©2003 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship
|
10/26/03 |
To God Be The Glory |
Ephesians 3:20-21 |
10-26-03
To God Be The Glory
EPH 3:20-21 Now to Him who is able to do exceeding
abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works
within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all
generations forever and ever. Amen.
Those are the words with which Paul closes the first half of
his letter to the Ephesians.
It is also the words with which
he concludes his
presentation
of the
central truths he was seeking to reveal to us through this letter.
And, even more than that,
it is the
statement that reveals to us
the only
reasonable response of the human spirit
when we have correctly understood
what Paul has just said.
I do love passages like this in Scripture
because they
provide us with mirrors
in which we
can see reflected
our
own interactions with our God,
mirrors that enable us to evaluate with remarkable accuracy
how far we have
progressed
in our discovery
of the true nature of the God/man relationship offered to us in Christ.
We’ll look more closely at these words of Paul’s in few
minutes,
but even without
taking the passage phrase by phrase
it’s
obvious that Paul is blasting forth
with a statement of praise and gratitude
to His God.
I can remember so well
one of the first
times in my own life
when that
kind of explosion took place within me.
It must have been early in 1972.
I was living on
the Carribean Island of Trinidad at the time,
filling in
for a year
for a
missionary couple that was home on furlough.
I’d been churning and agonizing over some statements made by
Paul in the book of Romans.
For days I wrestled with the words on the page,
unable to see the
things that seemed to be so clear to Paul,
wondering what I was missing,
and
why I couldn’t understand.
And then suddenly I saw what he was saying
as I had never
seen it before.
I saw the recreative work of God in the human spirit.
I saw the
absolute and eternal reality of the new man within us.
And I saw
the way in which our human bodies that now house that new creation
wage war against that recreative work of
God.
I understood for the first time
why Paul could
proclaim with such boldness,
with such
certainty,
with such defiance against everything our
human logic would come up with,
ROM 8:1-2 There is therefore now no condemnation for
those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
And I remember walking the deserted streets of Port-of-Spain
late one night
saying over and
over again to myself,
“We have no idea what God really accomplished in us through
Christ...
We have no idea
what God really accomplished in us through Christ...
We have no
idea...”
And I remember in the days that followed,
taking my little
90cc Kawasaki motorcycle
up to the
top of one of the highest mountain peaks on the island,
and then looking down at the capital city spread out before
me,
and standing
there all by myself in the presence of my God
singing over and over again until I was
hoarse,
“Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far to small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”
I didn’t realize it at the time,
but what I was
experiencing
was the
natural response of the human spirit
when it begins to correctly understand the
Good News of God.
Years ago Sandee and I had an album of Christian songs
with one of the
songs containing the line, “Why isn’t everybody singing Hallelujah!?”
That phrase captures well
the natural
response of the human spirit
to the
discovery of the true nature of the love of our God for us
and
the type of relationship He offers us through Christ.
And these two verses that conclude the 3rd
chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians
allow us to
listen in on Paul
as he
expresses this same response.
This is Paul’s way of saying, “Why isn’t everybody singing
Hallelujah!!!!?”
This is Paul saying to us,
“Have you heard
what I’ve just shared with you?
Have you
seen it with the eyes of your heart?
If you have, then
your spirit, too, will cry out with me,
Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond
all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him
be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and
ever. Amen.”
And what was it that he just shared with us?
It was a presentation of the true nature of this remarkable
creation of God called “the Church”.
Only it isn’t the church as we normally think of it in our
society.
It isn’t this
corrupted human religious imitation of the real thing.
It would be difficult to imagine
how this
religious business that we call “the church” within our culture today
would cause
anyone’s spirit to explode in praise and gratitude to God.
Because I’m a Pastor
my name has made
it onto many of the mailing lists
that
specifically target churches and preachers and religious organizations.
This past week I received a letter
inviting me to
attend a Pastor’s conference entitled “God’s Protection From Burnout”.
I want to read you just a few lines from the cover letter
enclosed with the conference registration information.
“...a major pharmaceutical company is spending $25 million
to find out how to help pastors maintain energy and enthusiasm in their
ministry... A major national ministry reports that it receives between 400-500
calls a month from discouraged ministers who are looking for encouragement and
help. About 70 to 80 percent of these pastors are either in burnout or close to
it. Fuller Institute of church Growth
did a study which indicated that 90% of pastors work more than 46 hours a week;
80% believe pastoral ministry affects their families negatively, 90% feel they
need more training to meet their ministry demands; 70% do not have someone they
consider a close friend; and 37% confess to having been involved in
inappropriate sexual behavior of some kind.”
Now, keep in mind that those statistics are not talking
about church members,
they are talking
about church leadership.
They are talking about those men who have the best knowledge
and understanding
of the principles
and concepts
that govern
what we call “the church” in our society
and
the message of the church as it exists within our culture.
If our cultural church organizations
and the message
they preach
have that kind of an affect on those who know
it best,
should we be
surprised
when it
doesn’t cause the average member
to
explode in praise and gratitude to God?
Can you imagine what would have happened to the Christian
message in the 1st century
if those same
statistics would have been true
of the
church leadership then.
Imagine a report circulating throughout the 1st
century Roman world that said,
“It is reported that, in a recent survey taken among the
first Apostles of Jesus Christ
and the Elders
appointed by them throughout the local churches,
80% believe
their pastoral ministry affects their families negatively,
90% feel they need more training to meet
their ministry demands;
70% do not have someone they consider a
close friend;
and 37% confess to having been involved in
inappropriate sexual behavior of some kind.”
Not only would people not have been willing to die for the
message those men were preaching,
they wouldn’t
have even been willing to join up in the first place.
And then, when we set those statistics next to what Christ
Himself was offering,
the contrast
becomes even more dramatic.
MAT 11:28-30 "Come to Me, all who are weary and
heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from
Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your
souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."
And my point here is simply this -
when we read
Paul’s words about “The Church”
in his
letter to the Ephesians,
the beginning of all correct understanding about those
comments
is realizing that
what he is talking about
is not the
same thing
that
we typically think of as “The Church” in our culture.
What he’s talking about
is not a legally
structured religious organization
with all of
the cultural goals and expectations and obligations that come with it,
what he’s talking about
is a remarkable
kind of relationship
that God
Himself establishes between Himself
and
each of those who come to Him through faith in Christ,
a relationship in which Christ places His Spirit within each
of us
and then lives
out His life through us here on this earth.
EPH 1:22-23, 3:10 And He put all things in subjection
under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is
His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all... in order that the manifold
wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the
authorities in the heavenly places.
Three times within the past few weeks
I have been
involved in conversations with people from my past
and been
asked the same question by all three.
“How’s the church doing, Larry?”
It is a question that frustrates me intensely every time I
hear it.
What I want to say in response is,
“The Church is doing
the same thing it
has been doing for nearly 2000 years -
expressing the life of Christ through each
of its members each day
as
they understand and respond to the personal leadership of their Lord in their
lives.
Now, if you’re asking me how this legally recognized
organization called “Peninsula Bible Fellowship” is doing
as measured by
our commonly accepted cultural measures of success or failure,
quite
frankly who cares?”
For obvious reasons I’ve never said that,
but the older I
get
the more
restraint it takes for me not to.
But let me see if I can get us back to Ephesians.
This explosion of praise to God
that we have
recorded for us in the final two verses of chapter 3
provides us with the mirror we need
to
reflect back to us the correctness of our own understanding
of what God has done in us
and is seeking to do through us
as a result of our faith in Christ.
He hasn’t just cleansed us from our immorality.
He hasn’t just
forgiven our moral debt against Him.
He hasn’t
just established a friendship between us and Himself through Christ.
He has placed His Spirit within us,
and then assured
us that He is now living His life out through us here, now on this earth
in ways
that are allowing us to be the means by which
the
manifold wisdom of God is now being made known
to the rulers and authorities in the
heavenly places.
Hearing and understanding the truth
is not an easy
thing for the human mind.
It isn’t that we don’t hear the words.
It isn’t even
that we don’t understand their meaning.
The problem is that,
apart from the
active work of God’s Spirit in our lives,
what we
hear is filtered and refiltered through the lies we already believe
until it ceases to have any meaning.
Maybe it will help here
if I state it by
contrast.
What we have heard Paul say to us throughout the first half
of this letter
is that God’s
recreative work in each of our lives
has
equipped each child of God
to
now serve the most significant and critical role on this earth
that any human being can ever serve,
that of being the means by which
Christ Himself
accomplishes His work through us
in the
lives of those around us.
To each of us
He carefully
allots the sphere of influence
that is
perfectly matched to what He wants to say through us
and who He wants to say it to.
I think maybe the first time I was ever confronted
with the powerful
way in which our Lord does this
was in the
late 60's.
If you are old enough to have lived through that time in our
nation’s history
you will remember
the kind of chaos that swirled around our society.
Every previously accepted value and tradition within our
society
came under brutal
attack by the younger generation.
I’d only been a Christian a few years at the time,
and I happened to
come across a book called “Little Britches”.
It was a true story, written by a man, then in his 60's,
recalling his
early childhood
as his
family moved out west to homestead in the early 1900's.
The father in that family
was a quiet man
who possessed tremendous inner integrity and strength of character.
As I read the account of his life,
and the
tremendous adversity he faced and overcame,
I found the Spirit of God using that man’s life
to confront me
with the cheap, tacky, selfish little world in which I lived,
and the
absence of any real strength of character within myself.
He used that man’s life
to create within
me
a longing
to be so much more,
and
so much different than I was.
And somewhere in that process
I remember
thinking how remarkable that was.
Here was a man who lived and died in absolute obscurity,
nearly half a
century before I was even born.
And yet the quality of his life
and the daily
choices he made
affected me in some ways
as
much or more than any other man who has ever lived.
That’s typical of the way Christ lives out His life through
His people.
To each of us
He carefully
allots the sphere of influence
that is
perfectly matched to what He wants to say through us,
and
who He wants to say it to.
And what He’s doing through us does matter
so much more than
we would ever allow ourselves to believe.
But then set that truth
next to the
self-evaluation system
given to us
by the culture in which we live.
Whose actions and decisions really matter in our world?
Well, of course those in public office,
in government,
and other
positions of leadership -
what they say and do makes a difference.
And really intelligent,
or highly verbal,
or very
popular or successful people matter too.
But not the rest of us,
not really.
Who notices?
Who cares?
And what
difference does it make?
Now, do you see how,
when we bring
that cultural mental filtering system
to the
words we hear Paul speaking to us in Ephesians
about how the manifold wisdom of God is now
being made know through us
to the rulers and authorities in the
heavenly places,
do you see how,
by the time God’s
words to us
are
filtered through all of the cultural lies within us,
apart from the work of God’s Spirit in our hearts and minds,
we end up hearing
nothing.
Which, of course,
is why Paul began
this letter
by saying, EPH
1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened...
And it is also why he ends this section of the letter
with these two
verses
that
provide us with the perfect mirror in which we can see reflected
whether or not we have indeed heard what
he wanted us to hear.
EPH 3:20-21 Now to Him who is able to do exceeding
abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works
within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all
generations forever and ever. Amen.
And I see two distinct parts to this closing statement,
with each being
equally important to us.
The first half of the statement contains the truth we need
to know,
while the second
half contains the attitude that allows that truth to operate correctly in our
lives.
And let’s look first of all at that truth we need to know.
Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond
all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us...
Do you know what that is?
That is our God
saying to each of us,
“My child, I can and I will abundantly equip you
for the life I’ve
called you to live
and for the
work I’ve called you to do.”
And I’ll tell you here,
there are two
essential ingredients
that we
must contribute to this whole thing
in
order for us to experience the reality of what He’s saying.
The first is a firm commitment to the acceptance of those
things he has given us to do
and just as firm
a rejection of those things He has not given us to do.
And I’ll share with you
the greatest tool
I’ve ever had
in learning
how to tell the difference between the two.
Only when we begin to think in terms
of taking care of
the people God has given us
rather than in terms of accomplishing projects
will we ever be
able to distinguish between
what God
has and has not given us to do.
And let me see if I can line up what I’m trying to say here
in some sort of
logical order
so we can
make sense of it.
We all enter this world
separated from
our Creator.
Because of that separation
we have no idea
who we are
or why we
have value
because only our Creator can give us the answers
to those questions
in ways that truly satisfy.
Now, what we typically do in our driving need to figure out
who we are and why we have value
is to turn to our
fellow human beings
in an
attempt to get them to tell us who we are.
We may select just one person,
or we may try to
get thousands to answer the questions for us,
but we go about it by trying to perform for them
in ways that will
then get them to tell us we’re OK,
we matter,
we
have value.
We’ll try to convince those who matter to us
that we’re the
smartest,
or the
prettiest,
or
the fastest,
or the best shot,
or the funniest,
or the most successful,
or whatever other approach we can come up with
that we think
will give us the hope of receiving affirmation
from them.
But what I want us to see here
is that, as long
as that performance-based mechanism for seeking affirmation
remains in place within us
it is
utterly impossible for us ever to accurately distinguish between
what God has given us to do
and what He has not given us to do
because we will continue to do whatever we think we have to
do
to gain
acceptance and affirmation from those around us.
We will continue to live our performance-driven lives
until we collapse
from exhaustion
or keel
over from a heart attack.
And so, God’s first step in His healing process within us
is for Him to
seek to communicate His love to us
in ways
that we can hear,
and
accept,
and relax in.
It is no accident
that the verses
immediately preceding this one in which Paul affirms God’s ability to equip us
to perform
contain
Paul’s prayer that we will first know the love of God for us
because only when we have heard our God say to us,
“I love you
and I will
continue to love you always,
not
for what you do or don’t do,
but simply because of who you are.”,
only then can we begin to find freedom
from our frantic
performance-based pursuit of affirmation and approval from those around us.
So here’s the way I see it working.
First, He introduces us to His love for us,
usually through
affirming that love to us
at a time
of utter failure in our lives
because that’s usually the only time we
are able to hear it initially.
Then, from there,
He begins to show
us the people around us
that He has
entrusted into our care.
And once we realize
that it is those
people
that form
the heart of the life calling He has given us,
from there we have a basis for evaluating what He has given
us to do
and what He has
not.
And here’s the way this works in my own life.
Some ministry,
or project,
or
opportunity,
or
activity presents itself.
I want to figure out wether it is something God has given me
to do,
or wether it’s
just some distraction brought my way from Satan to clutter up my life.
The first thing I do
is to ask myself
- what kind of affect will this have on my relationship with my Lord?
The second thing I do
is to ask myself
- what kind of affect will it have on Sandee,
and on my
relationship with her?
If I can see that it will have a negative or destructive
effect in either of those areas
then I reject it
knowing it is not something God has for
me.
From there I move out to the next circle of relationships
given to me by my Lord.
There are a number of other relationships
that He has
entrusted into my care,
people for
whom I know I have been given responsibility in a special way.
And there again I ask the same question - will this have a
negative or positive impact on them?
And the most amazing thing happens
once we start
thinking in these terms.
All of the sudden
it becomes far
easier to decide what God has given us to do
and what
we’ve simply chosen to pick up ourselves out of our flesh-based sense of need.
And when Paul says, Now to Him who is able to do
exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power
that works within us...,
he is making that
comment within the context
of those
things God has given us to do.
Then, from there,
our second step
is to continually affirm and reaffirm that truth to ourselves.
When we know God has given us some assignment
and we hear the
voice of the enemy saying to us,
“You can’t do that!
There’s no way you can pull that off!
You’re totally unqualified.”,
we affirm to
ourselves the truth -
Now to
Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think,
according to the power that works within us...
He can and He will do through us
all that needs to
be done.
And then, finally,
Paul ends this
chapter
with the
ultimate accurate evaluation tool for knowing when we’ve got it right.
...to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
to all generations forever and ever.
When we’ve got it right
we’ll find our
spirit crying out to our God,
“Thank You! Thank You! Thank You for what You have chosen to
do in me and through me.
To you be all the glory forever. Amen.”