The title of today’s message is “Godfidence.” the reason it called that I because Paul tell us exactly what it is we need to do to grow and build ourselves up, but not he shift gears to persevere and grow up. Moreover he tells us of what it means we need to do prisoners for Christ for the sake of the gospel. Being a prisoner to other people for the sake of the gospel is difficult. Especially if it means giving up your autonomy and your ego for another person. So this week was one of those weeks where everyday was bad an the next day that came was not a day you wanted to look forward toward. You know what I’m talking about? Seriously, after Sunday, and then Monday, because monday was a holiday, every other day this week was a struggle to not put somebody in a choke hold and tap them out. If its not the sick people who want to shake my hand after coughing death into their right hands, or the incompetently entitled service workers. I know this sounds like a rich entitled brat complaining, but seriously, it was just one of those weeks where my fuse was short and nobody did anything to make it longer. But I kept telling myself– “you just preached being a prisoner; you said it wasn’t going to be easy. They probably haven’t heard your podcast yet.” I’m telling you, the more I swallowed my own saliva, the more I felt like exploding and then the more I became disheartened. It is disheartening because your ego is being choked out so somebody else’s doesn’t have to be. Just feel that. It’s horrible. That’s where we pick up together this Sunday. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faiththat you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21 ESV) I just described why we all need spiritual strength. See, people say we need spiritual strength to do miracles and honestly when you think about that, it’s a lie. No amount of spiritual strength is going to change your disposition to do miracles, like some people proclaim. I’ll tell you why– it’s because you don’t actually perform the miracles– God does. Just check out all the stories in the bible about healing miracles. Nobody that got healed had any bit of spiritual strength before they were healed. You can have no spiritual strength in any bone in your body and then when it comes down to it, because of your faith, God acts miraculously in your life. Let’s look at Matthew. “And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.” (Matthew 14:34-36 ESV) The people were healed only after they touched Jesus’ clothes. In this sense, Jesus’ clothes had spiritual strength, but its ridiculous to attribute an inanimate object with spiritual strength. So, let’s get that straight. Spiritual strength is not supernatural power and quite frankly, people don’t have supernatural power apart from God anyways, that is to say that power which is ascribed to yourself as opposed to being ascribed to God. Having said that– spiritual strength having nothing to do with miracles, we have to come to the understanding that spiritual strength, when we ask for it, is for the purposes of dying to ourselves and allowing Christ to live within us. I know I just got really heady and all cerebral. But the Apostle Paul is not just telling the church of Ephesus to pray for spiritual strength for the sake of spiritual strength. He is telling them to pray for it so that they are ready for what lies ahead of them. Let’s look at verses 16-19 again. “…that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faiththat you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Spiritual strength is God dwelling within you by way of the Holy Spirit. More than that, it is understanding your situation, your life, and your experience through the lens of God. The reason a lot of us, myself included, becomes disheartened is because we don’t understand or we’re too weak to understand life as the nonsensical thing that we live. Spiritual strength gives us an understanding by power to understand life as it doesn’t make sense. See, if your life makes sense– then you ask yourself– is it because you are filled with spiritual strength or is it because you are not a prisoner anywhere to anybody? Remember, this was written to a church in strife. There was hostility toward each other because of racism, classism, and other socioeconomic factors. There were Jews and Gentiles, hostility, self interest, division and behavioral problems. If you don’t have spiritual strength, if we are not prying for spiritual strength, we will end up killing each other. Check this out– we’re a small church, but do you know how much division there are even amongst us? Do you know how many behavioral problems we have? Do you realize how much division and self interest there is? If you see it like I see it, it is pretty disgusting and it starts here, with me. I look at me and I see it because I am so unwilling to yield. At the same time, I see it in all of you because you exhibit it. I’m not saying that we are perfect or that there is perfection in any kind or that we won’t individually have bad weeks; but this is exactly why we need to pray and ask for spiritual strength. Check out where this mentality is coming from in Paul. 2 Corinthians. Though if I should wish to boast, I would not be a fool, for I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me. So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:6-10 ESV) Have you realized that sometimes we are stretched to concede ourselves for the sake of God and the only thing we can do is reach out to God and beg him for spiritual strength. Yet that is the beauty of it. We ask God for strength for the days we are weak. For the days we need Him the most because our inability to overcome on our own through our own patience, God’s strength is shown most strong. Paul knew this. He experienced this fully. And he took that spiritual strength and he moved to become more godly in the way he lived because God took more of him and filled Paul more when Paul needed it more. You see spiritual strength is strongest when we are weakest. That is God by the Holy spirit within us. So we have to stretch ourselves to be more and more prisoners to God for the sake of the gospel before others. In doing so we will find contentment through the spiritual strength residing in us, the “helper.” I want to go back to Ephesians. I know we did a lot of Bible jumping today. When we ask for spiritual strength, we are getting a grasp a taste of Jesus love. This love — a sacrifice for no reason other than you or me, is something, that when we have it, we are so satisfied. It is so satisfactory when we come to understand it, we can give it to others without feeling a need to get anxious. It is so perfect that when it overflows from within you, you don’t feel like losing, it’s not needed for reciprocation. It’s so full. Here is where I close. When we ask for spiritual strength, because we can all use some strength, we are getting back much more than we asked for or bargained for and that’s what we want always. When we ask for this strength, our relationships with those people who are most contentious to us changes– that means our colleagues, our bosses, our enemies, our frenemies, our parents, siblings, all change. They, in wearing us down because we serve them as prisoners bound to them, don’t burden us, but we find contentment and understanding of how God loves us even more so. This is life changing. This is life altering. This is a peace, joy and goodness that changes the world. Pray for it.
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