PRAISE TO THE GOD WHO IS ABLE!
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on March 12, 2023 under 2023 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Sermon Message; March 12, 2023 from Ephesians 3:20-21
Theme: We owe praise to God who is ‘exceedingly abundantly’ able to glorify Himself in us through Christ.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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This morning, we come to the closing words of the first half of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
This first half has been a marvelous portion of scripture to study. The second half will prove to be very practical. It will teach us how to walk through life in a manner that is worthy of the calling of God. But the first half has provided us with the necessary theological basis for that walk. That’s Paul’s pattern in all his letters, by the way. He starts off with theology, and then he finishes off with practice. It’s ‘the doctrine’ first; then ‘the duty’ that is built upon and that flows from that doctrine. We should never disregard the doctrinal portions of Paul’s letters; because they provide us with the essential foundation for our daily Christian life. We can’t live the Christian life as God wants us to unless we first know what He has given us in order to live it.
And what marvelous doctrinal truths these have been! The first three chapters of the letter to the Ephesians have been an expansion on the wonderful spiritual reality that Paul declared in Ephesians 1:3; that God the Father has—as a present reality—already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. We don’t have to earn them, or improve ourselves in order to become worthy of them. They are all already ours as a gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul wanted to get that fact planted deeply into his readers’ hearts before he began to tell them about living the Christian life in everyday practice.
Most recently, we had been looking at a prayer that Paul prayed near the end of this theological section. It’s a prayer in which He asks God to give us what we need in order to be “filled with all the fullness of God”. In Ephesians 3:14-19, he wrote;
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-19)
He prayed that God would give his believing friends strength by His Holy Spirit at work in the inner man, that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith (that is, truly make Himself at home there), and that they would comprehend the greatness of the love that Jesus has for them. And this is all so that they would be “filled with all the fullness of God”—that is, that they would experience the deep and fulfilling relationship with God the Father that He wanted them to have.
Now; that’s quite a thing to ask. And you and I may look at it all and think, “Well; how could such a thing happen in someone like me? I love Jesus. I claim Him as my Savior. But I feel so far away from the kind of Christian life that Paul is talking about. I feel like I fall terribly short of it every single day. How could I ever put all the spiritual blessings that are mine in Christ to use as I should? How could I ever be ‘filled with all the fullness of God’?”
But that’s when we come to the closing words of this wonderful ‘theological section of Paul’s letter. They are truly the perfect words to close off with. We find that it’s true that we are not capable of living up to it all. But we also find that the power for it all is of God—and not of ourselves. Paul wrote, in verses 20-21;
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (vv. 20-21).
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I wonder if you notice the nature of these words. They come to us in the form of praise—a doxology. They are an expression of worship toward God the Father for His overwhelming sufficiency in bringing about all that He intends to do for us in Christ. “To Him be glory …!” And so, our proper response to it all ought to be what Paul wrote at the end of verse 21: “Amen!”
But these two verses are more than an expression of praise alone. They are also an affirmation of a very glorious truth. These words at the end of the first three chapters of doctrine give us exactly the kind of affirmation we need to hear before Paul begins to give us the next three chapters of practical instruction. They affirm to us that, by God’s grace, you and I—dear brother and sister in Christ—can only live the life that God wants us to live in Christ by God’s enabling grace. And the wonderful news is that nothing is too hard for Him to accomplish … not even our own sanctification and future glorification.
And as I was reflecting on these words, I wondered if a good thing for you and me to do is to commit them to memory. We should take them to ourselves as words we affirm whenever we face a challenge or a difficulty. Just think of what would happen in us if—whenever we feel tempted to sin, or whenever we feel afraid, or whenever we face a difficult challenge or trial, or whenever we feel overwhelmed—we stopped, then and there, gave our concern over to our mighty God in prayer, left them in His mighty hand, and declared in a spirit of praise:
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Wouldn’t that put our situation into perspective? Wouldn’t such a prayer of praise remind us that God has already given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ? Wouldn’t that get our focus off of our own failures and inabilities, and turn them instead to the all-sufficient power and grace of our heavenly Father?
I believe that this would be the very best way for us to apply these two verses to our lives. This is because they teach us that we truly owe praise to God who is ‘exceedingly abundantly’ able to glorify Himself in us through Christ. And after all; if God is able to accomplish what He has already purposed to do for us—that is, to bring us all the way to the full glorification of His Son Jesus, and to make us sharers together with Him in His eternal inheritance—then wouldn’t He be more than able to handle every other, ‘lesser’ situation we may face?
Let’s look a little closer at this ‘doxology’ from Paul—these words of praise to the Father. Let’s get a fuller understanding of them; so that we can call upon the truth of them in our times of trial and need.
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Now; you can divide these two verses up this way: Verse 20 tells us about how “able” God our Father is; and verse 21 tells us about how “praiseworthy” God our Father is.
So first, let’s look at what Paul tells us in verse 20 about …
1. HOW ‘ABLE’ HE IS.
In telling us about the sufficiency of the heavenly Father’s power toward us, Paul stacked superlative upon superlative–’highest expression’ upon ‘highest expression’. It’s as if he was frustrated with the limitations of human language to express how sufficient our Father is toward us. And so, he wrote, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think …”
There’s a word that the apostle Paul was using in the original language that is very remarkable. It’s used only a few times in the New Testament. It’s a compound word—that is, a word that is formed by putting a couple of words together. But this one is unusual because it’s a compound word formed by putting three words together—the word for “above”, the word for “out of”, and the word for “beyond”. And in the original language, it’s also joined with the phrase that means “more than all things”. I’m telling you this, not—I hope—to confuse you, but to show you how hard Paul was working to express to us the overwhelming ability of God toward us to do whatever He purposes to do in our lives through Jesus Christ.
I appreciate what an old Bible teacher from another era—Dr. Harry Ironside—wrote about this.1 He said that it was not enough that Paul would write that God is “able to do”. And it’s not enough to say that God is “able to do abundantly”. And it’s still not enough to say that God is “exceedingly able to do abundantly”. And it’s even still not enough to say that God is “exceedingly able to do abundantly above what we ask”. Our mighty God is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think”! Whatever we might wish to ask of God; or even what we might dare to ‘imagine’ in our thoughts that we might wish to ask of God; He is still able to do exceedingly abundantly above even that! Even if we should ask Him beyond our wildest imagination to work in our lives through Jesus Christ—and even think that we’ve asked way too much of Him—we would be selling His sufficiency short. There is nothing that He cannot do for us in His Son. His ability is inexpressibly unlimited!
Let me share with you some other passages in the Bible that show this to us. For example; when the apostle Paul wrote to the Philippian Christians about their Christian life, he told them this—in Philippians 1:3-6;
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ … (Philippians 1:3-6).
Many of us have drawn great comfort from those words in verse 6. Our God has begun a good work in us through faith in Jesus. And we can rest assured that He will not cease His work until it is completed on the day when Jesus returns. We can be confident of this; because God’s power toward us is unlimited.
Or think of what Paul wrote to the Thessalonian believers. Near the end of his first letter to them—after giving them instructions on how to live faithfully in Jesus—he told them;
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
On their own power, those Thessalonian believers could never sanctify themselves before God. And they certainly couldn’t preserve their whole selves blameless at the coming of Jesus. But God can—who is faithful—and who will do it!
And think of the marvelous words that we find at the end of the tiny letter of Jude. After urging his readers to stand faithfully for the faith in Jesus, he offered this word of praise;
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Both now and forever.
Amen (Jude 24-25).
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; in and of ourselves, we are ‘not able’. But God our Father ‘is able’ to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think! He is able to bring us all the way to perfection in heavenly glory through His Son Jesus Christ—and keep us there with Christ forever!
Isn’t He exceedingly able, then, to handle every other lesser concern in our lives?
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And dear brothers and sisters; we need to know that this glorious, exceedingly great power of His is not far away and distant from us. It’s not like we have to cry out to Him and ask Him to send it to us from afar. We don’t have to put in an order for it and wait for it to arrive in the future. As Paul goes on to tell us, His power is already at work in us. He wrote, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us …” It is presently working in us right now!
When we placed our faith in Jesus Christ, God sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us. And He came, not only to serve as a seal that guarantees us eternal glory, but also to serve as an ever-present Helper to strengthen us and enable us along the way. God the Holy Spirit doesn’t just live near us, but rather lives permanently in us. We are—right now—nothing less than the very dwelling place of almighty God! And He exercises all of His divine power toward us in as close a relationship with us as is conceivable.
Just how great is this ‘power’ that works in us? By what measure is it capable of being exercised in us? The apostle Paul has already told us about it in this letter. Look at what he wrote in Ephesians 1—in another ‘prayer’ section of his letter. He prayed that his fellow believers would be given an understanding of the resources God has made available to them in Christ. And among those things he prayed they would know, in verses 19-23, he asked that they would know
… what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:19-23).
Do you realize what Paul is telling us, dear brothers and sisters in Christ? He’s letting us know that the same power that raised the Lord Jesus from the dead, and that exalted Him to the right hand of God in power and glory and majesty, is the very same power that is at work “in us” right now! Paul wrote later about how God has already exalted us to the position—spiritually speaking—of being seated at His right hand in Christ. And it will be by that same power that He will raise our bodies from the grave and exalt us—in the full experience—in Christ at His second coming. That is the very same unlimited power that is at work in us right now—helping us in all our trials and troubles and challenges. In Ephesians 3:16, Paul prayed to the Father;
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man (3:16).
Paul was even able to testify of this in terms of his own ministry. His task was a humanly impossible one. It was to labor hard to help his brothers and sisters become perfected in Christ. It was a ministry that was beyond his natural ability. But in Colossians 1:28-29, he wrote;
Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily (Colossians 1:28-29).
And dear brothers and sisters; in living the Christian life, you and I have the same infinite resource that Paul trusted in. We too can say, “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us …”!
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So then; verse 20 tells us how ‘able’ our mighty God is in relation to our Christian life. But then comes verse 21. It tells us more about our mighty God. Paul went on to write, “to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” And this teaches us …
2. HOW ‘PRAISEWORTHY’ HE IS.
Why does God do what He does for us? Why does He exercise His unlimited power toward us to redeem us, and sanctify us, and give every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places to us, and ultimately bring us into the full glory of His Son Jesus? Certainly, it’s because He loves us. But it’s also that He might glorify Himself in us. And if that is where it is all leading, then we—above all people—ought to begin praising Him and glorifying Him now!
First, consider that His glory is in His church through Christ. Paul wrote that “to Him be glory in the church”; not the church building, and not just a local congregation like this one, but rather the full assembly of all saved believers throughout the centuries. And it’s not just so that we would bring glory to Him in and through ourselves alone. It is all by Jesus Christ—by His sinless life for us, by His death on the cross for us, by His resurrection from the grave for us, by His ascension to the Father in glory for us, by His whole Person, and by our inseparable union with Him forever.
Take a look at Ephesians 3:10. That’s where Paul told us why God has showered all of His saving grace upon us and secured us for eternal glory. He wrote that it was …
to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Ephesians 3:10).
The “principalities and powers in the heavenly places” are the angelic beings of heaven. Right now, they are mightier and greater in glory than we are. But one day, God—who alone is able to do so—will bring us into the full glorification of His Son Jesus. We will be glorified by God to be far greater in might and majesty than they. And when that happens, they will fall down before God and praise Him and worship Him forever for His power and wisdom and grace—as it will all become manifested in the church!
And how will this be done? It won’t be in any respect through you and me, dear brothers and sisters. It will all be done for us and in us by God the Father through His Son Jesus. As Paul went on to say in Ephesians 3:11, it will all be done
… according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (v. 11).
So then; “to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus …” That’s how praiseworthy He is! And how long will this praise endure because of what He has done for us? Paul tells us that it will endure eternally; “to all generations, forever and ever;” or as Paul put it in the original language, “of the eon of the eons”. In Romans 11:33-36—in speaking of the glories of God’s saving grace to us in Christ—Paul broke into worship and wrote;
Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has become His counselor?”
“Or who has first given to Him
And it shall be repaid to him?”
For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen (Romans 11:33-36).
Or consider what the writer of the Book of Hebrews said about our salvation at the end of that book;
Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20-21).
That’s the eternal, everlasting glory that our God is able to bring about to Himself—and that He absolutely will bring about to Himself—in us, in heavenly glory, by Christ Jesus. Doesn’t it make sense, then, to realize that—if He can do that—He can handle every other lesser matter that might come into our lives?
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Dear brothers and sisters; let’s memorize these words. Let’s get into the habit of calling them up in our thinking whenever we face a trial or a challenge. Let’s allow them to put our trials in perspective against the backdrop of what our mighty, very ‘able’ heavenly Father will absolutely do for us.
No matter what may happen, we owe praise to God who is wonderfully able to glorify Himself in us through Christ eternally. So then, let’s learn to say …
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
1Adapted from Harry Ironside, In The Heavenlies: Practical Expository Addresses on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1937), p. 164.
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