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"The
Power at Work within Us" November
16, 2003 The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower Last Thursday I arrived at church and, if you remember the weather,
it was in the mid-thirties. I was
wearing a sportcoat and sweater (not heavily dressed) and I just sort of
scampered into the church buildings. As
I did, I was remembering a year ago, about this time of year, when it got to be
the mid-thirties, I would arrive in the church parking lot with down parka, and
gloves, and scarf, and hat, and ski pants . . . And I realized, you know, I've changed! I'm not the person that I was when I got here.
Why is that? You have to understand, I grew up in Bakersfield, California.
And you might know Bakersfield is famous for two things.
One is Buck Owens and the Buckaroos.
(Don't be jealous!) And the
other one is Bakersfield is terribly, terribly hot. Now, if you move to the Twin Cities area, and you have
Bakersfield inside and it's Minnesota outside, you're not going to be very
comfortable. But, you know what?
If you can change to the point (you all know this, obviously) if you can
change to the point where you have Minnesota inside and you have Minnesota
outside, I mean, you're comfortable! You
love it! Now, are there people that you know--tell the truth--who think that
you are crazy for living in Minnesota? Well,
we're talking about people who--they don't have Minnesota inside!
Do you understand? If they
had Minnesota inside, they would understand.
They'd feel comfortable. Now,
this morning what we want to say is . . . (This
is going to be really fun!) What
we want to say is: God is kind of
like Minnesota . . . in that if you have God outside and you have God inside,
then you're comfortable. If God is
outside, if God is everywhere around you, if God's plan is taking place in your
life right as you see it unfolding, but you don't have God inside, then you're
uncomfortable. You're unhappy. You're miserable. And
there's no amount of "pluses" that can come into your life--you know,
all of the blessings of status, position, the rewards that our society is
capable of bestowing--it doesn't matter. Because
if God is not inside, then it doesn't matter how many blessings from God come
your way, you know. It's exactly
the same as someone who's got Bakersfield inside and Minnesota outside. Now, we want to look at a text this morning, and I invite you to
turn with me. You may want to turn
in your pew Bibles that we have provided to Ephesians, chapter 3.
We're going to begin in verse 16. And
this is our text for this morning. We're
going to focus in on a particular aspect of life with God because, as I've said,
there is God above us, but there's also God inside us.
There's God high, and up, and beyond, but there's also God near, and
close, and within. And
traditionally those two aspects of God are referred to as the
"transcendence" of God and the "immanence" of God.
This morning we want to focus on the "immanence" of God.
We want to focus on God within. This is the last sermon looking at the key words for our
stewardship campaign. You remember
those words have been "grateful," "ready,"
"willing," and now this morning, our word is "able." And the theme that we have this morning is, if you are able,
it's because God is able. If you
and I are able, it's because God within is able.
And we want to look at Ephesians chapter 3, beginning with verse 16.
And we want to see some very, very important things about how God enables
us. I pray [this is Paul writing to the church at Ephesus] 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, and that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints,
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of
Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness
of God. 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, to him be glory in the
church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.
Amen. Now, in this passage, Paul tells us about our inner being.
He says that you and I have an inner being.
In verse 16 it's "inner being."
In verse 17, he refers to the "heart." "Heart" and "inner being" mean exactly the
same thing. It's the "within
you" part of yourself. And you
and I, to appreciate this passage, need to understand. You need to understand about yourself, I need to understand
about myself, that we are not shallow. There's
a depth within the human individual, the human person.
There is a deep, deep depth within you and within me.
And we cannot judge people by what appears on the surface because
actually, deep, deep within, in the heart, in the inner being of every person
that you will ever, ever encounter, there are deep, deep depths.
And even people that may strike you as superficial, are not. Even people who think that they are simple, and that they are
surface, and that they understand everything about themselves, are not.
God has created us not shallow, not superficial, but having a depth
inside. I remember several years ago I went up to Lake Tahoe in California
to a place called Emerald Cove. I
went there for a conference because the week-long training to train pastors to
be Interim Pastors--I was there for the Interim Pastor Training.
(Kind of a nice locale for a training event like that!)
And, yes, we got free time in some of the afternoons.
I remember the first afternoon that we had some free time, I went and put
on my swimsuit, got my towel, and went down to the dock.
I looked down into the water, and the water was just beautiful.
It was called "Emerald Cove."
It's a beautiful green, but just so clear.
I looked down and I saw these little rocks right there.
I figured it was maybe about 20 feet or so.
I decided I would dive down to the bottom and just pick up one of the
rocks. So I dove in and swam down.
. . and down . . . and as I swam I opened my eyes and I realized I'm not getting
any closer, really. And finally I
began to run out of air and I had to turn around and swim back up to the
surface. I kind of climbed up on
the dock and realized, "Gosh--I guess it's deeper down there than it really
appears." From standing on the
dock, you look and you think you're looking at small rocks on the bottom.
Actually, no. There are huge rocks, way far down, far deeper than I was
able to swim down to. And you and I are like that. We
may appear to have small, little things close to the surface.
But that's actually not true. That's
not how God has made us. You were
made with an inner person. You were
made with an inner being. And the
things located at the bottom of your inner being are further down than you and I
can reach. God can reach those
places--the depths within. But we
can't. OK. The first point
is: You have an inner being.
Now, Paul is praying about changes that would take place in our hearts,
in the persons that we are inside. You
see, your inner self is a work in progress.
Your inner self is subject to change.
Transformations can go on. And
if they are transformations at levels too deep for me to swim down to, for you
to swim down to, what that means is that God has to be the one doing the
transformation. So, you have an inner self, and that inner self is a work in
progress. Now, what kinds of things
is Paul praying? What kinds of
changes is he praying will take place? Well,
the first one in verse 16 and 17--in those two verses he's talking about an
enablement. He's talking about
being strengthened with power to love. Strengthened
with power to love. He's saying,
"You know, I'm praying that you would receive from God the power to be more
loving than you are right now--to give love, to share love, to be a more loving
person. What that means is that the
level of your ability to love right now doesn't have to have the last word in
your life. It is not the case that
you will never be able to love more than you can right now.
No. Actually, you and I can change.
And we can be enabled by God to be more loving than we are if we're given
the strength from God, the power from God, to love more. Now the second one. In
the next verses, verses 18 and 19, is that we would be given the strength and
the power to comprehend love, to know love, to understand.
So first he says, "I pray that you have the power to love" and
"I pray that you have the power to know love, to understand love."
And some people will say, "Well, now, wait a minute. Isn't that backwards? Don't
we have to understand love first? You
want to understand love first, and then, after I know what it is, then, you
know, I can be expected to share it." Well, at least with the reality of this deep thing called
love, no. Actually, we give it
before we understand it. We give it
before we understand it. If you
wait to understand what love is before you love anyone else, you'll be waiting a
long time. Our brains can be a
bottleneck for life in the Spirit sometimes. Let me just illustrate it like this. I grew up in a wonderfully loving family.
I was very, very much loved by my parents.
And I dare say that at the end of my growing up years, having been loved
all that time, I didn't know very much about love.
I didn't understand love. Now, when my little son Phil and my little daughter Laura came
along, needing to be loved, and I was able to love them, what I discovered is
anything and everything that I know about love has come subsequent to sharing
love, giving love, offering love. So
Paul gets it right when he says, "Hey, I want you to get loving and I want
you to understand what this love is that you are giving.
And it all comes from God. And
it's all a part of the transformation that takes place in the inner self, in the
inner being. Now, this leads us up
to verses 20 and 21, and these are fascinating because this is how chapter 3
concludes in the letter to the Ephesians, and it's a benediction.
He closes this section this way: 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, to him be glory in the
church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.
Amen. Does that sound like a benediction? Well, it is a benediction. He closes this part of the discussion. It's just that the New Testament scholars that study these
kinds of things say it's a fascinating thing:
He finishes with a benediction, and then in the very next verse, he
begins an entirely new sermon! Which,
when you think about it, we should try that sometime . . .
You know--go through the service, get to the end, have the benediction,
and then the minister says, "Oh, and by the way . . ."
Well, that's kind of what happens here in verses 20 and 21.
We get a reference to the One who is able to do abundantly exceeding and
abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. In the Greek, the word for "power" is used twice.
In our translation in that first line "power at work within
us," that's the Greek word "dunamis."
But also it's used again in the word that is translated for us in our
English Bible "able." We
have a double-use of "dunamis," the Greek word for power. It's used twice here. And
what is the effect of this double-use of "dunamis"?
Well, he's very much meaning to emphasize that the power--not the power
above us, because that's not what's being talked about here.
The power within us is a double power that is able to accomplish
abundantly far more. See, he doesn't say, "able to accomplish."
He doesn't say, "able to accomplish more."
He doesn't even just say, "able to accomplish far more."
He says, "able to accomplish abundantly far more."
And in Greek what is said is, "super-abundantly beyond" is
literally how you would literally translate what he's saying.
Not "abundantly," but "super-abundantly beyond."
Beyond what? "More than all we can ask or imagine." What you're being told is that you have a depth inside of you.
Why did God make you not a superficial, not a shallow person, but a
person with a mysterious spiritual realm so deep that you can't know the bottom
of you. And I can't know the bottom of me. It just recedes down, and down, and down.
And why did God make us like that? God
made us like that so that there would be room for Him to place His power within
you, so that you and I can do super-abundantly more than a couple of things:
Super-abundantly more than all we would ever ask.
So take anything and everything that you have actually prayed for, that
you have actually formed into a prayer and asked God.
There's a power, the power of God. There's
room within you for sufficient power- strengthening enablement from God so that
super-abundantly beyond everything that you've ever asked for, God can
accomplish. But that's not all. It's
not just everything you can ask for. I
mean, if it was, that would be a lot! "More
than all we can ask or imagine," even dream about.
"More than you or I not only have asked for, but could even
contemplate ever asking God for." God
is kind of big. Can we agree on
that one? God is kind of big.
God has made each of us bigger than we realize because there is a power
that needs to be understood as . . . over us, yes.
And that power of God over us can accomplish more than we would
ever think to ask for or even dream about.
That would be God independent of you, independent of me.
It's very important that we recognize that there are some things that God
accomplishes in this world that we don't assist with, as in--we'll save this for
another time, but let's just say God loving you is not something that you assist
with. That just happens, whether
you like it or not. That's God's
power outside of you. But, yes, though God above us, the transcendent God, can do more
than we ever could ask or imagine, God within, ministering through you,
touching other people's lives through you, making a difference in this world
through us. There is room in you
for more of God than you, than I, have yet allowed for. Does our world need for there to be people able to make a
difference? I'd say
"yes." And what Paul
tells us is, "You were made by God to share--not just sort of tell people
about God way up, but actually carry God's power with you through your
day-to-day life, having an impact on people."
Now, what is the nature of that impact that God wants us to have?
It's the love of Jesus Christ.
And it is as we share the love of Jesus Christ, as we let God give us
more so that it spills out, as we become more loving, then something happens.
We learn some things about love. Let's pray. Dear
Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, that you made us in your image.
That having made us in your image, Lord, we are not the superficial
people that we might otherwise think. Lord,
we thank you that there is a deep, deep depth within each of us--an inner being.
Lord, we ask that we might pray for one another that we might be more
loving and know what it is to be more loving.
And it's in the strong name of Jesus that we pray.
Amen. The Rev. Dr. Will Eisenhower Interim Pastor Faith Presbyterian Church Minnetonka, Minnesota [Transcribed from an audiotape of the 9:00
a.m. worship service on November 16, 2003.] |
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