He is Able, Eph, 3:20-21

Good morning. We're going to proceed into the last couple of verses of Ephesians chapter 3. And as you see on your handout, you have all of chapter 3 there in the middle of the first page. For those of you who might be visiting us for the first time, there's the page number on the lower corner of the screen, so you can track that. If there's no page number on the screen, then it's not in your handout. So, and I also just want to preface here, this message has no... Wait a minute here. This message has no moose. It has no moose. And it has no moose. Okay? So because of that, you can relax, but not that much. Okay? All right.

Now, here's Ephesians chapter three, which is in the middle of your first page there. And what you see is similar to what I have, but now I've got some notes on here that aren't on your first page, so you might want to write them. The point is this, that in general, what we find here, right in the middle of the passage, middle of chapter three, is reference to God's eternal purpose. And we've noted that that means four things.

And interestingly enough, the first ten verses focus upon God's glory declared and revealed. It's declaring and revealing. God is a God who reveals. God is a God who makes known. So the first 10 verses that we looked at focus upon that message. The last part of it, verse 12 on, focuses upon His glory shared with us. And then finally, to Him be the glory, and the passage we'll be looking at here this morning, He is glorified. So those four things are key aspects of God's eternal purpose. His glory declared and revealed, His glory shared with us, and that He is glorified. All right, let's take a look at the passage.

And one of the things we'll note, as Paul writes this, this is kind of the ending of a prayer. We looked at the last couple of weeks, verses 14 through 19, and those verses are a prayer of Paul, the second time in the book of Ephesians. prayer of Paul for the believers at Ephesus. And there's some interesting patterns that we'll want to look at in a minute. These last two verses we're looking at are a sort of benediction. And one of the things that stands out, and it shows up on your handout as well, he's got in most of verse 20 a kind of a parenthesis.

It's a description of the him to whom Paul is praying here. And so if we were to take that out, without that, it would be as simple as this. Now to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. But what he does is to enhance that description of Him in verse 20. So then Paul's parenthesis tells about God's ability to work in and through us who believe, which glorifies Him. All right, now.

One of the things we've also seen as we've gone through the book of Ephesians so far is the word glory continues to show up. As a matter of fact, this is the last time that a particular form of that, doxa in the Greek, shows up. The word glory has continued again and again and again to show up as Paul has described the position of the believer and what God has accomplished, what God's done. With the exception of 527, all these use this word, doxa. That's the Greek word for glory. And 527 is actually just a derived word. Now, as we look through this, all these are about the glory of God declared, revealed, shared, and God glorified. God's eternal purpose spelled out. As we look at this passage, there's something else that crops up too.

In Ephesians 17 and 18, which is Paul's first prayer, and now in 3.16 and 21, the second prayer that we've seen here, these references to glory are found in Paul's two prayers for the believers at Ephesus. It's another pattern that we see in Paul's praying for them. Each time he prays for them, the word glory is included twice. It's critical to what Paul is concerned with in caring about the lives of the believers there.

Something interesting I ran across just this last week as I was looking at Romans 16.25, what he does in one verse is summarize what he told the believers at Ephesus in all of chapter 3.

It's interesting, it says, I commit you to God who is able to make you strong and steady in the Lord, just as the gospel says, and as I have told you. This is God's plan of salvation for you Gentiles, kept secret from the beginning of time. But now, as the prophets foretold and as God commands, this message is being preached everywhere so that people all around the world have faith in Christ and obey Him. To God, who alone is wise, be the glory forever and ever through Jesus Christ our Lord."

A summary, if you will, of Ephesians chapter 3 in one verse. Now, let's look into the details of the passage there. It starts off with Now. And you might wonder, well, why is he saying now now? Now. You know what I mean. Anyway. So why the now? The now to, because he does that now to, is an introduction to praising and glorifying God.

Paul does it several times, including this Romans 16.25 passage we just looked at. Ephesians 3 is, of course, what we're looking at when we studied through Philippians a couple years back. We also saw it. as Paul writes to Timothy and even Jude. Here's not Paul writing it, but Jude.

Beginning a prayer with now to. And what it appears to be, it's a New Testament pattern, and it's to turn the focus upon the Lord. To turn the focus upon Him. Prior to this time, what has Paul been praying for? He's been praying for the believers, certainly in their relationship with the Lord. Now what's he doing? He says, now let's turn directly to the Lord Himself. I've been praying for you, but as I end this prayer, let me put the focus upon Him, Him directly.

So in each one of these now-to passages that you see on the left column there, glory is given to God. Isn't that interesting? When they say now-to, there's a mention at each time of glory, each one. There's also forever in each one. So when they say now-to, there's glory, there's also forever, And finally, each one is ended with Amen. It's an interesting pattern, an apostolic pattern, not only in Paul's writing, but with Jude as well. And by the way, there are some other similar ones, but these are the ones that have the now, now to with glory forever and Amen consistently in all of them.

Something else to notice here in these passages that we have boxed in, and you have this similarly on page two on your handout, each of these boxed verses describes God as able using Dunamai. Isn't that interesting? The focus upon God, now we're going to talk about God and put our focus on Him and we acknowledge Him as able. He has the ability, He has the power, He has the capacity. These also make note that the glorifying in each one of these that we have boxed here is also through Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ is the instrument of glorifying God. Now as we look at here, we made some attention to the point that it's, He is able. Dunamai is the Greek word.

It's a present tense verb, and it puts the focus here. It's an ongoing truth that God is right now continuing to be able. Is God able? Yes. Will He be able five minutes from now? Yes. God's ability to do what He says here continues. At every moment where you can say right now, God is able. Always. Always.

It's interesting, this word is also related to the noun dunamis, that we've looked at before in Ephesians, including this passage. And it's often translated power, as it is here in 320, so we'll put some focus on that. So that word's going to show up here in a little bit. So he uses both the verb and the noun to focus on God's ability, God's power.

God is certainly able, is the focus that he's bringing in this passage. So ability is great. Everybody likes some ability. But ability to do what? Nice little thing to be involved in here. Alright. How does he describe it? Able to do far more abundantly beyond all we ask or think. That's what he says God is able to do. And he even gives a measure of that right following.

Let's take a look at this passage. right in the middle of that set of words there. Now, to do is paieo. Now, that is not the Greek word for pie. It's to do, paieo, and it's God is the one who gets things done. God's the one who is able to accomplish things. This is something he points out. God is able to do what matters. Have you ever seen, maybe it's on a TV show or something personally, where somebody has some skill, and you say, you know, that's really cute, or funny, or scary, or whatever, and somebody has some tremendous ability, and it's very impressive, or something close to that, God is the one who, when he gets things done, gets things done that matter, eternally. God is able to make things happen, and they're not incidental or just entertaining.

He is able to accomplish His eternal purpose, to declare and reveal His glory, to share His glory, and to be glorified. This word, paieo, is used in a passage we looked at in the prior chapter in Ephesians. He Himself is our peace who made both groups, that is, Jews and Gentiles, into one.

Same word. He accomplished it. He pulled it off. He did it. Farther on there, that he might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace. God accomplished it, God did it. God is the one who makes things happen, and the things that God makes happen are the things that count. Able to do far more abundantly beyond.

Now this is something we've got to pay some attention to, because the words that he draws out to try to communicate this are just phenomenal. Two words together, it's huper, which we get our word hyper, okay, above, okay? And then he comes up with another word, huperacpariso, okay? And that's a combined word. Paul loves those combined words, right? Huperacparisos, very far in excess, infinitely more. But I still haven't gotten the point across, so I've got to tell you a farm story. Okay, it goes like this.

See that barn there? That's where Nancy and I, before we even got engaged, went out and milked a cow, you know, and, how are you doing now over there? Oh, just fine, you know. And so anyway, and we used to go swimming down there to get all the cow stuff off. Anyway, over here, you see where that is? That, where that red arrow is?

Okay. That's where we decided to put a well. But we don't go hire some well driller. That's no fun. That's where you blast it out. Okay. So what we'd do is we'd bore down by hand, put down six sticks of dynamite and blow it out, right? After a while, it gets deep enough, you got to start putting a ladder down the hole. And we use fuses because you don't want to blow it up while you're still down there, right? Okay, so you put a ladder down the hole. Well, this one time, we'd gotten the extension ladder down there pretty far and we put a good length of fuse on it because we wanted to have time to get out and make sure you got safely away from the hole.

Okay, so this happens, and you know, light fuse, get out, everybody stands back, ready for this thing. About time a cow wanders by the hole, wondering what are they doing over there? Looking down the hole, and all of a sudden they thought, you know, we forgot to pull a ladder out.

Man, this is real, it's too close to the time when it's going to go off. We can't go over there now. And it's a good thing we didn't because shortly thereafter it went off. Ever heard of a sprinting cow? Well, that's what happened. Anyway, if you're ever flying around sometime to see an extension ladder go by, let my folks know, give them a call because they'd really like to get their ladder back.

Anyhow, that's what Paul's talking about here. This is way, way beyond, okay? It's like this flying extension ladder goes way higher than any extension ladder ever thought of going. What God is able to do is way, way far beyond what we think and imagine might take place. And that's part of what Paul's trying to get across. He pulls together words here that just stretch the ability of language to say, okay, what are you imagining that God can do? God's ability is way, way far beyond that. The combination of words he pulls together is like, above, above, out, and beyond that. That's roughly how you would carry it across into English. Beyond our normal level of thinking and understanding, all that we ask or think.

Now, think about what limits God's ability to act. God is limited by His character. There are, in fact, things that God cannot do. Why? He is limited by His character. God's character limits him just like our character limits us. God's character doesn't change. God's character is fixed and absolute. He has a character of holiness. It cannot be violated. God can't just set that aside for a time and say, well, I think I won't be holy today. It is fundamental to who He is.

God is also limited by any covenants that He makes. In Malachi, which is the last book in the Old Testament, it's described how the Jews have gone way far off track. And then it says, I the Lord don't change, and therefore Judah will not be destroyed. Why? I have a covenant with you. And so even though what you're doing is way, way far off track, I the Lord don't change. His covenant also restricts it.

God's power and wisdom, knowledge, capacity to act, are not otherwise limited. God is able to do far above what we ask or think. The limits of what we think don't define God's limits. Our ability to think things out. Think of it this way. God determined that we would be identified with Christ in his crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding, and that's how he determined to bless us. Would you think of that? Would that be if we were to say, okay, as human beings, let's figure out how we're going to save these people.

None of us would think of that. We wouldn't imagine that. We wouldn't say, hey, here are these people that are absolutely worthless. They're worth nothing more than condemnation, but I'm going to share my glory with them. I'm going to identify them with my son in these things. That's beyond human imagination. You don't cook that up in human thinking. This is what God did. And He is beginning to lift the veil on it as He reveals it to us in Scripture.

It is still so phenomenal that as we looked at in Ephesians 2.7, we will be gasping into eternity at the magnificence of the Lord's grace and glory.

Now he uses this word according to, we've looked at it before, kata. It means consistent with or measured by. It's a word that Paul uses frequently. Measured by or according to, consistent with what? The power that works within us. Now he's used descriptions of this power before in Ephesians and in Colossians. He has ability to act and to get things done spiritually that are far beyond what we ask or think, according to his power, he's already displayed it.

Something else, there's a couple of words here, dunamis, and the verb form is dunamai, and works, energeo, the noun form is energeia. Now let's keep those words on our mind, put your finger on that page there on the handout, and let's look ahead here.

Remember Colossians 1, 28 and 29, He talked about proclaiming Christ to every single person, so that each person would be complete in Christ. And in verse 29, it says, For this person I also labor, and that word is translated from a word that was used for athletic events.

He says, I put forth an intense athletic event. According to, here's that word again, Kata, his power, Energeia, which mightily works Energeo within me." Interesting. He keeps bringing forth this message. He does not say, God wants to get this done, so I'm going to give it my best effort, and when we all get done here, we'll see if God's happy with it. No. He says, I put forth this Olympic effort, if you will, but it's God doing it in me. It's His energizing. It's His accomplishing it in me.

He prayed before in his first prayer in Ephesians. Look at this, he uses similar words again. Verse 19, "...and what is the surpassing greatness of his power, dunamis, towards us who believe. These are in accordance with the working, energeia, of the strength of his might." It's God's working, it's God's accomplishment. Notice that each time he prays for the saints at Ephesus, he is praying that what they are doing in their condition is carried over from their position by God's accomplishment. Paul spent the rest of chapter 1 in the first prayer expanding upon the character of that power, where it comes from, the scope of it, the nature of it.

Now, just previously we looked at the last half of Ephesians 3.16, he prayed that they be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man, that with power is dunamis, So this is a point he continues to make with the believers. This word is often translated power or might, and it has the idea of being able to. Ability is the focus. So he would pray that the believers would be empowered by God's enablement, not by human best efforts, not by our old college try. Now, the other thing that he pointed out would be strengthened with power through his Holy Spirit in the inner man. is literally by means of the Spirit of Him. That's how it comes out. We're indwelt by the Spirit, and it is the Spirit Paul prays. It is that indwelling Spirit by which the believer is to be living out the position that they have God's accomplishment, paieo, in each believer.

Now, let's look at verse 21. Here's where he turns to Him be the glory. Paul has already told the believers how God has declared and revealed and shared his glory with the believers. He spelled those three things out. He's spoken in verse 11 about his eternal purpose. Now he names two entities through which, or actually through whom, God is glorified.

And these are in the church and in Christ Jesus. Those two. And notice, and this is something that has good support in numerous other passages, and we'll draw on just a few. God is glorified in the church, as our Lord says in John 15, 8, and in Christ Jesus, 1 Peter 4, 11. Christ Jesus is glorified in the church. Boy, this is getting amazing, isn't it? Christ Jesus is glorified in the church, and that's in his prayer, Christ's prayer to the Father. as Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians, and the church is glorified because of him. There is the sharing of glory. The sharing of glory. The Lord is the source of all glory, but the sharing of glory goes along, and it all focuses upon and ends with him being glorified. He is glorified.

One of the things that Paul brings that verse to an end with, as he says, to all generations forever and ever. And one of the points we made previously is that seems to be a pattern in these prayers that start with now too. There's this mention of glory forever. See, glory isn't for just a certain period of time. You have, because of God's eternal purpose, an eternal purpose, you have a part in His eternal purpose, because He has revealed He has declared and He has shared His glory with you. And those things glorify Him.

But it doesn't just last for a period of time. It doesn't just last for 40 days. It doesn't just last through this lifetime. But for eternity. And each of these passages that pray in this way and mention glory also mention forever. And they mention it in interestingly different ways. but they put the focus on that. Something else, to all generations. Generations are time on Earth, aren't they? To all generations, all the people, but it also puts the focus into eternity.

So what do you have? As long as this Earth is in existence, and on beyond this Earth's existence. As long as there are generations here on planet Earth, and there is time, and on beyond time. Purpose is not for a long time. It's His eternal purpose, isn't it?

God will be glorified in the Church and in Christ Jesus forever. Now, we gather here on Sunday mornings and we pull out the hymnal and we sing songs in worshiping of the Lord. We usually have about four or somewhere around that count. This is talking about a glorifying of him that goes on forever and ever and ever. And I don't think we'll be looking at our watches waiting for the coffee break. Forever and ever. Finally, he ends chapter 3, and this is the end of the midpoint, if you will, of the book of Ephesians, by chapter count, with Amen.

It means the equivalent of, so be it or let it be. kind of in lingo that became popular a few decades back. It would be kind of like saying, right on. The point being, it's a way of putting the focus on what is said without repeating it all. But it's underscoring its truth. It's underscoring the reality of what's been said.

So here's Paul's big picture. Here's what he's been saying all the way along here. This first half of Ephesians, chapters 1-3, half by chapter count, which we've finished today, it has certainly put a focus on the believer's position in Christ. Again and again and again he starts telling the believer what their position is in Christ, and he explains it in greater detail.

Another interesting thing is we've seen lots of use of the past tense, and even several times the perfect tense. That is, it's completed past action, ongoing results of the future, implying permanence. God did this, God did that, this was accomplished, you were done this way by God, God did it fully and completely, it's a done deal, it's permanent. Repeatedly we've seen that kind of a message, haven't we? It puts the focus on what God has already accomplished.

There's been nothing, really, that's given us, do this, make sure you don't do that. Isn't that interesting? It's gone on for three chapters now. And there isn't a, here's your list of things to do, folks. Make sure you get this done, and by all means, don't do this other thing. None of that. There isn't a, you ought to do this, you ought not to do that. Interesting. Three chapters, and he's gone without telling them, make sure this gets done, make sure this doesn't happen. None of that. For three chapters. I think a lot of people might be surprised, don't you think?

Paul has told us things from eternity past, this is what God purposed before there was a beginning, into eternity future, what we saw here forever and ever. He's told us what's happened in between. He's told us what's happened in Christ at a point in time in history.

He's told us about God who loves and blesses, which is something that they had never seen in the pagan deities in Ephesus. 50 deities, and they still had never seen a God who blesses or loves, who identifies us with Christ and creates the Church. None of the people in their pagan gods ever hoped to be created into a new body, just not in their thinking at all. He's purposely focused upon their position in Christ, and the only mention of their condition, that is their daily lives, is to pray for them. Isn't that interesting? So far, that's all He's done.

I'm going to pray for you, and this is how I'm going to pray. Here's your position, and that condition, we'll talk about what that looks like later. That condition. I am going to pray for you twice as I'm telling you about your position in Christ. I'm going to pray for you twice that it would be God carrying that out. That He would be the one energizing. It's so important that I'm not just going to pray once. I'm going to pray twice, and in the prayer I'm going to keep talking about his energizing and his ability, and his glory, and forever.

Even then, he doesn't put a focus on specific behaviors, does he? Oh yeah, later on he's going to get to it. He said, you who are stealing, stop it. But here, notice what his primary concern is. God empowering and energizing the believer. primary concern. Isn't that interesting? You're wondering about how you can pray for other believers in this body? For your wife, for your kids? For other members of your family? This is key. This is key. That it would be God who would be the one energizing them. God who would be the power in their lives.

That's Paul's prayer. And in the long run, it becomes clear that addressing the condition, that is, how people live, without talking about their position and who it is that carries that out, would actually be negligent. Because it puts a primary concern on what is the believer's position in Christ, and how does that condition get carried out. Paul's heart of hearts is coming out here, isn't it?

He prays that the believer would live out their position by God's accomplishment, God's power, God's energizing. Anything less than that doesn't glorify God. See, what's God's eternal purpose? That His glory be revealed and declared, that it be shared in your life with you. That's amazing. I mean, I should have been a crispy critter, you know? And the Lord said, no, I want to share my glory with you. That's amazing.

Not only save me, but to say eternally, forever and ever. But it isn't a matter of waiting until I get out of this place and walk through heaven's gates. Now, He wants them to be living by His energizing. So, here's our eternal position in Christ. Here we are. It's accomplished and rooted and established entirely by God. Here's our daily condition, walking in the good works that he has prepared beforehand. How do we get from here to here? How does that happen?

See, that ends up being a pivotal question, doesn't it? If you just learn, here's your position, and if you just learn, here's how you're supposed to live, here's how it's supposed to look, you'd miss something. He focuses on, zeroes in on, here's how you get from here to there. That matters. People have come up with different answers to how do I bridge from one to the other. Some folks have said, ah, I've got the answer. Just get you some law here, and you'll do it. That'll fix you up just fine. It's about as good as the sticks of dynamite we put down the hole, OK? Probably not going to work, but that's what they try.

There's a movie, Shadowlands. Anthony Hopkins plays C.S. Lewis. And you know what? He does a very good acting job. I have to compliment on him. However, as much as he acts like a believer, I don't think he is one. Some of the other movies he's done seem to clue me in on that. He did a good acting job of acting like a believer, but that's not what God's asking us to do. Okay? One is not brought to the Lord by saying, act like the Lord and you will be saved. Okay?

Instead, There's another answer. Some have said, ah, you have to have the right experience. If I get the right experience, then I'm there. That's not the right one. There, there we go. We've got another one. That's the right experience. And so you go wandering around trying to find the right experience. That'll get you from here to there.

No, what we find here is as we look through these passages, we have the glory of God spelled out in both of these prayers. Each of these references to glory in both prayers are in a context of God energizing the saints. So how do we get from here to here? From our position to our condition? What's the bridge that crosses between the two?

It's God energizing. It is the Lord's work to bring it out. making it come to pass in my life, and not my best efforts, and not my just learning the list of rules, or going for a real experience that will just shake me to my roots, or acting really, really, really close to what a Christian is supposed to look like. It's God doing it through us. That's his point. A point so critical that Paul prays twice, and he has yet to tell them what it looks like. God is the one who is to energize us so as to bring us from here to here. We have this position in Christ that God has accomplished. He's done it. He's done it all. Going from there to our daily walk in all the works that he's prepared beforehand, it's God's energizing that glorifies him.

As we look at this passage here, it is amazing how we've seen three chapters, so much has been spelled out about our position that I've had several people ask, how can we keep talking about our position? And it's because it's fundamental, it's critical. But the living out of that position, God wants to do it. Some of you may be old enough to remember the TV ad that A lady snappily says to somebody else, I'd rather do it myself. That is exactly not what God has in mind. God says, no, no, I intend by my eternal purpose to live my life through you. My life, he says, through you. That's fulfilling my purpose as you walk here on planet Earth.

It's not just that it's pleasing to Him. That's what He determined eternally, and it will glorify Him forever. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage and we come to a milestone in the book of Ephesians, Lord, what a wonderful thing you're accomplishing. You have your eternal purpose that you've laid out. We thank you that you have revealed and declared so much to us. You've let us in on something that is eternally wonderful and wondrous. And we thank you for empowering and enabling us by your spirit to live these things out so that it's not our best efforts at all, but it's your power and ability far beyond all that we could ask or think. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.