“Where’s the Typo?” Sermon Transcript for July 12, 2009 “Now to him who by the power at work within us - Ephesians 2:20-21
Prayer of Preparation O Lord, may your Holy Spirit wake us to the reality of the breadth and height and depth of your love for us in Christ Jesus. May your grace open our hearts and minds to receive the truth of your Word, we pray. Amen. The Message Writers and editors always struggle with typos. Perhaps you have seen them. Like the one with a fire extinguisher below a sign that reads “hand grenade.” I guess if the flames don’t get you the explosion will! Or, like the anti-loitering poster that warns “Dying right here is strictly prohibited.” But if you walk three blocks down the street to the café, you are gladly welcomed. And then there is the placard in a Shanghai subway that tells travelers how to handle the pickpocket threat: “If you are stolen, call the police at once.” Such typos are innocent and funny. They remind us that we are indeed all too human! And yet, some miscues can carry significant consequences. In 1991, for example, a single mis-keyed character of computer code left more than 12 million phone customers on the East and West Coasts without phone service. And in 2005, a Japanese stockbroker intended to sell one share of And, of course, there is the typo that occurred in 1631 with the so-called “Wicked Bible.” A London printing house produced copies of the King James Version with a creative commandment: “Thou shalt commit adultery.” What a difference a typo makes! Some of these typos, of course, are quite comical. I am thinking of the following correction that ran in the Dear Abbey Community News. It said: “We apologize for the error in the last edition, in which we stated that ‘Mr. Fred Jones is a defective in the police force.’ This was a typographical error. We meant to write that ‘Mr. Jones is a detective in the police farce.’” Sometimes we can’t win for losing! And we haven’t touched on those typos that make for strange headline news. Headlines like – “Include Your Children When Baking Cookies” We could go on! We could even mention how we in the church make a few typos from time to time. In one newsletter, there was an article that read how “Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24th in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.” And then there is the cute note about Barbara who remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.” I think I will quit there!! To be sure, some typos draw chuckles. Others draw large checks. Still others draw back the covers. Typos will happen! Despite all the means we may take to catch typos before they go public – with blotters, and erasers, and White-Out, and correction ribbon, and spell checkers – typos will occur! Paul’s Message to the Ephesians Reading our passage from the Letter to the Ephesians we may also wonder if there is a typo. We may wonder if the apostle Paul didn’t proof his letter before he sent it to the church in Ephesus. Read this passage carefully and you may wonder if Paul didn’t have a miscue somewhere. Let’s look at these words again from verses 20 and 21: “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” - Ephesians 3:20-21 God is able by his power at work within us to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine. Now, before going on, let’s note a couple things, let’s do a little Bible Study: First, this whole passage is made up of two sections: first, there is a prayer (vs. 14-19) and then a doxology (vs. 20-21. Paul states in the opening verse that he bows on his knees, praying to God the Father. That’s very interesting because in Paul’s day most prayers were shared ‘standing up.’ People typically stood when they prayed. Not so with Paul! Here, he makes his way to the prayer chapel and bows on his knees, praying for the church in Ephesus. In fact, Paul states very clearly what he is praying for. He offers three basic petitions. He prays:
Paul intercedes in prayer for the Ephesians, offering these three basic petitions. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t wonderful to know that someone is praying for you as a person and as a church in this way? Isn’t it wonderful to know that there is someone praying that God will give YOU the ability to be strengthened inwardly, that someone is praying God will give YOU the power to comprehend how deep and wide Christ’s love is, and that someone is praying YOU will be filled with fullness of God? Isn’t that wonderful knowing there is someone praying for you? Now, let’s note something else about this prayer: this is not a “Lord, Give-Me-Prayer”: “Lord, give me an “A” on the exam, or Lord,” or, “Lord, give me a parking lot when I go to Wal-Mart!” This is not that kind of prayer. I know we pray those kinds of prayers, but this is not one of them. Instead, this is a “Lord, make us aware prayer!” “Lord, make us aware of what you are ALREADY doing in our lives. Lord, make us aware of the power that is ALREADY working in us. Help us to comprehend the fullness of Christ’s love – not just to know it, but to experience it.” “Lord, make me aware of what you are doing in my life.” Let me ask you: what kind of difference would praying like this make? “Lord, help us to see what you are already doing in our lives. Help us to experience your love as a church.” And then, not only to pray it as a church, but then, after we have prayed, to stand and break out in song! That’s what Paul does! After sharing in intercessory prayer in the first part of our passage, Paul breaks out in a doxology in the second part! After kneeling in prayer in the chapel, Paul now stands up and sings the doxology: “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” Doxology! Praise! Worship! Thanksgiving! Is God able to meet our requests? According to Paul, the requests we offer to God hardly serve to tax God’s abilities! God is abundantly far more able to accomplish what we can ask or imagine! In fact, not only is God able to meet our requests, but God is already at work doing so! Surely, there is a typo somewhere! How is this possible? Reminds me of something my Grandpa used to say: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is!” Like the infomercials we now see on TV: Lose 30 pounds in 30 days while eating pizza! For $19.95 you can have a knife that cuts nails like it cuts warm butter! No kidding! J Seems like the apostle Paul is expecting us to think this might be too good to be true. Surely, there is a typo somewhere! No Typos! The problem, of course, is that there is no typo in this passage. The problem isn’t with the passage, and the problem isn’t with God; the problem is with us! The problem is with our response. Too often our imaginations are simply too small, too bland, too out of touch with God. Too many times we have problems believing what God can do because we don’t believe God can do anything big. Therefore, we end up praying small, worshipping small, believing small, and acting small. We end up smothering ourselves in our own smallness, all because fail to see God’s bigness. Do you remember the famous book by J. B. Philips entitled Your God Is Too Small? In that book Philips writes about how we often fail to see how big God truly is because we limit God to our own ideas and experiences. In other words, too often we fail to see what God is doing because we are so preoccupied with ourselves. In fact, that’s a good biblical definition of sin, isn’t it? Sin is being too preoccupied with our own selves that we fail to see God what is up to! Sin is being too preoccupied with our own smallness that we fail to see God’s largeness. That’s interesting because Jesus had such a different approach to faith; Jesus taught us to take risks in our faith and to see how big God really is. For example, when a bleeding woman touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, he said, “Your faith has made you well” (Matthew 9:22). He made a similar statement to a blind man (Mark 10:52). His message was clear: without taking risks, there can be no reward! It’s a biblical truth that we need to hear: If we ask small, or imagine small, or act small, we can expect small! No risk, no reward! On the other hand, what happens when we dream big and pray big? Again, the problem isn’t with God, it’s with us! We are the ones who don’t always perceive what God is doing. We are the one who don’t always step out in faith. In the Book of Joshua, there is the story about the people of Israel entering the Promised Land. They only have to cross the River Jordan. The trouble is the river is ripping along at full strength. It is flood season (3:15). And yet, as the story goes, as soon as the priests faithfully step into the edge of the water with the ark of the covenant, the Jordan begins to stop flowing some 20 miles upstream, allowing the people to cross on dry ground (3:16). In other words, God was doing something huge upstream, but nobody could see it. They could only see the results downstream. It raises a beautiful point about our passage this morning: God is always at work somewhere upstream in our lives. God is always up to something, even when we don’t see it, or feel it, or think it, or touch it. God is always working for our good, even when we don’t realize it or comprehend it. Isn’t that wonderful?! There’s no typo! Only God being God! Only God doing what God does! Only God inviting us to pray big and act big, and dream big and imagine big! There’s no typo! Only the invitation to imagine what God can do and then the faith to pray for it! Do you follow? Imagine what God can do and then risk the faith to pray for it! It raises another basic point: If we can imagine it, God can exceed it! God’s purposes and plans for our lives are always bigger than we think. That’s one of the reasons why we pray for our church, and why we pray for healing! It’s one of the reasons we pray for our marriages and for our families and for financial health, and for the salvation of loved-ones. It’s why we pray for peace, even in war! If we can imagine it, if we can lift it up in prayer, then we can expect God to exceed it. Our requests and prayers will hardly serve to tax God’s abilities. And so, allow me to extend to you an invitation is to pray, an invitation to pray and to sing, to pray and to sing and to know that God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to pray and to sing and to know that God is God and to him be all glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever! Amen! Notes
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