November 7, 2004
Service Theme – “Our God Is
Our Life”
Ephesians 1:15-23
When We Practice the
Presence of Christ, We Celebrate God’s Gift of Life at Its Best
B.
Context
– If you’ve ever read Celebration of
Discipline, you know that Foster gets it.
He gets this whole idea of celebrate God’s gift of life at its
best. Jesus redeems and transforms our
every experience as we allow Him to.
Let’s read about it in Ephesians 1:15-23, and I’m reading from The Message translation.
II.
Scripture
Passage
A.
Ephesians
1:15-23 (from The Message) – (NEW SLIDE) That’s why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master
Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the Christians, I couldn’t stop
thanking God for you – every time I prayed, I’d think of you and give thanks. (NEW
SLIDE) But I do more than
thank. I ask – ask the God of our
Master Jesus Christ, the God of glory – to make you intelligent and discerning
in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see
exactly what it is he is calling you to do, (NEW SLIDE) grasp the
immensity of this glorious way of life he has for Christians, oh, the utter
extravagance of his work in us who trust him – endless energy, boundless
strength! (NEW SLIDE) All this
energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in
deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to
governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. (NEW
SLIDE) And not just for the time
being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final
word on everything. At the center of
all this, Christ rules the church. The
church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the
church. (NEW SLIDE) The church is
Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with
his presence.
III.
Experience
Life at Its Best!
A.
Warren
Wiersbe tells the story of newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst and his
incredible collection of art. One day
Hearst saw a description of some valuable items he just had to own, so he sent
his agent out far and wide to search for them.
After searching for months, the agent finally reported that the items
had been found. They were in Hearst’s
own warehouse. He’d searched
frantically for treasures he already owned.
If he’d read his own inventory, he’d have saved himself a lot of money
and trouble. In the Ephesians passage
we just read, Paul expressed a desire that believers experience life at its
best by realizing what they already possessed.
This is true for all believers.
When our church sees the unseen Christ, then we will celebrate God’s
gift of life at its best. Paul tells us
that we can truly celebrate when our eyes are opened to all the spiritual resources
we possess in Christ. As Foster put it,
When the power that is in Jesus reaches
into our work and play and redeems them, there will be joy where once there was
mourning. To overlook this is to miss the meaning of the Incarnation. Paul prays in Ephesians that we won’t miss
the meaning of the Incarnation and that we will get a grip on four truths.
B.
(NEW SLIDE) First, we experience
life at its best when we grasp the hope of God’s calling. Paul starts out by commending the Ephesians
for their faith and love. But he does
more than commend them. Verses 17-18 - I ask – ask the God of our Master Jesus
Christ, the God of glory – to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing
him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what
it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life
he has for Christians, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust
him – endless energy, boundless strength!
He tells them to grab hold of Who Jesus is, to invest everything they
are and have in knowing Jesus deeply and intimately. He talks about the “utter extravagance of his work in us who
trust Him – endless energy, boundless strength!” (NEW SLIDE) What
Paul’s trying to get us to focus on is the hope of being more than we are now,
the hope of being “holy and without fault in his eyes,” as the New Living puts it. Or, as The
Message puts verses 3 and four, Long
before he laid down the earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on
us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Now that is a powerful hope! Not only has Jesus decided that those who
love Him are the focus of His love, but that His love will make us whole and
holy. (NEW SLIDE) We will be transformed. As Romans 8:29 puts it, we will “become conformed to the likeness
of his Son.” That’s a profound
truth! We have the great hope of
knowing that one day we will be like Jesus, and because of that we can live
with comfort, assurance, and the motivation to live as Jesus lived. We experience life at its best when we grasp
the hope of God’s calling.
C.
(NEW SLIDE) Second, we experience
life at its best when we grasp the riches of God’s inheritance. As the New
Living puts verse 18, I pray that
your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the wonderful
future he has promised to those he called.
I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given
to his people. (NEW SLIDE) God has given us His Spirit to fill us and transform
us, and we give Him joy when we allow Him to use us to do His will. That’s a win-win situation if I’ve ever seen
one! In Ephesians 5:27, Paul writes
about why Christ died for us, why He worked to make His Church holy and clean –
(NEW SLIDE) He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a
spot or wrinkle or any other blemish.
Instead, she will be holy and without fault. That’s something that blows my mind – how
God could take us and mold us into His inheritance, the Bride of His Son, so
that we can bring Him joy and glory and participate in all His blessings. Overwhelming, isn’t it?! We experience life at its best when we grasp
the riches of God’s inheritance.
D.
(NEW SLIDE) Third, we experience
life at its best when we grasp the greatness of God’s power. We’re called to know Jesus deeply and
intimately and personally, so that you
can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this
glorious way of life he has for Christians, oh, the utter extravagance of his
work in us who trust him – endless energy, boundless strength! Those are terms of incredible power. Or, as the NIV puts it, “incomparably great power for us who believe.” Did you know that the literal translation of
“incomparably great” is “to throw over or beyond”? If it’s beyond great, then it’s got to be overwhelming,
extravagant, incredible, immense, power.
God has given us that power. He
has enabled us by His Spirit to appropriate this wealth of power. That’s awesome news! But what are we supposed to do with this
power? (NEW SLIDE) God gives us this overwhelming power so that we can
defeat spiritual enemies, endure suffering, and witness to God’s great gift of
salvation. How do we grab hold of
that power to defeat spiritual enemies?
How to we grab hold of that power so we can endure suffering? How do we grab hold of that power so we can
effectively witness to God’s great gift?
(NEW SLIDE) There is only
one way to appropriate that incredible power that God has made available to us:
prayer. When we pray persistently and
according to God’s will, His power will overflow from His Spirit into us and
into those we’re praying for. I
don’t want to live a weak life for Christ.
I want to be powerful and effective in the midst of my weakness, and I
will do that through prayer. And that’s
a big part of experiencing life at its best.
We truly experience life at its best when we grasp the greatness of
God’s power.
E.
(NEW SLIDE) Fourth, we experience
life at its best when we grasp the magnificence of Christ’s person. Or we could say, when our hearts fully know
and believe that His presence is always with us. Verses 20-23: All this
energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in
deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to
governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the
church. The church, you see, is not
peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he
speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence. Jesus was raised from the dead never to die
again. He is seated at the right hand,
the position of utmost authority, of the Father in heaven. He is far greater than any and every thing,
far greater than the whole universe. He
will always be greater than any government mankind can conjure up. He is eternally greater than any one in the
past, present, or future. He’s in
charge. Jesus has the final word! And part of His final word is that the
church, His bride, is the utmost expression of His presence on earth. (NEW
SLIDE) We’re not on the fringe.
We’re in the center of what He wants to do. Since His presence is everywhere and permeates everything,
doesn’t it make sense for us to believe that we can do whatever He calls us to
do to advance His kingdom? I mean,
He isn’t telling us about how magnificent He is just for our benefit. He’s telling us about Who He is so that we
will grasp that tremendous truth and run with it. We don’t have to hide in fear.
Change doesn’t have to be our enemy, which is good because change is
always happening whether or not we want to deal with it. (NEW
SLIDE) We can be at the center of Christ’s will, appropriating His
power, enjoying the riches of His inheritance, reveling in the hope of being
like Him. We can experience life at
its best when we grasp the magnificence of Christ’s person. If we do that, we’ll never be the same!
F.
Illustration
– I think Neil Anderson, in his devotional Daily
in Christ, captures a lot of the essence of what Paul is trying to tell us
about how to experience life at its best.
Anderson writes, HAVE YOU EVER
PLANNED a major fun event and then asked yourself, “Are we having fun yet?” Fun
is uninhibited spontaneity. Chances are the last time you really had fun it was
a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment
activity or event. . . . The secret to enjoying uninhibited spontaneity as a
Christian is in removing non-scriptural inhibitors. Chief among the inhibitors
of Christian fun is our fleshly tendency to keep up appearances. We don’t want
to look out of place or be thought less of by others, so we stifle our
spontaneity with a form of false decorum. . . . I really like the uninhibited
joy I see in King David, who knew the joy of being in the presence of the Lord.
He was so happy about returning the ark to Jerusalem that he leaped and danced
before the Lord in celebration. He knew there was joy in the presence of God.
But Michal, his party-pooping wife,
thought his behavior was unbecoming to a king, and she told him so in no
uncertain terms. . . . As it turned out, Michal was the person God judged in
the incident, not David (2 Samuel 6:23). You’ll find a lot more in pleasing the
Lord than in trying to please people.
Frankly, I think it’s fun being saved. Being free in Christ means
that we are free to be ourselves. We’re free from our past, free from trying to
live up to other people’s expectations, free from sin and the evil one. What a
joyful, uninhibited, spontaneous life for those who are free in Christ!
(NEIL ANDERSON, DAILY IN CHRIST, EUGENE, OR: HARVEST, 1993, AUGUST 4TH
DEVOTION) We experience great power in
the freedom of knowing that God has life at its best in mind for us. I’m not talking about prosperity
theology. I’m talking about becoming
what God has intended for us all along.
We are free in Christ, free to experience life at its best through
practicing the presence of Christ. May
all of us choose to do it!
IV.
Communion
A.
Do
you remember last week when I talked about a monk named Brother Lawrence who
wrote a fantastic little book called The
Practice of the Presence of Christ?
This is an excerpt from that book: (NEW
SLIDE) THERE IS NOT IN THE WORLD a
kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only
can comprehend it who practice and experience it. . . . It is not pleasure
which we ought to seek . . . but let us do it from a principle of love, and
because God would have us.
We’ve been focusing for the past eight weeks on practicing the presence
of Christ, on the fact that He is really here with us. He could not be more present with us if we
could reach out and touch Him physically.
If we truly realize that truth, if we’re really bought into it, then our
time of communion this morning should be much more precious than any in recent
memory.
B.
When
we eat the bread, we are symbolically taking His body, who He is, and making it
part of our own. We are allowing Him to
make our body His own. When we drink
the juice, we are symbolically taking His life, His essence, and making it part
of our own. We are allowing Him to make
our life His own. Recognizing this, and
remembering His presence with us this morning, let’s celebrate communion.