Good to be with you again this morning and greetings from the Christians who meet in
Fairview Chapel, not too far from here. One of the great dangers I think sometimes of being a
Christian is you think you have all the answers to life and you can carry on virtually on your
own and you don't give it a minute's thought until all of a sudden you kind of stuff up big time and
you get something wrong in life and it's at times like that that you realize actually you can't make
anything of the Christian life unless you really throw yourself on the mercy of God and the power
of his Holy Spirit and I really enjoy this week reading again the passage you've given me. It's
a great passage of scripture, one with a lot of depth to it but one that's really practical and
helpful. I was saying to Graham earlier he was very jealous that I'd been given that passage but I said
to him not to feel too bad because I'm through in Hamilton tonight speaking and they've given me
Genesis 20 to speak on. Now I know from your looks you're thinking what's happened in Genesis 20?
Well what you'll find is a very intriguing story of Abraham meeting up with a king called Abimelech
and the central theme of the story is he passes his wife off as his sister. I've got to talk for 40
minutes on that tonight so anybody who has any suggestions it's not too late there's still a gap in
my in my sermon I'm going to phone the chairman up this afternoon and suggest he picks a couple of really
long hymns to fill in the gaps but so our passage this morning very much more straightforward and
powerful for us. I was really encouraged too when Peter was up earlier flying helicopter because he
talked also about how did he say power like that there you go um and he referred to that period in uh
the experience of the disciples when they'd seen the lord die they'd seen him buried they'd experienced him
alive and then he began for 40 days to teach them and he taught them just two things in these 40 days
isn't that incredible the last 40 days perhaps that he would be with his disciples on earth
he spent two days teaching them firstly about the kingdom of god
and that's really important because that kingdom has started we're living in it and it's stretching out
in front of us and the second thing he taught them was about the holy spirit about god's power
and i want as we go through our passage this morning to think about god's spirit's power
and how it helps us to live as christians for him today so just to get the context before we turn to the
passage we're going to read acts 1 verse 8 you don't need to turn to this you'll know this verse
you will receive power when the holy spirit comes on you what a promise
and you will be my witnesses in jerusalem and in all judea samaria tanzania the ends of the earth
what a challenge so let's turn then to ephesians 3 i have no fancy power point for you so you just
have to listen to me i'm afraid nothing for you to look at on the screen at least i hope not there
you go nothing on the screen for you to look at just me and uh god's god's word let's read ephesians
3 um let me start at verse 13 um i did have a title actually give me a title the manifold wisdom
of god i'm not sure if i'll bring that in or not other than to say here is the manifold wisdom of god
okay so um there you have title dealt with verse 13 of ephesians 3 i ask you therefore paul writes
not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you which are your glory for this reason i kneel
before the father from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name i pray that
out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being
so that christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and i pray that you being rooted and established
in love may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide long high deep
is the love of christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the
measure of all the fullness of god 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
throughout all generations forever and ever amen power well in a few weeks time there'll be a few people
who have been hoping for power either happy they've got it or disappointed they've missed out on it i guess
we too will be either happy they've got it or disappointed they've missed out on it i do hope by the way that
you'll be voting the right way by which I mean praying there's no political comment in that at
all but we need to pray for things like elections it's important to us my mother-in-law has been
complaining lamentably for weeks now about power different kind of power she's been complaining
about Scottish power anybody here from Scottish power oh there's one person no no she's denying
it she just resigned my mother-in-law's had trouble with her boiler and every time she phones there's
a new drama and it's all the fault of Scottish power well that's not the kind of power that the
apostle Paul here is talking about power is a has been an important word for Paul he's been talking
about power in this letter he's written he's talked about God's incomparably great power kind of hard
to imagine and get your head round doesn't it God's incomparably great power that raised Jesus
from the dead Paul's been talking about it he's just talked also earlier on in this chapter about
how God's power is actually at work in our hearts in the hearts of these Ephesians in your heart and
mind if we know the Lord Jesus isn't that incredible God's power right now today is at work in your heart
and in mine we kind of forget that don't we Paul's prayer comes out of a sense I think that these
Christians he was writing to had got a bit discouraged with life particularly maybe about
what was happening to Paul that they'd heard about his suffering maybe their own and it was getting
them down that kind of happens to us as Christians doesn't it at times we get down we get discouraged
living for Jesus today is sometimes quite hard to do especially when we know in our hearts we've let
God down or perhaps actually we feel sometimes he's let us down now of course that's not the case but
doesn't stop us feeling that way sometimes doesn't it so Paul's prayer here makes the point that
actually discouragement ought not to be what we should feel as Christians because God has given us his
power to live for him and that power as we heard earlier of course is the the presence of his Holy Spirit
in our hearts and in our lives he enters our hearts of course when we we give our lives over to the Lord
Jesus Christ he's given to us his energy if you like his presence and that spirit's purpose is of course to
continue day by day to help us understand more and more of God and to reveal more and more of the Lord
Jesus both to us and also to help us to reveal it to others now our world of course has totally the wrong
idea about power we often see it as something rather negative or overbearing we don't like to think of
something or someone who has power over us but when the New Testament talks about power it's talking about
the tremendous resources of God available to you and I to get things done for God
the English language has great many origins and the word dynamite people say has come from this
Greek word so we immediately think God's power is something that goes bang there I've woken you up
and blows things up and destroys things well of course that's not the idea at all is it
God gives us his power to enable us to live for him and to do what he wants us to do what he has asked us to do
what he has commanded us to do and actually just to help us sometimes day by day live for Jesus
and so as Paul thinks about these slightly discouraged Christians he prays that the power of God's Holy Spirit
would be their very real experience he wants them living beyond their expectation
as I thought about that I did wonder whether our churches today maybe you as an individual need a fresh
realization of that God is at work in your life his power is here in this place do we need that fresh
realization I guess before we are too quick to say yes we need to ask ourselves why is there something
that's stopping God's power either working through us or or working through the church is there something
that's that's just putting a big dampener on how God works is it that we've not left him any room in
our lives to work for you know our lives are so full of other things that are far more important than God
well we've kind of squeezed them out maybe that's the case well as we'll see in a moment Paul will give
us some really important reasons for seeking fresh wind fresh power as as the American pastor Jim
Simbala called it in his book and there's only one real purpose for God's power you know
Paul described it in verse 21 as so there would be glory in his church
Jesus said you'll get this power so that you will be my witnesses
that's why we have God's power oh it's nice to know it's there
but it's not so that we can go around healing people unless you are of course a very talented doctor
in which case God's giving you some gifts there but it's not really for these fantastic experiences
great though they might be you have God's spirit in you so that you can live for Jesus
and when you live for Jesus you will be his witnesses day in and day out
it is isn't it an incredible and humbling thought that the Holy Spirit is the enabling power behind the
witness of the church in the world he is the ability given to Christians for the completion of the great
commission of world evangelization and we've heard a bit about it that's a huge relief it's not down to me
and it's not down to you oh we can do things in the power of God but ultimately it's God's spirit so if we
want to claim this power for ourselves then we better be completely behind the strategy of heaven
which is to win men and women for Christ
let's look at this prayer let's look at verses 16 and 17 as Paul prays here for the power to strengthen
the inner man I pray he says that out of his glorious riches out of God's glorious riches
he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith
now our culture of course is more concerned with the outer man
gym members keeping fit
anti-aging creams
plastic surgery whatever it might be we've got to look good on the inside it doesn't actually matter if
inside we're rotting away as long as on the outside we're looking good
but that's not God's ambition for us his ambition is that inner man the eternal bit of us
gets stronger and stronger and stronger day by day paradoxically of course as Christians
on the outside we may look terribly weak and rather vulnerable as was in the case of Paul
ill persecuted beaten imprisoned and yet inside he was utterly lion hearted and he would write to the
Corinthian church we do not lose heart he says outwardly we are wasting away and yet inwardly
we are being renewed day by day
why is it the priority of God that the inner man
is strengthened
well says Paul
so that Christ may
dwell
without question I think the most remarkable
fact of scripture is that Jesus Christ himself
through the presence of the Holy Spirit will actually enter a heart and life
settle down
and be at home
there
that's the sense of what Paul means
because to dwell you know is not
what you do as a lodger
or what you do as you rent a room
that's not the sense of what Paul means here
what he means is Jesus Christ has come into a life and he's there to stay
that heart is his
in John 14 we find Jesus talking to his disciples about homes
they had all left their homes for him
he was saying to him that he would shortly leave them and prepare a home for them
meanwhile their hearts
would be the home
for his spirit
oh they find that really hard to understand
until at Pentecost and then they felt that presence didn't they
a tremendous wind
the flames of fire
so demonstrable symbols
God was there
the spirit
had come home
Robert Munger a Presbyterian minister
from a few decades ago
he wrote a wonderful little book entitled
My Heart
Christ's Home
anybody read it
anybody brave enough to put their hand
because you're probably over 50
nobody has
well there you go
My Heart
Christ's Home
in it he pictured his life
as various rooms
so he said Christ came in and I showed him into the library
it was his mind
the control room of the house
and he writes in his book of his embarrassment
embarrassment at Jesus
viewing the books
in his library
the magazines on his coffee table
the films
in his
collection
and he writes
I turned to him and said
Master
I know this room needs a radical alteration
will you help make it
what it ought to be
then he says
we went to the dining room
the place where our appetites
are met
and it dawned on Robert Munger
of all the things he had fed himself on
that were not ultimately satisfying
and in some cases were harmful
and how much he knew then
he needed to feed himself on Jesus
the living room
where he relaxed
put his feet up
he realized how much time he spent
relaxed with his feet up
and how much time he should have spent in prayer
and then he talks most challengingly of all
of the closet
under the stairs
the room is locked
it's dark
and it's where he said
he put things
from his past life
that he found hard to give up
and so he'd locked them away
and he writes in his book
how the Lord came to the room
and asked for the key
and Robert Munger says
you can't go in there Lord
and the Saviour is saying to him
but I need to
it needs cleaned out
and Munger says at that point
he knew he didn't just need to open up
he need to give the title deeds
of the house
to the Saviour
do you see the point
the inner man
is where the Lord Jesus
comes and dwells
and if he's going to come
and he's going to dwell
he's going to own
and we need to give it all to him
there's nothing in there
that we can keep
hidden away
that he doesn't deal with
how much therefore
we need the power
of the Holy Spirit
to strengthen that inner man
to ensure that our hearts
are homes
that Jesus will be at rest in
and that we will be at peace
knowing his presence
the power to strengthen
the inner man
then verses 17 to 19
Paul talks about
the power to love
with that lovely video
at the beginning
it was really clever
Paul here wants us
to know something
that is essentially
unknowable
the amazing quality
and dimensions
of the Saviour's love
we have such a superficial
and small view
of love
even when we grasp
what the Bible says of it
so Paul gives us
a couple of metaphors
to help us understand
what grasping it really means
one is botanical
we've got to be rooted
something is going to grow
really strong
I'm not a gardener
I prefer concrete
but there you go
but if something's going to grow
it needs good roots
apparently
and he gives
an architectural
here as well
he talks about
something that's grounded
that has strong foundations
you want a big building
like this
I guess it has really
strong foundations
you see
when the rubber
hits the road
of our Christian life
or our church life
it's how well rooted
we are
how well grounded
we are
in the love of God
that will help us
and Paul gives us
these limitless
dimensions
of height
and width
and depth
I wanted to break
into that chorus
Jesus love is very wonderful
but I won't
I will empty
the place instantly
but you get the point
don't you
and the reality
is of course
you can get
really low
in life
you can feel
as though
you've committed
the most heinous
of sins
you can feel
as though
your life
has got
just rock bottom
and below rock bottom
and do you know what
the love of God
in Christ
is there for you
or you can have
the most spiritual
high you've
ever had
the greatest
experience
you've ever
had
of Christ
do you know what
there's always more
John talks about
Jesus saying
to his disciples
I want to show you
the full extent
of my love
and he
he did it by
you know
by washing
smelly feet
but as a picture
of
of what he would
do on the cross
with arms
outstretched
pinned to a
wooden cross
that's the
extent of the
love of the
Lord Jesus
Christ
I don't know
about you
but
do you know
sometimes I'm
just utterly
speechless at that
that
you know
transcendent
sense of
something that
you really want
to grasp
and yet it's
unknowable
it's too vast
can't understand
it can't get a
head
around it
but you know
when Christ
comes in
and dominates
your life
the one obvious
characteristic that
will be shown
will be love
and just in case
we don't understand
what kind of love
Paul is describing
and why we need
the spirit to
empower us
John would say
this is how we
know what love
is Jesus
Christ
laid down his
life for us
and we ought to
lay down our
life
for our
brothers
but did you
notice something
important there
in verse 18
he says
we have power
he says
but together
with all the
saints
there's something
here you see
about God's
power that
that isn't
individualistic
at all
it's communal
it needs all
of us to
know and to
understand God's
love you can't
do it on your
own
we need
each other
the person to
sit side
needs to tell
you what God's
love has meant
to them this
week because
even if you
felt in a
cold and
difficult place
they can come
and they can
warm your
heart
they might be
able to
demonstrate it
to you in
some way
you see
that's why
church is
really important
for Christians
you think
that's a
terribly obvious
thing to say
but do you
know I get
terribly fed up
with some
folks at
you don't
tell them
that but
do you know
they say to
me I said
to him I
didn't see you
last Sunday
no I was
quite busy
oh that's
funny I
always thought
Sunday was a
day of rest
I was resting
they said I
had a busy
week
do you know
I get cross
I know you
shouldn't but
that's a
daft way to
go on
God has
given us
this vehicle
that we call
church but
he's given us
it as a
community we
need to be
here
there's no
point sitting
in your living
room on your
own relaxing
because you
won't get any
sense of the
love of God
in Christ
that's really
meaningful there
or you might
get a wee bit
of it
but who wants
a wee bit
of anything
would you
not rather
have it
all
John
Stott
wrote
do you
know
it takes
the whole
people of
God to
understand
the whole
love of
God
because as
isolated
Christians we
can only ever
know some
of it
oh and by
the way of
course it's
crucial to
our witness
isn't it
by this
shall all
men know
that you
are my
disciples
that you
have
love
for each
other
I hope
Bellevue
will listen
to the
tape
I don't
suppose they
will
they're
probably
glad to
be shot
of me
for a
day
here's the
last point
verses 20
to 21
it's a wee
doxology at
the end of
Paul's prayer
I don't know
what your
prayers end
up like
mine usually
end up a
kind of
confusion of
words and
I thought I
better get
on I'm
going to
work
Paul has
time to
kind of
give us
this wonderful
doxology
that really
is all
about a
power
to do
so we
thought about
a power
to strengthen
our inner
man we
thought about
a power
to love
here's a
power to
do because
the heart
of Paul's
prayer is
not that we
know something
but that
we do
something
we serve
here a
God of
no limits
now maybe
you're sitting
there and
you're thinking
you know
what I'd
be really
happy if
I could just
accomplish the
things I
know about
the things I've
been praying
about the
things I've
been thinking
about here's
Paul telling
me about
things I
haven't even
imagined about
he wants
us to do
but you see
the point
it's not
about us
it's not
about you
it's not
about me
it's not
about what
we can do
because you
know what
we can do
now that
means nothing
to our
Tanzanian
friends
we can do
nothing on
our own
anything
we do
for Christ
is done
in his
power
at work
in us
and someone
once said
you know
what would
you attempt
for God
if you knew
you couldn't
fail
if you just
knew it
wouldn't work
what would
you do
maybe you'd
go off to
Tanzania
maybe you'd
just talk to
your neighbour
about the
Lord
maybe this
morning you'd
open your
heart up to
the Lord
Jesus Christ
and you could
say come
in
come in
I think
too easily
we allow
ourselves to
doubt and
limit the
power of God
to accomplish
all that he
wants to do
through you
and through
me
we have a
God of no
limits
again John
Stott says
he is able
to do more
than we can
ask or
think or
imagine
for his
expectations
are higher
than ours
and he
does not
give his
grace
in calculated
measures
well
is Christ
at home
in your
heart
have you
made that
commitment
maybe you've
tried you
know maybe
you've
you've prayed
that the
Lord would
come in
and hasn't
really felt
as if he
has
maybe it's
because you've
got a closet
and there's
something in
there that
you've got
buried away
and you need
him to take
ownership of
that as
well
we often
times have
those experiences
in our life
when we
we just need
to get things
right with
God
by his
spirit
he gives
us that
strength
to do
that
are you
willing to
allow him
to fill
your life
what with
love
yeah
what about
this church
is it to be
filled with
the love of
God
such that we
love one
another
such that others
see the love
we have for
one another
and such that
we love
others
who are not
yet part
of Christ's
great kingdom
are we going
to be his
witness
testifying to
his glory
seeking his
grace
may God bless
his word to
us
and I trust
he will bless
all that this
church seeks
to do for
him
let's pray
together
our father
God we
thank you for
the coming of
the Lord
Jesus Christ
we thank you
for the way
he came and
he lived and
he identified
with us as
human beings
we thank you
for the fact
that he died
that he took
my sins on
Calvary he
dealt with
him we thank
you that he
rose and that
now he is
ascended in
heaven he's at
your right hand
and father we
thank you that
we are not
alone he
hasn't left
us that in
our hearts we
have your
spirit father we
claim him we
own him we
ask for him to
come and to
anoint us yes
but to live
within us we
turn over our
hearts and lives
to him as
individuals this
morning yes but
also corporately
as fellowships
whether here at
Brunsfield or at
Bellevue or any
of the other
churches in
Edinburgh father
may they be
spirit filled
and spirit
empowered places
of worship
that this city
this land
might be claimed
again for
Scotland for
God father we
thank you for
the growth of
your church in
other lands we
thank you for
the growth in
Africa for the
growth in South
America for
even that growth
in China and
in other lands
Lord we want
that growth here
we want to see
people streaming
into our
churches
we want to
see people
turning this
land upside
down again
because of
you and we
might have a
part to play
in that
war
release us
we ask
in Jesus
name
Amen