrink. When I become so spiritually advanced that Abba is old hat, then the Father has been had, Jesus has been tamed, the Spirit has been corralled, and the Pentecostal fire has been extinguished. Evangelical faith is the antithesis of lukewarmness. It always means a profound dissatisfaction with our present state. (Brennan Manning; Ragamuffin Gospel, 161)
B. For faithful perseverance (Eph 3:13-14; see also: 1 Cor 4:2; 2 Thess 1:4; 3:3-5; 1 Tim 1:12; 4:16; Heb 10:23, 36; 12:1; Jms 1:2-4, 12; 1 Pt 4:19; Rev 2:2-3, 10)
You don’t need the Holy Spirit if you are merely seeking to live a semi-moral life and attend church regularly. You can find people of all sorts in many religions doing that quite nicely without Him. You only need the Holy Spirit’s guidance and help if you truly want to follow the Way of Jesus Christ. You only need Him if you desire to “obey everything” He commanded and to teach others to do the same (Mt 28:18-20 NIV). You only need the Holy Spirit if you understand that you are called to share in Christ’s suffering and death, as well as His resurrection (Rom 8:17; 2 Cor 4:16-18; Phil 3:10-11). (Francis Chan, Forgotten God, 122-3)
Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in”: aim at earth and you will get neither. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 118-19)
He is able to deliver in the hour of a peril that seems impossible to be delivered from–as in the case of Daniel (Dn 3:17).
He is able to deliver from any and all temptation (1 Cor 10:13; Heb 2:9).
He has the power and He is able to heal when all else fails (Mt 9:28).
He is able to save the vilest, the most despicable. His love reaches down to the uttermost (Heb 7:25).
He is able to quicken and make alive that which is dead (Eph 2:1; rom 4:21).
After saving the soul, He is able to keep that soul from stumbling, staggering, or falling (Jude 24).
His grace is unknown–He is able to make ALL grace abound in the hour of the need for grace (2 Cor 9:8).
He is able to carry out, perform, supply every promise made anywhere in the Holy Bible, including the amazing promises in Ephesians (Eph 3:20). (Oliver B. Greene, Commentary on Ephesians, 134-5)
2.To blow us away in worship. (Eph 3:18-21; see also: Psa 29:2; 86:9; 95:6; 96:9; 100:2-5; Isa 40; Dan 3:28; 7:14, 27; Jonah 1:9; Zep 2:11; Mt 14:22-33; 28:1-17; Lk 24:52; Jn 9:1-38; Rom 12:1; Phil 3:3; Heb 1:1-6; 12:28; Rev 14:7; 15:4)
Did you know that astronomers estimate the existence of hundreds of billions of galaxies? That is more than ten galaxies per person alive today! You won’t run out of things to do or discover during your earthly tenure. And you certainly won’t run out of things to do or discover on the other side of the space-time continuum either. Heaven will be anything but boring. It’s taken thousands of years for billions of humans to explore one tiny planet in one tiny galaxy. And we’ve barely scratched the surface. Exploring the wonders of the new heavens and new earth will keep us curious forever. And our love for God will grow infinitely larger. (Mark Batterson, Primal, A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, 101)
This is what God desires of us? In His works and Word He has manifested Himself that we as His creatures might stand in awe, beholding the symmetry of His attributes, the harmony of His deeds, the glory of His goodness, the overwhelming and unfathomable grandeur of His greatness: in a word, His beauty. So often we turn to God only when in need. He is all too frequently for us no more than an instrument or tool subservient to our desires and put to use to achieve some selfish design. Of course, God is our source, our salvation, our sustenance. But He is first and fundamentally to be seen as altogether beautiful in Himself, worthy of all praise, glory, and honor were we never ourselves to profit from His goodness. (C. Samuel Storms, The Grandeur of God, 150)
Worship Point: Seek to know God Who does immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. (Eph 3:18-21; see also: Isa 40; 64:4; 65:17; 1 Cor 2:9; 2 Cor 9:15; Col 1:24-29)
Obviously, unless the conception of God is something higher than a magnification of our own good qualities, our service and worship will be no more and no less than the service and worship of ourselves. (J. B. Phillips, Your God is Too Small, 54)
If there is no wonder, no experience of mystery, our efforts to worship will be futile. There will be no worship without the Spirit.
If God can be understood and comprehended by any of our human means, then I cannot worship Him. One thing is sure. I will never bend my knees and say “Holy, holy, holy” to that which I have been able to decipher and figure out in my own mind! That which I can explain will never bring me to the place of awe. It can never fill me with astonishment or wonder or admiration. (A. W. Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship?, 85)
Gospel Application: Humans alone do not even have the ability to recognize God’s inconceivably promised gifts without the Spirit empowering us to grasp them. The Spirit ONLY enters to those in the Church who have Christ dwelling in their hearts (i.e. the Church). (Eph 3:16-19; see also: 1 Cor 3:16; 2 Cor 9:15; Eph 1:7)
But in Christ’s death on the cross, there is the highest possible expression of divine love. He, who is love, sent His precious Son to die as an atonement for sin. If your sense of fair play is outraged by that–good! It ought to be shocking. It ought to be astonishing. It ought to stagger you. Think it through, and you’ll begin to get a picture of the enormity of the price God paid to manifest His love. (John MacArthur, Jr.; The Love of God, 38)
No single believer can assimilate the mystery (3:9), the wisdom (3:10), or the riches (3:6, 8) by himself or herself; it takes all the believers. (Bruce B. Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Ephesians, 69)
Spiritual Challenge: Pray with the Apostle Paul that EVERYONE might come to the point where Christ dwells in them and the Spirit empowers them to see God’s promised inconceivable gifts. (Eph 3:16-19; see also: Isa 64:4; 65:17; 1 Cor 2:9; 2 Cor 9:15; Col 1:24-29; 1 Tim 6:17)
All your life an unattainable ecstacy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it, or else, that it was within your reach and you have lost it forever (C. S. Lewis; The Problem of Pain)
Of all known forms of life, only about ten percent are still living today. All other forms–fantastic plants, ordinary plants, living animals with unimaginably various wings, tails, teeth, brains–are utterly and forever gone. That is a great many forms that have been created. Multiplying ten times the number of living forms today yields a profusion that is quite beyond what I consider thinkable. Why so many forms? Why not just that one hydrogen atom? The creator goes off on one wild, specific tangent after another, or millions simultaneously, with an exuberance that would seem to be unwarranted, and with an abandoned energy sprung from an unfathomable font. What is going on here? The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdsong, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork–for it doesn’t, particularly, not even inside the goldfish bowl–but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free, fringed tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz. (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, 137)
So What?: Wake up and see the glory of God in the Cross, the wonder of creation, and your very own life as evidence of God’s great love and ability to care for you. (Psa 19; 139: Isa 40; 53; 55:8-10; 64:4; Ezek 12:2; Mt 6:26-34; 12:12; Mk 4:9, 23; Lk 8:8; 12:24-28; 14:35; Acts 14:14-18; 17:16-34; Rom 1:18-25; 5:8-21; 1 Cor 2:9; Col 1:24-29; 1 Tim 6:17; Heb 9:12-15)
The most incomprehensible fact is the fact that we comprehend at all. (Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, 47)
The awareness of grandeur and the sublime is all but gone from the modern mind. Our systems of education stress the importance of enabling the student to exploit the power aspect of reality. To some degree, they try to develop his ability to appreciate beauty. But there is no education for the sublime. We teach the children how to measure, how to weigh. We fail to teach them how to revere, how to sense wonder and awe. The sense for the sublime, the sign of the inward greatness of the human soul and something which is potentially given to all men, is now a rare gift. Yet without it, the world becomes flat and the soul a vacuum. Here is where the Biblical view of reality may serve us as a guide. (Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, 36-7, 46)
We are in a war between dullness and astonishment. The most critical issue facing Christians is not abortion, pornography, the disintegration of the family, moral absolutes, MTV, drugs, racism, sexuality or school prayer. The critical issue is dullness. We have lost our astonishment. The good news is no longer good news, it is okay news. Christianity is no longer life-changing, it is life-enhancing. Jesus doesn’t change people into wide-eyed radicals anymore; he changes them into “nice people.” If Christianity is simply about being nice, I’m not interested.
What happened to radical Christianity, the un-nice brand of Christianity that turned the world upside down? What happened to the kind of Christians who were filled with passion and gratitude and who every day were unable to get over the grace of God? I’m ready for a Christianity that “ruins” my life, that captures my heart and makes me uncomfortable. I want to be filled with an astonishment which is so captivating that I am considered wild and unpredictable and . . . well. . . dangerous. I want a faith that is considered “dangerous” by our predictable and monotonous culture. (Robert Capon as quoted by Simon Guillebaud, Choose Life, 365 Readings for Radical Disciples, 2-18)
If in the presence of human superlativeness your self image comes crashing down around your ears, then even if you got into the presence of God who is pure love you would hate yourself. You would say, I’m so cruel, I’m so unloving, I used to think that I loved people but now I know that I have never loved anybody.
Think about it. If in the presence of human superlativeness your self image comes crashing down around your ears, how could it be different with God? . . . Here’s how you know when you have begun to get into the presence of the real God, that you’ve begun to have God move into reality. You see that you are a sinner. You think you’re lost. You see you are more capable of cruelty, more capable of evil, more selfish, more petty, more small minded, more impatient than you ever thought you were. And you know you are a sinner and you know you need to be rescued by grace.
And if you say, “O that’s really negative.”
Come on, I just said to you, “If there is a real God (who is holy ) it would have to feel like that.” How could it be otherwise? It couldn’t be otherwise.
And if you say, “Well I just don’t believe, that you know, that people should feel sinful.” Well then you haven’t been near God. (Tim Keller in a ssermon; “The Gospel and Yourself)
Wake up and recognize what Jesus is doing for you!