Ephesians 3:14-20
June 22
David A. Davis
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I am not sure I have ever started a sermon like this, but I am going to give you a tip for listening to the sermon to follow. My hint is not about the content of the sermon. It is more of a glimpse into the movement of the sermon or the structure of the sermon I have attempted to shape. I know most of you are not preaching nerds like me. But I also know this congregation well, and you are full of really good, experienced listeners to sermons, not to mention the pastor emeriti among us who spent a lifetime writing sermons. There is no charge for this, so you can take it or leave it. The sermon, the homily, I am about to offer on the second half of Ephesians 3 is an example of expository preaching. Expository preaching is most common in more conservative traditions where preaching is synonymous with teaching. The preacher moves through the text verse by verse, often with the bible in hand, referring to the verses by number. I am going to work my way through Ephesians 3:14-21 verse by verse without the numbers. An expository sermon and just for fun, it is a three-point sermon as well for those who have ears to hear.
Every family. Every family in heaven and on earth. Every family. This prayer from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians ought to be a prayer for every family, every day. As memorized as deep within as the Lord’s Prayer. As routine as the nighttime prayers offered at a child’s bedside. As common as a table grace passed on from generation to generation. That, according to the lavishness of God’s glory, God would once again give you, give me, give all, a sense of strength and comfort and peace and purpose deep within. A kind of assurance deep inside that only comes from the power of the Holy Spirit. That Christ may continue to fill our hearts, to live in our hearts, to make a home within our hearts through the faith God gives. So that you and I, that all would be, would still be, would continue to be rooted and grounded in love. The very love of Jesus. The very love of God.
It really should be a once-a-day kind of prayer. At least once a day. A prayer we offer for our family, our extended family, the families that surround us, and yes, for all God’s people. That we might have the power, the means, the bandwidth to comprehend with all the children of God what is the breadth and length and height and depth, that we might have some inkling of what reaches from the east to the west, from the north to the south, that we might have some glimpse of that which is invisible, that we might have some sense of the weight that is beyond measure…that somehow we might see that the Lord is good. Every day.
And to know the love of Christ. To know the love of Christ. One can’t just know. You can’t just know love. You have to feel it. You have to live it. It’s not something to just figure out. The love of Christ surpasses all knowledge. Yes, it surpasses all knowledge but for goodness sake, for God’s sake, the love of Christ better have everything to do with what we think, what we conclude, what we decide, what we teach our children, how we live, how we act, how we treat our neighbor, how we respond to the stranger, how we see the world. Knowing the love of Christ and seeing the same world Jesus does. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” Jesus says in Matthew. There is no “either/or there. To know something that surpasses all knowledge. To know….love. It’s not an oxymoron. It’s a prayer. To know the love of Christ so that you, you and I, so that all might be filled with all the fullness of God. Which is to be filled with the love of Christ himself, which is to know the love of Christ, which surpasses all knowledge. Every day.
It’s everyday prayer and everyday praise. To God be the glory. To God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus. To God be the glory in every generation, in every family in heaven and on earth. To God be the glory. All day long. All day long. This oh, so glorious God has a power at work within us to accomplish so much more, so abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine. God can do more in us than we can even dream about. The fullness of God so fills us. The love of Christ so overwhelms us. The piercing light of Christ so shines on us. The matchless grace of God so washes over us that God can use us, work with us, and transform us in ways beyond what we can see. It’s not just prayer. It’s not just praise. It’s a promise. God’s promise. Not just a promise but an expectation that, according to the riches of God’s glory, God is at work with us to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine. Prayer. Praise. Promise. Everyday.
Some may remember me sharing what I learned about the Lord’s Prayer from leading worship in the Church of Scotland. The first few Sundays, I kept stumbling over the Lord’s Prayer. It took me a few weeks to realize why. My cadence of leading the prayer was out of sync with the congregation. It was the petition “thy will be done…on earth as it is in heaven.” When I say the Lord’s Prayer, the comma, the pause, and the breath come after “they will be done”. “Thy will be done…..on earth as it is in heaven. Folks in the Church of Scotland place the comma, the pause, the breath in a different spot. “Thy will be done on earth….as it is in heaven.” Not thy will be done…..on earth as it is in heaven.” But “Thy will be done on earth…as it is in heaven.” One Sunday morning, I just stayed silent. That’s when I heard the difference. The change in cadence bears some urgency, some expectation, some immediacy. A sense of right now. A timeliness that God has the power to work with us, through us, beyond us, despite us, to accomplish far more than we can even ask or imagine. Now.
Every day. Right now. No family, no lineage, no people, no one is beyond the reach of the love of God. You and I are called to live that now. God’s immutable glory, so distant, so awesome, manifests in hearts full of love. Now. The breadth and length and height and depth of the presence of God stretches to the world’s farthest corner and illumine life’s darkest places and breaks down death’s door. Now. The love Christ offers comes with such fullness that hearts and souls and minds can be inspired and sparked and changed and guided and protected and calmed and comforted now. Prayer. Praise. Promise. Every day. Every day.
All in service to making the world more like what God intends. Now, even as the mind numbing, soul sucking, powers and principalities of this present darkness rage. Now, even this morning, as nations rise against nations and kingdom against kingdom. Seeking a world more like what God intends. A world where the children of God dare to believe in, pray for, and work toward what the prophet dreamed. Swords transformed into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, and war being learned no more. A land where every family would dare to believe in, yearn for what the psalmist proclaimed. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet. Righteousness and peace kiss each other as faithfulness springs up from the ground and righteousness looks down from the sky. A world where the people of God dare to believe in, pray for, and work toward what Jesus prayed. God’s will being done on earth… as it is in heaven. Daring to believe in, praying for, and working toward, because… because… because, God is able to accomplish more abundantly than we can ask or imagine. Now.
My preaching professor, Tom Long (who used to teach six grade church school at Nassau church along with Old Testament professor Pat Miller and their spouses) was once asked in a Q and A session whether he believed preaching could really be taught or was it more of a skill, a gift some had and some didn’t. “Believe it?’ he responded, “I don’t just believe. I’ve seen it.” Among all of the graduation celebrations in our congregation these last weeks, Len Scales sent me pictures of Asma Hashimi graduating from Princeton High School. A family fleeing for their lives after the airport in Afghanistan fell to a few years later, joyfully celebrating a high school graduation. God is able to accomplish within us far more than all we can ask or imagine. I don’t just believe it, I have seen it. Time and time again, far more than I would wish, this congregation has surrounded a grieving family with love. Being for them the presence of the Risen Christ. Living resurrection hope now. God is able to accomplish within us far more than all we can ask or imagine. I don’t just believe it, I have seen it. Not long from now, more than fifty folks, a mix of youth and adults from our congregation, will travel to sleep on a gym floor and rebuild homes for families whose lives have been crushed by the power of poverty. God is able to accomplish within us far more than all we can ask or imagine. I don’t just believe it, I have seen it. Every week, from the lower level of our building at 61 Nassau Street, 250 to 300 families, mostly working families and seniors, receive food assistance in person or by delivery. God is able to accomplish within us far more than all we can ask or imagine. I don’t just believe it, I have seen it.
God’s power at work among us through the everyday prayer, the everyday promise, and the everyday praise of the “nowness” of the God we know in and through Jesus Christ. “Now to the One who by the power at work within us can accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Every day. Every day. Every day.