Tony Evans - The Prayer of Spiritual Passion (05/17/2017)
In a sermon based on Ephesians 3, the preacher argues that experiencing more of God's power requires an expanded spiritual capacity, which itself depends on deepening intimacy with God through prayer and surrender. You cannot seek power directly; it flows naturally from a heart where Christ is truly at home.
The Hunger for More of God
If you want to get more of God, your capacity must be expanded. Your ability to take in more must be expanded. Far too many of us are content with our spiritual level. And once you become satisfied, once you don't want to grow anymore, develop anymore, or go deeper anymore, it doesn't take much to satisfy you. But for those who are hungry for God, who are in the hot pursuit of the holy, you want to eat all the time. Because you want about as much of God as you can possibly get, but God will only give you as much of Him as you can possibly handle. God will never give you more of Himself than your spiritual system is able to inculcate. Why are some Christians so full of God and others nibble? Differing capacities. Our passage today goes right to the heart of that issue.
Now everybody knows verse 20: "Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all you can ask or think according to the power that works in us." Whenever you get to a great verse like that in the Bible, one that everybody knows, everybody loves, and everybody quotes, that usually is a good hint not to start there. Because it's easy to get hyped up on a great verse and miss the context that surrounds it. It's like people who quote Philippians 4:19: "My God is able to supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus." Everybody likes that verse. That God will supply all of my needs. He promised. Everybody likes 4:19. Nobody wants to read 4:16, 17, and 18, which talk about giving. In other words, if there is no investment, chapter 4, verses 16 through 18, don't go and quote verse 19 like it applies to you. That is the case here. Verse 20 is a great verse for spiritually hungry people, but it is in a context.
Let me set forth a theme and then try to expound on it during our few moments together. The theme is simply this: Spiritual capacity is dependent upon spiritual intimacy. And that will determine spiritual power. Or let me put it another way: The more intimate you are, the more capacity you have. And the more capacity you have, the more power you experience. So if you don't see a lot of God's power, it's because you don't possess a lot of God's capacity. And if you don't possess a lot of God's capacity, that's because you're not experiencing a lot of God's intimacy. The weak, defeated, powerless believer has a capacity problem. And that is because he has an intimacy problem.
So you can't fix the lack of power by going power hunting. You have people who go from one power experience to another, one power service to another, one power convention to another. They are looking for power. You don't get power by looking for it. You get power by increasing capacity, and that is dependent upon increasing intimacy.
The Prayer for Expanded Capacity
Paul begins by saying, "For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father" (verse 14), "from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name." He says, "I bow my knee," that is an act of humility in prayer, before the Father. Because first of all, he wants to pray on behalf of the church at Ephesus, on behalf of us, for increased spiritual capacity. We know this because he says in verse 16, "I want God to grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through the Spirit in the inner man."
He says, I'm praying for all you saints, every believer, that you will experience all the wealth involved in your great salvation. I want you to get all that's coming to you. I don't want you to be void of anything. I don't want you to miss out on any of it. I want your ability to experience. Now, why does he have to pray? Because he knows that simply to be saved doesn't mean you experience it. You know, simply to be a Christian doesn't mean that all that's coming to you, you are experiencing. He knows it's possible to be a spiritual millionaire and live like a pauper. He knows it's possible to have every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, but wake up defeated every day.
He prays because he understands that prayer is like the key to your house or the access card on your job. Prayer gains you access to the Father who really is the one who expands the capacity. He says, I am praying to the Father from whom every family gets its name. Now, that's good to be able to start with that because he's talking to Christians because he's praying to the Father. That means you're his child. And what he is simply saying is every believer has their father's last name. Every believer has been given the number to the Father. He says, I bow my knee to the Father whom every person has been named. That is, every child of God has the Father's last name. So if you don't use the number, don't blame God that your capacity is limited.
He prays that they might experience more of God which he calls "the riches of his glory." The wealth involved in what it means to be a son or daughter of God, that you will be strengthened with power in the inner man. Now, this is very important because he lets us know that this expanded capacity comes from the inside out. He says, it's "through the Spirit in the inner man." That is, it does not come from the outside in. He says, if you want more capacity, it has to happen in the inner man. That is, the new you if you become a believer in Jesus Christ. It will not be solved by external performances, by just doing more stuff. It will come because in God's presence I bow my knees before the Father who all believers have access to.
It is there in the inner man that when the Spirit of God and my yielding to the Spirit of God provides for me an expanded capacity to experience more of God. You and I are held hostage by a hard shell. It's called the flesh. That is, the body controlled by sin. We're being held hostage by the flesh. And the flesh says, do this. Don't do this. You have to do this. You can't help not doing this. And the flesh dictates. Paul says, I bow my knee before the Father. That is, I live in His presence. And as I live in His presence, my capacity for Him expands.
The Path of Spiritual Intimacy
God wants us to expand our capacity from the inner man, He says. How do you do that? Well, verses 17 to 19 tell us it's through spiritual intimacy. He says, "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." That word "dwell" means to be at home. He's already living in their lives. These are Christians. These are the Father's children. But He means so that God can be at home. To dwell means to be at home. He says, if you want expanded capacity, Jesus Christ has to be free to visit every room. You say, but some of these rooms aren't that hot. That's why He wants to visit them. He wants to have access to every room in your heart, in your life. He wants to dwell, that is, make Himself at home in your hearts through faith. That is, through our trusting in Him to identify what's wrong in each room in our lives for the process of cleaning it up.
Why does He want to do it? Because sin blocks capacity. Christ wants access. That's why the spiritual person isn't the one who sees no wrong in their life. The spiritual person is the person who's so close to God, God is free to show it and reveal it, that He might dwell in your hearts. That's intimacy because you only allow people you want to be up close and personal to do that. "Being rooted and grounded in love" because what? It's relational. Not merely academic. It's not merely throwing out Bible verses. It's being rooted and grounded in a relationship "that you will be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge."
He says, to know what cannot be known. To know what cannot be known. That the love of Christ, Christ's love for you, the love He wants you to have for Him is beyond comprehension. You cannot comprehend how much Christ loves you unless you get close enough. To know the love of Christ, why? "That you may be filled with the fullness of God." That's capacity. He says, I'm praying for more capacity which is predicated on intimacy that you might experience the capacity. The closer you get to God, the more at rest you are. Because He expands the capacity. You say, I wish I had more power. Well, then you need more capacity. I wish I had more capacity. Well, then you need more intimacy. Because intimacy controls capacity and capacity controls power.
You do not have a power problem. God is your power. But to get the power of God to where you are requires the wires touching. There's got to be a connection in order to experience the power. And so, he pulls it together now in the verse everybody wants to get to, verse 20. It's okay to love verse 20. It's okay to make it one of the great memory verses of your Christian life, as long as you understand verse 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
The Nature of God's Power
"Now, to him." It's one of the great doxologies. One of the great praise statements in the scripture. "Now, to him who is able." First of all, we discover in this verse that God's power is personal. "To him." Not to it. Not to a thing. It's to a person. And that is why relationship is the key, because you're dealing with a person. Our God possesses intellect, sensibilities, emotions, and will. Those are the ingredients of personhood. "Now, to him." God doesn't want to be a thing in your life. He doesn't want to be an "it" in your life. He doesn't want to be the force. Everybody wants God's power, but not everybody wants God's person. And God is saying, if you don't want my person, why should I share with you my power?
Now, to him, we're dealing with a person. So, God's power is personal. Secondly, God's power is potent. "Who is able?" Jesus said, nothing is impossible with God. Nothing. Now, granted, his power is always subject to his will, but God does not have an ability problem. I did a little search of some of the things the Bible says God is able, using the word "able," to do. The blind man saw Jesus come along one day in Matthew 9, and he asked Jesus, he says, "Are you able to heal me?" Jesus says, "I'm able." He's able to heal. Hebrews 7:25 says, he is able to save to the uttermost. 2 Corinthians 9:8 says, "God is able to supply all grace to his children in every situation so that they have more than enough to face any situation that pops up in their lives." He says, God is able to supply to you from his throne grace. What does that mean? God is able to give you what you need to keep going.
Paul says he's able. Nebuchadnezzar asked Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, "If I put you in this fiery furnace, who shall deliver you?" Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego looked at Nebuchadnezzar and said, "Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from your fiery furnace." Now, that's as bad as you get. A fiery situation by a federal government. And he says, "Our God is able." I don't know what your situation is. I know he's able. Cyrus asked Daniel in chapter 6, "Daniel, I know you're down there with the lions, but I have a question, because I heard you preaching all the time when you were working in my service. I just have one question. Was your God able to deliver you from the lions?" Daniel said, "My God was able." Jude 24 says, "Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling, and present you faultless before his throne on high, be glory, honor, and dominion, now and evermore." Our God does not have a power problem. Anybody who can create a universe can pretty much do whatever they want.
Many of us are living in our own strength and wonder why we can't pick up the problems, wonder why we're always under the circumstances rather than being on top of them. God's power is unprecedented because he's not only able. It says he's able to do "exceedingly, abundantly, beyond all." We call these the addition of superlatives. He doesn't just want to say he's able because most of the things we tie to God are things that are explainable. It is when God starts doing the unexplainable that you know your capacity has spread. It's when he starts showing off. It's when not only he does what you ask, but the verse says he does stuff you haven't come up with yet. When he does that which is beyond what you can ask or think, when he outshines your brainwaves, it's unprecedented because it's beyond what we can ask or think.
But his power is also prejudicial because it says, "according to the power that works." Where? "Within us." If nothing's happening on the inside, don't expect to see much on the outside. Don't expect to see heaven shake in your situation if nothing's happening on the inside. It's got to be happening on the inside for it to show up on the outside because it says it's according to the power that's working in you. And remember, the power doesn't work in you until your capacity has expanded and your capacity doesn't expand until your intimacy has expanded. It's got to be working on the inside before you see it on the outside. Why? It's prejudicial. It doesn't come equally to everybody. Daniel 11:32, I love this verse. It says, "But the people who know their God shall be strong and pull off exploits." The people who know their God will pull off stuff that go beyond the ordinary and they become downright extraordinary. Not because they're supermen or superwomen, but because God has the freedom on the inside to show off for them on the outside. Because their intimacy quotient is so high.
Glorifying God Through Increased Capacity
That's why verse 21 says, "to him be glory in the church." Because to give God glory is to highlight him, to make a big deal about him. And sometimes other folk don't understand what you're going through. Some folk don't understand what you're having to deal with. They don't understand the development that you're going through with it. But you know when God is ready to break through, sophistication isn't what you're looking for. Just dressing with a three-piece suit, a shirt and tie, or a nice Sunday dress is not enough. When God is ready to break through, a choir and a sermon is not all you want. You won't be satisfied until you see him. As long as you're satisfied with the preacher, you're not there yet. As long as you're satisfied with the singers, you're not there yet. As long as you're satisfied with the building, you're not there yet. As long as you're satisfied with the program, you're not there yet because the person who is intimate and expanding capacity is not satisfied until he shows up. "To him be glory in the church." You're making a big deal about him because of the power working within.
I'm sure you and your house, like me and mine, have made use of the electrical power strips. Electrical power strips have like six outlets. You take the little strip and you plug the strip into a wall that only has two. Now what that nets you is seven outlets. Because you got six on the strip. You plug it into the one with two so you lose one of those. The one above it is still available. So you now have gone from two to seven because of a strip. In my strip, I have in the back room, a computer on it, a treadmill on it, a TV on it, a VCR on it, a fax machine on it. In other words, my strip is full of all this stuff that needs power. I got all this stuff in the room that needs power. My problem was, I didn't have enough natural outlets to address all my power needs. I had so much stuff going on in the room that I needed extra power beyond that which was naturally possessed in the context of the room. I need an additional source of power.
Now I guess I could have redid the house or redid the room. But I didn't have to go through all that trouble or all that expense because simply by getting a strip, where I could plug these things into, I would increase my capacity for the reception of electricity. And I just want you to know, all those things work on this one strip. On this one strip, all I needed was that one strip and all of these independent things could come together in one place, draw from one source, and all of them work in their unique way. I know you got all kinds of stuff going on in your life. You got your job and you need some power there. You got your family and you need some power there. You got your finances and you need some power there. You got your health and you need some power there. You've got some problem over here. You need some power there. Everywhere, you say, how am I going to deal with this? I don't have enough power to deal with this. God has provided a strip. And he says, if you become intimate with me, I will add additional outlets and expand your capacity. And when I expand your capacity, if you plug in, my power will address everything you can plug into it. Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all you can ask or think, be glory, honor, and dominion. Now and forevermore, to him be glory in the church.