08 February 2004
Sermon / tape 230a

God’s Power in You:  Part 5

“More than You Can Imagine”
Ephesians 3:20-21

Introduction - theology should cause doxology 
This morning we are going to study a doxology.  “Doxology” is a word that comes from the Greek word “doxo” which means “glory.”  A doxology is a statement attributing glory to God.  Usually they start with “Blessed be the God who…” or “Now, to the God who… be glory…”  As often happens when Paul gets done with theological section of a book, he concludes by getting lost in a doxology.  He talks all about God and what He has done and the result is always an effusive, emotional outburst of praise.  That’s a good test of theology by the way – theology should always result in doxology.  If you don’t love God, then learning truths about God just fills up your brain with facts.  But if you love Him, learning truths about Him drives you into doxology – worship.  
That’s a good principle to understand for our worship.  Every church is trying to discover the key to great worship.  People think they will find it if they just find the right style, the right songs or the right atmosphere, they will have great worship.  The key to great worship, though, is very simple – great worshippers.  A great worshipper is a child of God who has an expanding knowledge of God and a deepening love for Him.  (That’s why I like to have songs after the sermon.  If it weren’t for the logistical difficulties with children’s church, we would have all the singing portion of our worship after the sermon.)  A common practice is to use music to set the mood and prepare people’s hearts for the sermon.  But I think the sermon should set the mood and prepare people’s hearts for worship.  
Worship is so much more profound when it is a response to God speaking to us about Himself through His Word which is what happens in Ephesians, verses 20 and 21.   After 3 chapters of theology, Paul launches into a doxology.  If you think you’ve seen a lot of power in the prayer, wait till you see this.  The last 4 weeks were just the preliminary volleys – now comes shock and awe.

Ephesians 3:20 –21  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 throughout all generations, for ever and ever!  - Amen. 

Glory – Man’s Responsibility
	In verse 21,  we see the word glory for the 8^th time in Ephesians – eight times in the first three chapters!  (It is also the last time we will see it in this book).  This is what God expects from man – for us to glorify Him.  That just seems to be the underlying assumption in Scripture.

Matthew 5:16  Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify (doxasosin – doxa,swsin) your Father in heaven.

Romans 1:18-23  The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth…21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified (edoxasan – evdo,xasan) him as God 

It is assumed by Scripture that every human being has the responsibility to glorify God.  The reason people go to hell is very simple:  they refuse to glorify God.  Glorifying God is not only assumed, it is also directly commanded.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20  You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify (doxasate – doxa,sate) God with your body. 

1 Corinthians 10:31  whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory (doxan – do,xan) of God.

What does it mean to glorify God?
The glory of God is a fascinating study in Scripture.  Each one of those verses I have just read has some form of the Greek root “doxa.”  We translate it with the English word glory, but really our word glory doesn’t even come close to describing the full idea behind this word.  The English language doesn’t have a word that describes that concept.  The Greek language didn’t either, prior to the writing of the New Testament (doxa used to mean something else).  When they translated the original Hebrew Old Testament into Greek, they used doxa 180 times to translate the Hebrew word “KABOD”  
KABOD is a really interesting word.  It literally means heavy or dense. It is used for something that weighs a lot, or is of a dense cloud or dense swarm of insects.  When that word is used in the sense of glory or honor, the idea is of weightiness or gravitas.  In the ‘60s, if an idea had real substance, people would say Wow, that’s heavy.  We may not hear that phrase all that often anymore but we often speak in similar terms.  If there isn’t much substance to something, we say it is light or we might say we take something lightly.  Therefore, God is heavy.  He is the epitome of substance, weightiness, or importance.  He is the opposite of a phantom or an illusion.  He is the most real thing there is.
The word KABOD was also commonly used to describe the visible manifestation of God’s presence.  If He revealed His presence in some visible way, that was called the KABOD of God.  The phrase the glory of the Lord, then, became a synonym for the presence of the Lord.  More than KABOD, though,  the Greek word doxa has to do with one’s perception of God.  The glory of God describes what God is like from the onlooker’s point of view.  In fact, in secular Greek, the word doxa meant opinion.

How to Glorify God
So how does one glorify God?  If He is infinitely glorious already, what does it mean for us to glorify Him?  We can’t add anything to how great God is.  But we can add something to how great He is perceived to be from the onlooker’s point of view.  This world is looking at God through a dirty, blackened window.  Their understanding of Him is completely distorted; they are living in darkness.  You glorify God when you wipe away some of the dirt off the glass, so others can get a clearer view of Him.  When you open the shades in your house, you don’t make the sun any brighter but you do make the room a lot brighter.  We bring light into this world and elevate others’ conception of God simply by opening the shades and cleaning the glass.  One way you can do that is simply by giving God credit for what He has done.

Romans 1:18-23  The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth… For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks.

The Romans didn’t give God the credit.  Instead they gave creation credit for creating itself.  The more we give God the credit for what He has done, the cleaner that window gets and the brighter the room gets.

Matthew 5:16  Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Others will see your good deeds and someday give God the credit for that.  That is why yo are here.  It is your purpose in life.  If you ever wonder What am I supposed to be doing?  Why am I at the job I’m at?,   then you are where you are for the purpose of making the window to heaven a little cleaner in that place.  Even if you are flipping burgers, building computers, making sales or managing other people, your primary role is to glorify God – to bring more sunlight into the room at that place.  How?  You do that indirectly by being like God in the way you live and you do it directly by opening your mouth and telling people the truth about God.  But the point of this passage isn’t so much to tell you to glorify God as much as it is to simply express how fitting it is that God be glorified.
In a context like this, when you read To God be the glory, it is not perfectly clear whether the statement is a wish or a statement because, in the Greek language, there is no verb in that statement.
In verse 21, the word be actually isn’t in the Greek.  The verse is written:   Now to Him who is able…glory.  Some people say the phrase is subjunctive (a wish) meaning May God be glorified.  Others say it is indicative (a statement) meaning God is glorified.  I lean toward the first one but there is really not much difference.  Either way it points to both the fact of His glory and His worthiness to be glorified.  That worthiness is spelled out by Paul in verses 20 and 21 where he describes the who, where, how and when of God’s glory.  
 
God’s Glory
Who 
Most important, of course, is the who.  Who is this God who is to be glorified?

20 Now to him who is able

His worthiness is tied to His ability.  He is worthy to be glorified because of what He is able to do.  Over the past several weeks we have encountered truths from God’s Word that have been wonderful and inspiring.  For a lot of us, though, so many of these things seem so far beyond our reach that they are inaccessible.  Maybe some of you feel it is all you can do just to exist as a Christian and even the simplest, most basic parts of the Christian life seem overwhelming to you.  And, even though Paul prayed this for you, you really don’t expect to attain to these things anytime soon or even in your lifetime.  It is too much to ask.  Is it too much to ask?  I doubt anyone in the history of the world has ever made a more bold request than the one Paul just made.  It really does seem farfetched.  When he gets to the “God who…” part of his doxology, we are reassured that any fear we have about his prayer being farfetched or asking too much is unfounded.  
Given who God is and what He is like, you can’t ask too much.  You might also think that to apply the wonders of verses 14-19 to you would be beyond what God is able to do.  (We always think God is limited by our weakness).  But before you ever get discouraged about whether these things are possible for you, remind yourself that God’s capacity for giving far exceeds our capacity for asking.  God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine.  
Human language has never been strained and stretched to such limits as we see in this passage.
Language is really an amazing thing, if you think about it.  It baffles the evolutionists.  The leading linguistic experts who are evolutionists have admitted that human language is the greatest embarrassment to evolutionary theory.  Take a moment to think of all the things which we are able to communicate – abstract ideas, emotions, concepts, principles, desires.  Language can even be used to communicate transcendent, eternal truths about God.  Language can convey more than the human mind can even understand – which is really an amazing thing to think about.  Yet, there is a point where language runs out.  There are some concepts that defy language.  Sometimes there are simply no words to describe some things.  Still we try.  I heard of a guy recently who wrote I love you to his girlfriend a million times. 
Sometimes language gets pushed to its limit, but never to the degree it is here.  This isn’t a complicated passage; in fact, it is pretty easy to summarize.  I can do it in 5 words: to God be the glory.
Although when Paul says to God be the glory, he doesn’t just do it in 5 words – especially after spending three chapters in the heavenlies.  He starts with the word immeasurably which is the highest form of comparison imaginable.  It is another one of Paul’s super-superlatives.  It means infinitely in excess of.  God is worthy to be glorified because He is able to do infinitely in excess of all we ask or imagine.  When you first read that, you may think How could that be?  There is no limit to what I could ask for.

The Limits of Our Asking
We think we could ask for an awful lot, and yet what kinds of things do we ask for?  For example, we may ask for a 7% raise but not a 7000% raise.  I may ask that my cold will go away a little sooner than normal but I don’t ask for the health and fitness of a tri-athlete.  Lately, we’ve all been praying and asking God to provide us with a building we could use all week which would be big enough to accommodate us better.  But we haven’t asked that God would supply us with a $10 million building by tomorrow.  We claim that we have the ability to ask for a whole lot, but mostly we ask for things that are very small which are really likely to happen anyway, whether we pray or not.  
Why?  One reason is because even though we don’t consciously set a limit on what we pray for, our prayers are limited to what seems reasonable.  As Leon Morris said, Being finite beings, we pray as finite beings do.  The limit of our understanding sets limits on our prayers.  We know that if we ask for the 7000% raise or the $10 million building or perfect health the answer from God will almost certainly be no.  We understand that from past experience.  For example, when I was a little kid, I used to walk home from school every day for about a half mile up Darley Street walking west.  We lived right in front of the Flatirons so I had an awesome view of the mountains on the whole walk home.  I knew what Jesus had said about if I had faith like a mustard seed I could move mountains, therefore, I used to pray the whole walk home that God would move that mountain.  That mountaint never budged!  So I learned from experience that, for whatever reason, God was not likely to answer that prayer; therefore, I finally quit praying it.  
If you need to go to New York, instead of praying that God would miraculously transport you there in an instant, you just pray for a safe flight.  So then the question becomes What does it matter if God is able to do far more than I can ask?  If He isn’t willing to do it most of the time, what does it matter that He can?  Why doesn’t God seem to grant the bigger requests more often?  The answer is simple.  Those things aren’t really bigger.
God knows what is truly important and what isn’t.  He knows what has eternal value and what doesn’t.  He knows what is ultimately beneficial and what isn’t.  When I ask for the 7000% pay increase and He doesn’t grant it, it is not because my request is too big.  It is because my request is too small.  God can see that in the scope of eternity and, in the spiritual realm, I’m asking for something that is actually smaller than what I’ve got already.  He knows that in my circumstances, in my present situation, given all the spiritual factors, my present salary is better than a salary which is 7000 times more.  Therefore, when I pray for the lesser thing, God, in His kindness, doesn’t grant it.  
I would venture to say the greatest problem in our petitions and requests is that we always ask for things that are too small – in many cases, smaller than what we already have.  You pray for something and God is in heaven saying, “ No – ask for something bigger”.  So you try to understand what would be best spiritually in light of God’s eternal kingdom and you make the most extravagant request you can.  But God says,  “No – BIGGER!”   You could ask God to save every human being on the planet.  But God has in mind greater things than that so He says,  “No – BIGGER!”    Well, about that time, we run out of ideas.  We throw up our hands and say, “God, I don’t know what is bigger.  I can’t see into eternity and comprehend Your whole plan.  I can’t think at that scale.  I don’t know what is ultimately greatest.  I can’t ask for anything greater than what I’ve been asking, because I can’t conceive of what would be greatest in light of the grand, eternal scope of all things”  Ah – now we’re getting somewhere.  When you come to the point of saying that, then you can appreciate what a wondrous thing it is to worship a God who is able to do more of which you can ask or conceive – not just more, but exceedingly, super-abundantly, infinitely more than you can ever ask or imagine.  So what should we do?  Should we quit praying since we can’t even conceive of the greatness of the things God wants us to pray for?  No – keep  praying.  

How to Pray Big
You can pray for the things that are in the direction of God’s perfect plan and I say that for two reasons. 

1.	You have seen the following verse all your life.  

1 Romans 8:26-27  the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. 

What did you think it was talking about?  Did we think that meant we pray for a two-car garage and the Holy Spirit says, “He means a three-car garage”?  No,  He is translating our prayers into things that are truly great – the kinds of things we can’t ask or imagine.

2.	We are not completely ignorant of what things are truly important and eternally beneficial.  We have God’s Word to guide us and with the help of His Word we really can pray for the truly great things.

When you ask God for something, always remember – God might say “no” because you are asking for something that is too small in the scope of eternity.  So always ask, “What would be bigger than this?”  What would be bigger – more temporal things?  No.  Eternal things are bigger.  What is the only source where we can learn what those things are?  Scripture.  That is why the prayers in the Bible are so precious.  
Memorize the prayers of Paul.  He knew how to pray for big things.  He prayed that we would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. (See Colossians 1:9.)  That’s big.  That’s eternal.  That has an impact on the kingdom of God and the fulfillment of God’s eternal plan.  It also takes real power to accomoplish.  Paul prayed that we would grow in the knowledge of God and be strengthened with all power according to His glorious might (Colossians 1:10-11).  That’s big.  He prayed that we would stand firm in the will of God, mature and fully assured (Colossians 4:12).  He prayed that God would fulfill every good purpose we have and every act prompted by our faith so that His name may be glorified in us and us in Him (2 Thessalonians 1:11).  He prayed that we would live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way, and that we would bear fruit in every good work growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that we would have great endurance and patience  (Colossians 1:10).  He prayed that our love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that we may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:9-11).  That’s big.  He asked that God would give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may know Him (Ephesians 1:17).  He prayed that out of God’s glorious riches we would be strengthened with power through His Spirit in our inner man so that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith, so that having been rooted and established in love, we may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19).
John prayed that we would walk in obedience to His commands (2 John 6).  Jesus prayed that we would would be protected from the evil one (John 17:15), sanctified by the truth (John 17:17) and have the full measure of the God the Father’s joy (John 17:13).  Those are the really big things.   “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”    That’s really big.  “Thy kingdom come.”  That’s huge!
Do you remember those books we read to our little toddlers that teach them about big and small?  They show a picture of a giant bulldozer with the word big and then a little mouse with the word small.    The Bible is one of those books.  It is a book the Father uses to teach His children about big and small.  
A million dollars?  Small.  God’s eternal plan?  Big.  A perfect body?  Small.  Love that surpasses knowledge?  Big.  A new car?  A remodeled kitchen?  A trip to Europe?  A better job?  A prettier wife?  A more sensitive husband?  Small.  The whole measure of the fullness of God.  Really, really, really big.  
Those are the really big things. Yet every one of those things you can think about.  You can even ask for them.  But God is the one who has mighty power and wisdom to do infinitely, exceedingly abundantly more than all of those things combined.  That is why He is worthy to be glorified.  That is why we need to devote our existence to opening the shades and cleaning the glass so people can get a better glimpse of what He’s like.

Where [This Power is at Work]
We need to elevate people’s understanding of His power.  God has all that power and it is is not theoretical.  It is at work!

20 …according to his power that is at work 

That is not just some future promise.  It is not just in theory.  It is not an abstraction.  It is fully operational right now.  Where?

according to his power that is at work…within us 

Did you understand that?  Just so we are clear: God is doing things right now – things as real as reality itself.  These things He is doing require power that is infinitely in excess of the power it would take to do everything you could ever conceive of in your brain.  He is doing those things today – now, on Sunday morning, at this moment.  Where? At 95^th and Paschal, in a rented facility in Louisville.  Just a few hours ago this place was nothing but a bunch of bricks and mortar.  Now it is the location where there is a gathering of holy saints – chosen children of God gathered in His name and who make this place, from 8:00 a.m. until noon, the very dwelling place of the Almighty.  Through this group of eternally significant players in the final consummation of God’s eternal plan, God is pulling off His mightiest works – things that defy language and transcend understanding.  What a place to be!  Even if you get nothing out of the sermon, you can’t stand the music, and all the people seem like a bunch of snobs – it is still worth coming just so you can be there where God is doing His most awesome work ever!  
You wish you could have been there to see the creation?  Or the parting of the Red Sea?  Or the giving of the Law?  Or Jesus walking on water?   Those things were okay, but this is really the place to be!  In Matthew 13:17, Jesus said that the people who saw those things longed to see what you see but did not see it.  

The Church
Some commentators are surprised and shocked to see the church listed in the following verse with Christ.  

21 to him be glory in the church 
But if you’ve been paying attention at all to what has been said in the first 3 chapters of Ephesians,  it wouldn’t come as any surprise.  Aside from the doctrine of God Himself, I think the doctrine of the Church is the most grand, glorious truth God has revealed.  Next to the Theology Proper (the study of God Himself), there is no topic I would rather study, learn about, think about, meditate on, talk about or preach about more than Ecclesiology (the doctrine of the Church).  That’s not because it is just my personal preference or hobby horse.  As we have seen over and over in Ephesians, the revelation of the truth of the Church, which God kept secret for centuries and finally unveiled to us to display the climax of His wisdom to the rulers in the heavenly realms is the doctrine of the Church, which is the area where all the doctrines of Scripture come together in the most beautiful harmony.  It is where God’s love and God’s justice kiss.  It is where Jew and Gentile are united as one new man in Christ.  Therefore, I talk a lot about the Church.  I hope you understand why I do that.  
When I tell you about the importance of this place and the importance of being involved in a ministry, and the importance of giving, and the importance of fellowship here,  I hope you understand that I’m not doing that because I want you all to support my little venture.  I don’t tell you to be devoted to a ministry here because I’m trying to promote volunteerism.  It is not because I’m trying to get our little organization to thrive, or to share the work load, or develop more of a “full-service” church.  When I talk about the church and not just urge you but command you to be devoted to it and pour yourself into it and support it and serve it, I do it for theological reasons.  When I tell you to commit yourself to a ministry here, I’m not telling you to do your share in our little club.  I’m calling you to fulfill your role in a cosmic, transcendent reality.
The Church is the greatest display of the wisdom of God there has ever been and it is the stage upon which the climax of redemptive history is about to take place.  Of course the Church is going to be mentioned.  It is the center of the presence of the glory of God in this world! 
Look at Ephesians, Chapter 1, 2 and 3:

•	The Church has been given every spiritual blessing in Christ (1:3)
•	The Church was chosen in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight (1:4)
•	The church was predestined in love to be adopted as his sons (1:5)
•	The Church has redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins (1:7)
•	The Church has the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding (1:8)
•	All the ages and epochs and times reach their fulfillment in the Church (1:10)
•	The Church is for the praise of his glory. (1:12)
•	We are God's possession (1:14)
•	Only the Church enjoys the hope of the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints (1:18)
•	The Church is the recipient of His incomparable great power. (1:19-21)
•	The Church is the body and the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (1:23)
•	The church was raised us up with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly realms. (2:6)
•	In the coming ages God will show the incomparable riches of his grace, and He will do it through the Church (2:7) 
•	The Church was created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (2:10)
•	The Church has been brought near to God (2:13)
•	We have been made fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household (2:19)
•	We are the very dwelling place of God on earth – the holy temple (2:21)
•	God has kept a great, wonderful secret throughout history – a secret that shows His great glory, and now it’s been unveiled – and that secret is…us!  The Church!  (3:1-6)
•	Only the Church can approach God with freedom and confidence (3:12)
•	The church has actually been glorified by God (3:13)
•	The climax of all of it is in 3:10 – 

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. 

So are we going to be surprised when Paul says the place where God is glorified is the Church?  Psalm 19:1 says The heavens declare the glory of God which is true.  The creation does display the glory of God.  But in a much greater way we can say The Church declares the glory of God.  Also, the Church proclaims the work of His hands.  Day after day the Church pours forth speech and, night after night, she displays knowledge.  There is no speech or language where her voice is not heard.  Her voice goes out into all the world, her words to the ends of the earth.  What the creation does silently and by implication, the Church does explicitly and in far greater measure.  All the sky does is implicitly point to a powerful, good God.  
We can go way beyond that.  We declare the wonders of the Gospel and the mystery of the counsel of the eternal plan of God.  Of course the headquarters for God being glorified in this world is the Church.  That is where He has revealed His glory the most and that is where the people are whose eyes have been opened to see His glory.  The heavens give a vague, general idea of the power of God.   But the Church proclaims Christ – God Himself in human flesh.  That is why Paul continues on to give the how of God being glorified.  Who is worthy of glorification?  The one with infinite power.  Where is He glorified?  In the Church.

How
20 …in Christ Jesus 

Do you know how much of that previous big list is true of us apart from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross?  Zero.  Yes, the Church is mentioned first but not because the Church is greater than Christ.  It is just because Paul is going in ascending order.  There is nothing good about the Church apart from Christ.  It is only in Him that we can glorify God at all.  But, if we are in Him, we are the centerpiece of the glory of God.

When
	At the end of verse 21, Paul runs out of language again.  He could just say forever and, technically, that would cover it.  But instead he says:

throughout all generations, for ever and ever! 

If you want to just talk about a really, really long time, you can just say throughout the generations.  That reaches all the way back to Adam, clear up to the Second Coming and beyond.  When a Bible writer wants to refer beyond that to eternity (in Greek),  it translates to Into the ages.  Whenever you see the word forever, that is the Greek phrase Into the ages.  That occurs 15 times in the New Testament.  But, if the writer really wants to emphasize that it is eternal and really stress the length of time, instead of just saying Into the ages, he will say Into the ages of the ages.   That phrase occurs 18 times in the New Testament.  But , in this verse, there is a different construction that never occurs anywhere else in the Bible.  Here Paul says into all the generations of the age of the ages.  To all the generations of an eternity of ages.  Instead of an eternity of moments, it’s an eternity where each one of the moments is a generation.  Also, each one of the moments in that generation last for multiple eternities.
	Hodge said: 
“Paul’s prayer had apparently reached a height beyond which neither faith, nor hope, nore even imagination could go, and yet he is not satisfied.  An immensity still lay beyond.  God was able to do not only what he had asked, but infinitely more than he knew how either to ask or think.  Having exhausted all the forms of prayer, he casts himself on the infinitude of God, in full confidence that he can and will do all that omnipotence itself can affect.  His power, not our prayers nor our highest conceptions, is the measure of the apostle’s anticipations and desires.
	Then Paul concludes the doxology and the prayer and the whole theological portion of the book with the only word that’s left - a big, loud, congregational Amen. 

Benediction – Romans 11:33-36   

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!  … For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever! Amen.

           

Review Question:

1.	What does it mean to glorify God?   To make Him more clearly seen and understood and appreciated.