Sunday, January 21- What are we here for?
2024-01-21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryYvyW6x3KA

Father in heaven, we know that we are weak, but you are strong, and so we ask this morning for strength. We ask that you would encourage us, that you would direct us to your glory, that we would see your goodness, that we would be encouraged by it, and that when we see your glory and are strengthened by it, we would give you the credit and the honor you deserve. Help us as we see the promises you've made that we would be willing to step out on faith and to trust you. Help us this morning. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So one of the, probably the most dangerous store for our Merrill family budget is Costco. And I don't mean it's dangerous because, you know, they have everything in giant sizes. And the danger is that they have a lot of really cool stuff. And what I found is that if we don't go to Costco, or maybe if I don't go to Costco, with an appropriate focus and game plan, right, we were taking dinner to friends, and so I went on Thursday to pick up all the stuff we would need for dinner. And it was pretty simple. I needed a pork shoulder,

some mac and cheese. There was, like, one other thing that we needed. And so I went and got that, and then as I'm walking through, wandering through the aisles, there was this crate. I've had my eye on it for a while. Our neighbors have one, and it folds down completely flat, and then you unfold it. And so, like, you take dinner to somebody, you walk in with this really cool crate, take all your stuff out, fold it down flat, and it just makes you look really cool. I was like, "Well, you know, it's only like $8, right? Not that big of a deal." So I got the cool crate, and then I'm walking along, and there's these jars of peaches. I was like, "Oh, I'll get those too," right? And thankfully, at that point, I was like, "You know what? You've got to focus on what you need." So I made it, you know, out to the car, only buying two impulse buys. I wanted to do a lot more, and it's dangerous to go without focus. And so the rest of the story is, I put everything in the crate. Instead of the cart, get to the car, put the crate in the car,

get home, pull the crate out of the car, and the bottom falls out, and the pork shoulder, and the mac and cheese, and the glass jars of peaches all land in the parking lot. And so now in the back of my car, I have a crate that I put my hope in, and it just, I mean, it's probably fixable. I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have put 70 pounds of stuff in a crate rated for 15. I don't know, right? But when we don't focus on the most important thing, right, it's very easy for us to chase something because it's cool, or because we want it, or because we think that it will make us feel a certain way, and the same is true in the church, right? The church is called to focus, and Christians and all of God's people are called to focus upon God's glory. And what tends to happen is that oftentimes, rather than making God the focus,

we'll see something like in Costco and think, man, that's cool. Let's go in that direction. Or this is something that I want here, or this makes me feel a certain way. And so as we walk through our texts this morning, part of our goal is to ask the question, what are we here for? What are we doing? What is our focus? And we're going to be in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 20 and 21, and it just simply says this: "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever." Amen. And I want to try to answer three questions with this text this morning. First of all,

where is our focus? Secondly, who gets the glory? And third, where is our faith or our hope? Paul, as he writes these words, verses 20 and 21 of Ephesians chapter 3, these are a song of praise. This is a joyful exclamation. And there is a tendency for us as we read the Bible to sort of just see it as words on the page and maybe even to read them as if they are words on the page. Paul in Ephesians has spent the first half of this letter just unpacking all of the glorious things that God has done, that he's chosen you, that he's redeemed you, that he has saved you, he's brought you from death to life, he's brought you into a family. And over and over again, Paul has talked about these things. And then in chapter 3, he goes, "And the greatest news for me is that I get to tell you about these things." And at the end of chapter

3, he's ready to sing. And so that's what he does, right? These words are a joyful song of praise. And at the center of Paul's praise, and what should be at the center of ours, is God. In these two verses, 20 and 21, they both begin in the same way. Paul begins with the words, in verse 20, "to him," and in verse 21, "to him." And in declaring this, and in saying this, Paul is saying that our focus is not necessarily on what we desire or what we think we may want, but it is on God and his glory. And while this seems very obvious to us, that God should be the focus and that God should be the center and the desire of the church, we know from experience that this is not always the reality of the church.

It should be, but it isn't always that way. And there is a tendency sometimes for us to maybe treat God like a delivery driver, somebody who is supposed to bring the stuff that you want to you and drop it off. And so, a couple of weeks ago, I was waiting on bookcases as I was trying to reorganize and work on my office downstairs, and they were coming by FedEx, and I was tracking the bookcases as they came, and they had a little time window, and it got closer to the time window, and it was near five o'clock, and sometimes they'll think nobody's at the church, so I open up the doors and prop them open, make sure the church looks lived in before they get here. And then this guy from FedEx drives down there, and I see him coming, and I'm like, "Great! I can get this project underway. I can feel like I've accomplished something," and he drives right by the church.

And the next day, when he finally got around to delivering, he's like, "Yeah, I drove by yesterday, saw the doors open, and I just didn't want to deal with it." So I just went on home. And I'm really mad, but I can't say anything, because he hasn't taken the bookcases off the truck yet, and I'm worried he's just going to leave and go home again, right? And sometimes, in our relationship with God, we just simply treat him as a delivery driver, right? Here's a list of the things that I would like to have from you. Here is my order, and what I would like you to do, your sole job is to drop it off to me. And sometimes, we come to God, not in a spirit of gratefulness or joy, but simply willing to sort of put our order in and hope he leaves it on the front steps of the church.

And then sometimes, we treat God a little bit like he's our mascot. We're not seeking to represent him, but we would like him to represent us. And we turn the relationship completely around, and we simply hope that God glorify us rather than us glorify God. There's an incident that illustrates this well in the beginning of the Ephesian church. In Acts chapter 19, as the church is growing in the gospel, and wonderful things are happening, one of the things that's happening among the church is there is this battle between the darkness of evil and of Satan, in practices of the occult, and the brightness of the gospel. And so Paul is going around, and he's casting out evil spirits. And there is this Jewish exorcist who has seven sons, and they see Paul doing it for real, what they had likely either been doing by the power of evil or by trickery.

And they think, "If Paul can do it, we can do it." And so they go into this house where a man has an evil spirit, and they go in these seven sons of Sceva, and they'll say this to the evil spirit, "By the Jesus that Paul proclaims." And do you know what the evil spirit says? I know Jesus, and I'm familiar with Paul, but I have no idea who you are. And then this man with the evil spirit literally beats the pants off these seven guys, and Acts records this, that they left naked and wounded. And I don't think that wound was simply physical, it's probably emotional, having lost a fight that is seven to one. And what's the problem with these Jewish exorcists? They didn't know Jesus. They had no relation with him, but they wanted to claim him like a mascot or a good luck charm,

and to come in and say, "Look, we talk about Jesus. We know Jesus even though they don't." And the result is disastrous. And the same will be true for the church if we seek to treat God as somebody who simply delivers our order, or a good luck mascot whose job it is to glorify us. There will be brokenness, and there will be hurt, and there will be struggle. And so when Paul says, "To him," and then again, "To him be the glory in the church," he's not just simply using a grammatical phrase, he's warning us of the depths of danger of taking our eyes off the goodness of God. Church, this cannot be our reality, where we shift our gaze from God. The life of God's people and the life of the church must be unto him. God must be the center, he must be our hope, our strength, and we must

follow him rather than ourselves. Here's the remarkable thing. The church that lives unto him is the church that also is going to be empowered by him. Right? What this means is that if my hope and focus is all on me, all I've got is my strength. But if my hope and focus and trust is on God, he is the source of my plans and my purpose, something remarkable happens in our lives. Paul says this, that there is a power that is at work within us. We'll go back to the first part of that verse in a minute in verse 20. But he says first of all to him, and he says that the church who focuses on him, there is a power at work within us. We need to know more about this power, right?

There are times when we're tired, and we're discouraged, and we're struggling, and we feel it. Let me show you this power in the book of Ephesians. If you go back one chapter to Ephesians chapter 1, Paul will say this. He's praying for the church, and he's praying specifically the church would know these specific things like this, beginning in Ephesians 1 verse 19, that we would know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and seated him in his right hand in the heavenly place, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that is named, not only for this age, but also for the one to come.

Paul says, first of all, this power is so great that it cannot be measured. You don't have a tape measure long enough to be able to see how great this power is, and while it cannot be measured, it can be demonstrated. And Paul gives us a demonstration of this power, right? The fact that Jesus is alive is a demonstration of the power. The fact that Jesus is exalted above all things is a picture of this power, and the fact that he rules over everything is a picture of this power. And notice how Paul makes sure that we understand that there is no exceptions. That Jesus is alive, he is exalted, and he is ruling over every name that has been named, and there is no expiration date, there is no term limit, there is no election coming up. That it is now and forevermore that Jesus sits on the throne.

And the two things that you and I cannot conquer, right? First of all, being death, we can try to prolong it, we can try to extend our life, we can try to treat things, but the end result is that death comes from us all, and for us all, and there is nothing we can do to stop it. But Jesus is more powerful than death. The second thing that we are powerless to deal with is evil, right? We can try to slow evil, we can try to fight evil, and we should, but our fight against evil, if you've ever played whack-a-mole, I was playing with Luke a couple months ago at Chuck E. Cheese, right? You got little moles whacking up, and you got the hammer, and it's really good for getting your aggression out, because you get to pop the mole, and you hit it, and then what happens? One pops over here,

and they get progressively faster, and when you and I are fighting evil in this world, right, we give one a good hit, and something else pops here, and then there, and then all over the place, but here is Jesus who is above every ruler and authority, everything, and he is able to conquer evil. And part of the picture here is that for us in the church, this is not hopeless, because the two things we cannot conquer, death and evil, Jesus has, and he is on the throne. So it doesn't matter what life throws at us. Jesus is on the throne. And then here's the remarkable thing about this. This is the power that resides within you, that if you are a Christian, this power that raised Jesus from the dead, that exalted him, and now causes him to rule and reign, this is the power that dwells in us.

And here we are walking around with our heads down and our tails between the legs, feeling like we're losing the battle. And Paul says, "Put your eyes on God and see his power and start living like it." There is power if you are a Christian. And it's this power that is at work in the church. And when we're not seeing this power, either we're looking in the wrong place. In fact, likely we're looking in the wrong place. So I like to pile up all my difficulties, especially Saturday night. Like, it's a really good time for me to sit in the dark and just pile up all the stuff, right? I got to do this. I got to do this. This isn't working the way I like. I don't like this, right? And when we look at ourselves, right, what happens? We go, "I can't do all this.

I can't deal with all of this. My strength isn't enough. My power isn't enough. My goodness isn't enough." And the problem is I'm looking in the wrong place, right? Turn our eyes toward God's power, His goodness, and His strength. Notice what Paul says Jesus conquered. The two things we can't conquer: death and evil. So it doesn't matter when we face these big things because God is in control. Let me show you what it looks like if we really believe this. Let me show you what it's like for the church to punch out of its weight class. Because on the outside it looks like we're small and we're weak, but in reality, imbued with the power of God is we keep our eyes on Him. In 1 Samuel 17, Israel is at war with the Philistines.

And they have come and they have a champion by the name of Goliath who's over 9 feet tall. His armor weighs more than 100 pounds. The head of his spear is 15 pounds. Now that doesn't sound like a lot, but imagine taping two gallons of milk to a stick and trying to hold that like a spear. This guy is immensely strong. Not only can he hold it like this, you put weight off, centered out, away from you, that's difficult. But he's able to skish kebab people with this. And likely, multiple people. This guy is big, he's strong, and he's mean, and he's challenging God's people. And this young guy, David, hears this and goes, "Why hasn't anybody stood up against him?" I'll stand up against him. And Saul hears this, and he goes and he has David brought to him, tries to put him in armor. The armor doesn't fit.

And here's Goliath, more than nine feet tall, standing with a sword, with a spear, with armor, and with an army at his back. And David has two strings of leather with a little pouch and five rocks that he picks up. And I remember when I was a young preacher, I was going through this story with Sunday school, and partway through the story, I realized that the kids I was telling this story to had never heard it before, because we all know what happens. They didn't, and I said at this point, I said, "Who do you think is going to win this fight?" And we had measured it out, like there's a guy this tall, there's a guy this tall, here's how heavy this is. And I go, "Who's going to win?" They're like, "David's a goner." Like, they didn't even think twice about it, right?

In our Sunday school minds, we know, "Oh, obviously God's got that." And He does. But try to look at this. In the eyes of how you'd see it if you'd never seen it before. A little short guy with five rocks, and a big dude with a spear and a sword and armor. And what causes David to go up against this? We know that he ultimately wins. He says that he trusts God to deliver him. David is able to face the giant, not necessarily because David is good and big and strong, but because David has a God who is big and good and strong. And when David gives his resume and says, "I fought a lion and a bear," he'll say, "I did so by the strength that God has given me." And he's going to taunt Goliath. Listen to what he says.

The Philistine comes and says, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field." And then David said, listen to what David says, "You can come, you come to me with a sword and a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God, the armies of Israel whom you have defied. And this day the Lord will deliver you into my hand. I will strike you down and cut off your head." And these are bold words from a little dude with no armor, right? But notice David's not hoping in himself. David's not seeking to fight the giant under his own strength, which is often how we view this, that you need to go out and fight the giant. David goes out to fight the giant because his eyes are centered on God.

This day the Lord will deliver you. I'm not going to defeat you, Goliath. I am going to cut off your head, but I'm going to do it because God has delivered you into my hand. Who are we focused on? It's so easy to focus on the evil and the brokenness in the world. David focuses on God and stands against his foe, not because of his goodness, but because of God's power. And there's a very practical way that David does this. When he says, the king of Israel says to David, "Who do you think you are?" David responds with this, "The Lord delivered me when I fought the bear and the lion." David looks back at his history, and we are called to do the same, to look back and see where God has worked, and he is able to walk into the uncertainness of this battle knowing that God is in control

because he has reminded himself of what God has done in the past. The second question, the first question being, where is our focus? Putting it on God. The second is, who gets the glory? Take a look at David. He is being taunted. He responds with trust in God. He is like, "You've got the equipment. You've got a couple of feet on me, but I come to you in the name of the Lord." And listen to what he says, "That all the earth would know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves, not with a sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into my hand." David faces Goliath not to make a name for himself. He faces Goliath to glorify the goodness of God. And

here's the truth from both Ephesians and the story of David. If our power comes from God, then our lives must glorify him, right? If God gives us the power, then our glory must go to him. Paul says it this way, "To him be glory in the church." This is so important because it's so easy for us to take the credit, right? Go to somebody's house, we'll be eating dinner. Somebody will say, "Man, dinner was delicious." And I'll go, "Well, thank you very much. I worked very hard on it," right? I'm a guest just like everybody else, right? And it might be funny for us to joke like that, but the reality is, we're really good at taking the credit, right? We want to be recognized for the good that we have done. It is a natural tendency for you and I to seek to glorify ourselves. God will speak to his people before

they go into the promised land. And his words to them are a wonderful reminder to us of the struggle and the tendency to glorify ourselves. In Deuteronomy chapter 8, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless you, and I want you to be careful. Because there is going to come a time, he says this to his people, that you're full of good food, you live in a comfortable house, your business is going well, your herds and your flock, your bank accounts are full, and in that moment there will be a temptation to pat yourself on the back and say, "Look what I did." In fact, here's how he specifically says it, "Beware lest you say in your heart, my power and my might of my hands have gotten me this wealth." Right? This is not anti-wealth,

this is anti-self-centeredness. God says, "I have given you the gift, and I get the glory." I brought you through the wilderness, I fed you, I gave you water, your shoes didn't wear out for 40 years, you get here, and I give you the victory in battle. I give you the house, I give you the land, I give you the crops, and I give this to you to enjoy." And the tendency for us is to say, "Man, look at what I have done." Neglecting the fact that it is God who has walked with us every step of the way. In fact, the very next chapter is interesting, because God gets right to the heart of it, because there's another way we can take credit, right? It's not just for what has been done, but sometimes we take credit because we think we deserve it.

And the very next chapter, Deuteronomy chapter 9, he addresses this objection, "Well, I'm so righteous that God gave me these things because of how good I am." And you know what God will do in Deuteronomy chapter 9? He goes, "I didn't choose you because of how good you were. I chose you because of how bad your enemies were and they needed my judgment." And then he will spend the entirety of Deuteronomy chapter 9 telling them how bad they were. "Remember the Red Sea and how you didn't believe me? Remember the wilderness and how you didn't believe me? When I descended on the mountain in glory and you made an idol off to the side." And what God is doing is he's not being harsh or selfish. He's saying, "Fix your eyes on me and understand the gifts that I have given you

and glorify the giver of the gift." Right? Glorify the one who has blessed you. Glorify the one who has saved you. When God gives us blessings, we give him the glory. That's what Paul means when he says, "To God be the glory in the church." Three quick ways on how to give God the glory. We listen when he tells us to do something. When we hear what God tells us to do, to listen and obey is to say, "I believe you, and you are good. I may not understand, but I give you the glory." When we trust him to be our strength, we say, "This task ahead of me is too big, and I don't know if I can do it." We say, "But God can." Right? We're giving him the glory. And when we give him the credit in our excess,

our focus must be on God, and the glory must be given to him. And the third question is, "Where is our faith?" There's different ways to ask this question. We can say, "Where is your faith?" in kind of a snarky, attacking way. "Where is your faith?" Or you can say it gently. Jesus in the storm with his disciples, and the wind and the wave, and they're terrified, and Jesus looks at them and goes, "Where is your faith?" And he's not being snarky to them. He's reminding them that he, the Son of God, is with them, and he controls the wind and the waves. And when he says to them, he says, "Where is your faith?" He's reminding them that God is in control and that God will care for him. That's how I'm trying to ask the question to us as a church. Where is our faith? Look at what verse 20 says in Ephesians chapter 3.

Now to him, focused on God, who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power that is at work within us. That God gets the focus. He gives us his power. We give him the glory. And Paul says this, "God is able." He who is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or think, first of all, is that God can. He is able. The things that we need, God is able to provide as a Christian and as a church. What we need, God is able to provide. But look at what he says. He's not just able to do what we ask. He's able to do what we think. And some of your translations will translate it, "Imagine that God is able to do what you ask. God is able to do what you can imagine."

How many of us, our imagination is bigger than our asking, right? I have a much bigger imagination. Like when somebody says, "What do you want for Christmas?" Like what I ask for and what I can imagine are two very, very different things in terms of magnitude. And Paul says, "God can do what you can ask, but he can also do what you imagine." And then look what he says. He's able to do more. Right? So take your, the biggest thing you can imagine, and more. Multiply it by 10. And we can't do that because if we can multiply our imagination by 10, right? That's still our imagination. God can do even bigger than you can imagine. And if we haven't got the point yet, he is able to do far more. Not just that God can do more than you can imagine. He can do far more than you can imagine. And so multiply what you can't imagine by 10, and God can do that.

And then look what he says. If you haven't gotten the point about God's power yet, he is able to do far more abundantly. The picture of overflowing, right? The problem of people in the church, as we look at what we are called to do, is to understand that God can. He can do what we ask. He can do what he can imagine. He can do more than we can imagine. He can do far more than we can imagine. And he can do so abundantly. Like, the picture here is of a power that is overflowing. When I say, "Where's your faith this morning?" I'm not trying to discourage you or belittle you. My point is to say, "Put your faith in God." Right? There are times when we're afraid to ask, because if we ask, it's too much. Right?

So when we ask somebody for help, sometimes we don't ask for what we really need, right? We will ask for what we think they will be able to give us. Because if we ask for what we really needed, we said, "That's too much to ask. I don't want to ask that. It's too big." What is Paul saying to the church? He's saying, "Ask." And it's not too big. And you don't have to be afraid that God can't or that God won't, because God can and God will. And he's saying, "Stop being afraid to ask." Here we are with all of our fears and our insufficiencies, and God's going, "Ask! Bigger than you can think or you can imagine." Right? This should bring us courage in asking God. This is why, at the heart of our church, it must be that we glorify God.

My vision isn't big enough, and frankly, neither is yours. Right? That's what Paul is saying. But God's is. We focus on Him, we glorify Him, and we step out in faith, following Him. And we know that that's not easy. Because in each step, there's a tendency to look at ourselves, either our victories or our weaknesses. And we're like Peter in the storm, who jumps out of the boat and walks on water toward Jesus, and then he takes his eyes off of Jesus, and he sees the wind and the waves and he measures them, not by the strength of Jesus, but by himself. And he begins to sink. What Paul is saying is, stop measuring the storms and the brokenness by you. Start measuring them by the grace of God. Where's our focus? Who are we glorifying? And is our faith firmly in the one who can do more than we can ask or imagine?

These are not easy questions, and we don't always get them right. One of the things that I love, though, is that God restores. God revives the Ephesian church in all of their wonder and how they start in power in the letter to Ephesians as full of the grace of God. By the time you get to the book of Revelation, in Revelation chapter 2, they're doing everything right, but their heart is cold. Right? They're just going through the motions. They're doing all the right stuff. But not out of love, but out of duty. And Jesus himself writes a letter to the church, the church that his mom was once a member of in Ephesus. And he says, "You've left your first love." And you know what that church does? They turn their eyes back to the goodness of God, and we have recorded in the history of the first century of church fathers writing to Ephesus and about Ephesus.

And that church went from doing everything right in a cold heart to being restored with the power and grace and love for God. And not only are they doing things right, they're doing it from a heart that is on fire with God. God can restore and revive when we turn our eyes back to him. This is not just for Christians in the church, right? If you're not a Christian, this is for you as well, right? To know that God restores and God revives, and that he can take your brokenness and make it whole. And as a church, I want us to think, right, as we walk out those doors, it's easy for us to give God the glory here. Easy for us to put him in the center of our vision. Easy for us to have faith when we're all together here.

But what about when I walk out that door? And in my job, and in my relationships, and in my family, and the things I want to accomplish? Like, where am I looking? What's my focus? Who am I glorifying? Am I stepping out on faith and trusting God? Maybe this morning you've been living, and the way you're living isn't working. The things you trusted have let you down. I want you to know this morning that there is one who can take you from death to life. Who can restore, and can revive, and can make you new. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus, and for grace, and for hope. Thank you that you are a God who restores and revives, and that you are bigger than anything we can even begin to think. And that you have empowered us. Help us as a church, as we look toward the future.

As we seek to glorify you, to encourage one another to reach out, to be a light shining for your glory in this place. We ask that you would do more than we can ask or imagine. I know for us it's a prayer that scares us. Lord, I ask that you give us strength and courage. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand and sing a song we've been learning over the last couple of weeks.