Understanding God's Power
Written by Ed Allen
Sunday, 29 March 2009 09:00
Sermon Notes
Example of Ed's lamp... if you want to use the lamp as it was meant to be used, it needs to be plugged in. It needs a power source. If you and I are going to be who we were meant to be, we have to be plugged into a power source.
We can never become who we were designed to become without the effective, aggressive intervention of God’s power.
Ephesians 3:14-21 (NIV)
A Prayer for the Ephesians
14For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20Now 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, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Paul has 3 main requests and several subordinate requests in his prayer for the Ephesians...
1. How does an experience of God’s power happen? How does it work?
- God’s power touches us through the spirit in our inner being.
- Many of us have tried the spiritual track by being a better person on our own, but that is often like rearranging the furniture on the Titanic. You can make a room look better, but when it hits the iceberg it still goes down... We are trying to change our outside...
- But God changes us from the inside out. Through His Spirit He touches us in our inner being.
- Passage from Revolution of Character: Discovering Christ’s Pattern for Spiritual Transformation by Dallas Willard and Donald Simpson
- The hidden dimension of our life is not visible to others and often we cannot fully grasp it ourselves.
- Our “within” has been formed by incidences throughout our lives. We are then at it’s mercy. Only God can save us.
- Spiritual formation for the Christian refers to the Holy Spirit driven process of forming the inner world of the human self so that it becomes like the inner being of Christ Himself.
- To the extent that the inner transformation is successful, the outer being becomes a natural reflection of the inner life, character, and teachings of Christ Jesus.
- Hina: Greek word used here that means “so that, because of that”
2. What are the results of an encounter with God’s power?
- We are strengthened.
- We are enlightened.
- Context: We're in an atmosphere of love and we are in community. We are rooted and established in love. We are in a new kind of soil, a new context. And we begin to understand God’s love.
- The power of the Spirit is less about great deeds than it is about great understanding... about what God is going to reveal.
- When we see and understand great spiritual truths, we are changed and transformed.
- When we see God’s love, everything changes.
- We are resourced.
- 2 Peter 1:3 “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”
3. What are Paul’s concerns?
Paul’s first request was that his readers would be strengthened in their inner being. Paul has sensed that there is some weakness and spiritual vacillation in those early Christ followers... They're a lot like us!
- God wants robust, vigorous Christians who live abundant lives!
- Based on an inner strength that flows from God
Paul prays that his readers would have Christ dwell in their hearts and be rooted and established in love and to know Christ’s love to the fullest.
- God wants us to know His love and to experience our profound security and worth.
- Paul wants us to know the love that surpasses knowing.
- Knowing this love would be life altering.
Paul prays that they would be filled with the fullness of God and therefore completely resourced for all that life offers.
- God wants us to have everything we need to become what we are designed to be and to do.
- God offers Himself to us in fullness and to come and take up residence in us.
What are Paul’s assumptions that undergird a prayer like this?
- ... that God loves us.
- He is not some disconnected force that we are connected with somehow in some general sense. But with personality and effectiveness, God loves us. God intervenes in human history in a way that moves toward us in loving concern.
- God loves us just as we are.
- ... that Christ lives in us.
- It really boils down to Paul wanting us to experience God’s bone-jarring, transformative love as a result of having been filled with His power and presence.
- ... that God is able to do anything He desires to do and that He is at work in us.
In these first three chapters of Ephesians - before giving anything practical - Paul has laid out a titanic vision of God at work in your life and mine.
Small Group Questions
Warm up:
What’s the longest power failure you’ve ever endured? How did you (and your family) cope?
Study Questions
- Do you think the contemporary church in America has helped or hurt people’s walk as true disciples of Christ? Explain.
- How can we get plugged into God’s power and stay plugged in?
- What factors keep us from being “robust, vigorous Christians living abundant lives”?
- The results of God’s power in us are that we are strengthened, enlightened and resourced. Have you experienced one of these aspects of God’s power in your life lately? Describe.
- Read Ephesians 3: 14-21 together. This is a beautiful, selfless prayer. When you spend time together in prayer today, pick a line from this prayer to pray specifically for someone else in your group. Pick several people to pray for using several of the lines, if you want. Pray for each other to experience all God has to give.