Markham Baptist Church Sermon - September 5, 2004

Preached in Markham Baptist Church, September 5, 2004

A SEASON OF PRAYER:
Part 5 - DO YOU DARE IN YOUR PRAYER?

Sometimes, when you read Scripture we read it like the York Region telephone book. But there are times when we should read it like a teenager describing his most recent ride in a water tube behind a 30-foot boat powered by a 300 hp outboard motor.

“O Dad, did you see me? The wake was huge and we were going so fast! The boat was way up out of the water and we were just flying! The water was spraying in my face. I wasn’t sure the rope was going to hold and did you see me when we took the corner? I got so much air – it was just awesome!”

That’s the way we need to read our text today. It is a prayer, but it is no ordinary prayer. It is one that begins as a walk – quickly turns to a run and ends by lifting us off the ground on wings like eagles so that in the end we are left soaring in the heavens thinking great thoughts of our great God. So that in the end we are made to say, “It is awesome!”

Our text is Ephesians 3:14-21. As we conclude our series focusing on the prayers of the Bible I want us to again think of what we can learn about God and what we can learn about prayer.

He begins his prayer out of a pastoral concern for the Ephesians which he states in verse 13. He is concerned that the Ephesians would not grow discouraged because of his sufferings, because of the persecution that he is facing.

Notice how the prayer moves to a great crescendo. Paul is moving from pinnacle to pinnacle, from one large request to another. And he asks for the Ephesians and he prays in verse 16 that they "be strengthened with power through his Spirit."

Then in verse 17 he prays that Christ would dwell within their hearts.

Verse 18, he prays that they would be able to grasp the full dimension of Christ’s love that love that boggles the mind, “it surpasses knowledge,” he says.

And if that was not enough, he prays in verse 19 that the Ephesians would be filled up with the very fullness of God Himself. That is that God’s character His holiness would fill our very being.

He has reaches a climax here; he has climbed to the top of the mountain with this petition for there is nothing greater that could happen to us than to be filled with the fullness of God.

What a wonderful prayer! It is our longing isn’t it? That we would be filled with the character of God, the love of God the Spirit of God, that the fullness of God Himself would be in us. It’s why we come to worship, isn’t it? We don’t come for the music, we don’t come for the preaching - we come because we want to experience God.

Don’t you identify with the Psalmist who writes Psalm 42: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?”

That’s what we want, that’s what our souls hunger for. That is why we come here week after week, and read our Bibles and pray throughout the week, because our soul longs to be filled with the character of God, the spirit of God.

What a great prayer to offer on behalf of another. That they would be filled with the fullness of God.

So, Paul is on the mountain top of prayer here. Having prayed that the Ephesians be filled with the very fullness of God, a fresh breeze comes his way, and he realizes that answers to such staggering requests are only possible because of the goodness and generosity of God. It is all of grace.

And you can see his mind whirling here, He thinks, "there is nothing in us to deserve such blessings, to know the love of Christ, to be filled with the fullness of God. There is nothing in us to recommend us. All the blessings we enjoy come to us only because God loves us and freely give them to us."

And he is so conscious of this that his heart simply bursts in praise and out comes the great words of praise in verse 20 and 21 where he essentially says, "Praise God!"

But something else is going on here, it seems almost as if Paul steps down from the mountain top of prayer, having reached the height he comes back down and puts his arms around the Ephesians and says, “Uhh, you do know who God is don’t you? You do know?”
“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.”

I think we sometimes pooh-pooh Paul when he begins speaking about being filled with the fullness of God. We believe the gospel and we are Christians and we believe that all is by faith; but when he begins to talk about Christ dwelling in our hearts and our knowing this love of Christ and of being filled with all the fullness of God, then we switch off, we think he’s gone to far, that he is bedside himself and has become the victim of his own eloquence.

These things aren’t possible for ordinary people. These things aren’t possible for me – surely Paul couldn’t have known anyone like me – I feel so spiritually dull, I feel so ordinary, and doubt! I doubt God so much.

Surely Christ can’t dwell in my heart by faith. I feel so ordinary, and unable to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and the height of Christ’s love. And filled with the fullness of God – come on Paul be real!!

And Paul lifts his eyes and says, “You do know who God is, don’t you? Do you think I am going to far? Do you think I have been carried away by my own rhetoric or eloquence? Do you think I am lost in some mystical state where logic and reason are left behind? Listen,” he says, “Let me put it succinctly for you.”

And then he goes on to describe the power of God: “You don’t think He can fill you with all His character? Let me tell you about God’s power.” And he struggles a bit because language fails him, for he is trying to describe the immeasurable, he is trying to put in human terms that which is limitless. So he piles words one on tope of another, superlative upon superlative.

You know we use the word “HYPE” when we feel that people have gone over the top. We see it all the time in the entertainment world, Madonna? Hype. The Republican convention? Hype. Hype, well that’s a Greek word – hype - and it occurs twice in these two verses and it means more. And in fact the apostle Paul is so caught up by the greatness of what he needs to share that he invents an entirely new word, a hyper-hype, more than more.

It’s as if he was writing these two verses and writes at first, “Now to him how is able to do more than we ask or imagine.” But he crosses that out because it is not able to explain fully the power of God and so he writes, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more, exceeding abundantly more beyond all we ask or imagine.”

So Martin Lloyd Jones writes, “Our greatest superlatives do not describe the power the God. Add one to another, multiply them, and add them together, and multiply them again and go on doing so 'beyond all things' exceeding abundantly beyond all things and still you have not succeeded in describing it. Is there anything beyond all things? The power of God is exceeding abundant beyond all things.”

You do know who God is, don’t you? This makes all the difference in the world to your prayer life. Bring your most daring petitions, bring your most impossible requests, add others to them; let the whole church gather together and bring their wildest desires and demands! There is no danger of exceeding the limit. His power is beyond all that we can ask.

In your prayer do you dare?

God, allow me to win my neighbours.
To Him is who is able to do immeasurably more, O God give us this town for Your sake.
God let the whole of Markham District High School experience the powerful presence of Jesus Christ.
And Don’t stop there, let Markville And Unionville High Schools be overwhelmed by Your presence.
God let the walls of this building be too small to hold all the people who are thirsting and hungering for righteousness.
God let there be people lining up outside Your houses of worship across this land on Sunday morning longing to hear a word from You.
God break the hard-hearted and heal the brokenhearted, and let your kingdom come into my heart.

Let me be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

In your prayer do you dare? Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we dare to ask or imagine.

Here is Sarah – hearing at a very old age that she would be the mother of a great nation, of a people numbering more than the stars of the sky she laughs. And God says, “Is anything too hard for God?”

Here are the Israelites told by God to go and take the land promised to them a land flowing with milk and honey – but 10 of the 12 scouts say no – the land is full of giants we will not be able to overpower them. And God says, “How long will these people refuse to believe in me? In spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?"

The angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her that she is to give birth to the Son of God, she staggers in her unbelief and the word of the Lord to her is, “With God nothing is impossible.”

In your prayer do you dare?

We are guilty of the same unbelief when we limit our prayers for others. For instance we may know of a certain man who is so deep in sin that we think nothing can save him.

Or we may know of a relative who doesn’t seem to have a spiritual bone in his body, they may be outright antagonistic to Christ or simply uninterested and you have prayed for his or her conversion for years but with no apparent success; and you begin to say that there is no point in continuing to do so, and that the psychologists are right after all in speaking about a religious temperament. You feel that it is impossible.

The answer still is, “With God nothing shall be impossible.”

Do you know who God is? Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we dare ask or imagine according to His power that is at work within us.

And perhaps some of you say – O Pastor this is one of your favourite lines to preach, you are always going on about what God can do. But get real. I mean if we really followed what you are saying right now we would be further behind in our budget than we already are. Because you are always trying to push us to do more and give more.”

Well, no, what I want is for us to trust God more. Sometimes we trust so much in what we have and what we can do and we forget to trust in what He can do! And so we set our goals, we set our budgets, we set our sights so conservatively! O, that we had more liberals in the church! I mean true liberals – who were liberal in their faith toward God. People who were liberal in their trust in what God can do through His people.

O that we would be further behind in our budget – not to be slack in our God given responsibility for our finances but that we would be brought to our knees in prayer in dependence before the God who is able because we have dared, we have dared to trust in Him to provide for the ministry that He has called us to do.

Sometimes I think we all need a few more experiences like Gideon. Do you know Gideon? He was a man of God whom you can read about in the Old Testament in Judges chapters 6 and 7. And there you will discover that Gideon was ready to go into battle for God – he had his thirty two thousand fighting men ready – and God says, to Gideon, "You have too many men – I only want you take 300 because I want you to depend on Me. I want you to experience My strength and My power."

And do you know Gideon did, and oh, what an experience of God he had? Sometimes we say we want to experience God, but we never allow ourselves to come to the place where we are made to depend on Him. Our prayer requests our attempts at ministry and our dreams are sometimes so stinted, so small. In your prayer do you dare because God is able!

And we finally could ask Paul, “Prove it! Prove that He is able.” And Paul says, the proof is in His power that is at work within you.”

He could have pointed to himself here. He could have said, “Does anyone doubt the power of God well then look at me! I was at one time a persecutor of the church; I sought to kill Christians for their beliefs. I hated Christ with all the intensity of my being; I did my utmost to destroy the members of the church and destroy it out of sight. Never was a man so opposed to Christianity; never was a man so held by self-conceit and self-righteousness. HOW then did I become a Christian? There is only one answer – the power of God."

"But," he says, "according to the power that is at work within us, look at yourself. At one time you were dead in your transgressions and sins. But now you are alive with Christ. Because of the great love of God. At one time you were separate from Christ excluded from citizenship with the people of God. But now you are members of God’s household, fellow citizens with God’s people." All of this is through the power of God.

You do know who God is, don’t you? You see, the power that brought Jesus Christ up from the grave and exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above all names that same power we call on in prayer.

You see, the same power that is at work within us, that brought us from death to life will cause us to be filled with the fullness of God.

"I dare," says Paul, "to ask this for you, because I know the power of God." Do you dare in your prayer?

And of course when we dare, it is all for whose glory? For yours? For mine? For Markham Baptist Church's? No. Verse 21: "to Him be the glory." To God be the glory. That’s why we dare in our prayers. Yes, because He is able but also because when we dare for Him – He is glorified. His power is seen, His might is magnified, His faithfulness to His people is witnessed and His name is honoured.

You do know who God is, don’t you? O yes, He is the God who is able! Then let us dare in our prayer, and to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations for ever and ever.

Amen!