Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Doxology is a fitting place to end this season of Wilderness Wanderings. This will be the last of the devotions for a while—and certainly the last of mine (Pastor Anthony). Perhaps Wilderness Wanderings will continue in time, but before turning to the season of Lent tomorrow, we simply give thanks to God for this good season of a unique ministry of daily devotions.

Doxology is a word that means “word of glory,” and in our usage as Christians, generally means we are giving those words of glory to God. In the letter of Ephesians, this doxology circles us back to the beginning of the letter. But doxologies are scattered liberally throughout the New Testament.

The word glory is scattered throughout the scriptures even more abundantly. To name a few, we hear that God is a God of glory (Ephesians 1:17), his glory reveals who he is (John 1:14), God gives glory to Christ (1 Peter 1:21) and his people (Romans 2:10); Christians are transformed from glory to glory (2 Corinthians 3:18); we are to do everything for God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31) and give glory back to God (Ephesians 1:6). The new creation will reveal even more glory (Romans 8:18). “Glory” is one of those words that encompasses the whole of Christianity. No doubt this is why the first question and answer of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says “man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”

Today is the “fat Tuesday” before Lent—a day of feasting before the fasting that has more or less turned in popular culture to a day of glorifying ourselves and our worst desires. Today is also the day of tariffs (or at least that’s still how the news reads now)—a day when our attention is sucked up into politics and business as we struggle to understand just why exactly friendly neighbours need to be punching one another. Today is also the final Wilderness Wanderings for a time—a marking of an ending of a season of ministry.

But here’s the thing: no matter the day, no matter the news, no matter the grief, introspection, or self-glorification—each and every day is a day for doxology. Why? Because everything that Paul has written in the first three chapters remains true. Despite American tariffs, is it still true that Christ has ultimately destroyed the dividing wall of hostility between peoples through his cross in his church? Yes. Despite our sorrows in parting, has God still blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ? Yes. Despite any self-glorification, is it still true that the most important thing about us is that we belong to God, having been created and redeemed to the praise not of our, but of his glory? Yes.

The fact of Christ Jesus and his church, carrying on down through all the generations faithful and sure no matter what personal or global events raged—this fact is evidence enough of the power of God our Father, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.

Join me then today—and every day—in giving glory to God. In the good times and the bad, in plenty or in want, in life and in death—may God be glorified in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations. Forever and ever. Amen.

For the last time, go now with his blessing:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you.

May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm.

May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.

May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:17b-19).

What roots and establishes us in love? As was said yesterday, it is Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith by the gift and power of the Spirit. This is our rooting and establishing in love. It is Christ’s love that grounds us, embeds us firmly in the soil of God’s reality, enabling us to grow.

Established in the love of Christ, the journey of our lives now follows the trajectory of Paul’s prayer: discovering more deeply what God has already given, namely, this love of Christ. This discovery is empowered only by the Triune God in the context of the Christian community.

At times it is said, in rather trite ways, that it’s all about love. Just love. Yet, trite though it may seem—it is also true. The love of God in Christ is everything.

Discipleship is a work of discovering this love more fully. It is a work of knowing Christ’s love. Knowing not in a head-knowledge sort of way. Paul askes that we know the love of Christ in an intimate sort of way—the kind of knowing that comes through an unconditionally loving, committed, long-term relationship, like a good marriage. The task of Christian discipleship is to tangibly experience Christ’s way of keeping this relationship of love with us, through things like his forgiveness for our failures, his commitment to us despite our foibles, his bearing with us in all situations, and his limitless gifts.

Of course, our knowing this love doesn’t come only from our experience of relationship with Christ. It comes also through the “manifold wisdom of God” that places us in a church—a church full of diverse, divided, disagreeable folks—people from all walks of life, all different ethnicities, all different personalities, all different opinions, and social classes.

To fully grasp the width, length, height, and depth of Christ’s love—we must know that he also loves all these people; forgives them; is committed to them and gives his gifts also to them. Even though we may not see how to be reconciled with some of these gangly Christians—we must confront the fact that they too are rooted and established in Christ’s love. We must confront the fact that they too have been reconciled to God and to us in the church!

There are no longer any dividing walls that separate us, for Jesus removed them all in his cross. To grasp the expansive love of Christ, we must face the reality of Christ’s love for those Christians we deem unlovable. This recognition demands of us a deepening conversion to Christ: an ever deeper knowing of his infinitely expansive, unconditional agape love.

Paul leaves us with a paradox here: he prays for a knowledge that surpasses knowledge. He asks that we might know something that is ultimately unknowable, or at least ungraspable by us finite human creatures. Yet in this journey of seeking to know the love of Christ that holds us and the church, the fullness of God slowly fills us up as we discover how truly established and enfolded in love we really are.

For that, we need this doxology:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

This is the final sermon in our 2 Samuel series, and also Pastor Anthony’s final message as a pastor at Immanuel. The text is 2 Samuel 7 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection! To see this sermon in the context of the farewell worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

DIVE IN QUESTIONS

1. What stands out to you from hearing these verses? Is God offering an invitation or a challenge to you through those words? Take time to pray about it.

2. In what way was God hidden/veiled and mysterious to David? In what ways can God be rather hidden or mysterious to us?

3. Given the ways that God is often hidden and mysterious to us, how do we often respond? How does this impact our prayers, how we make decisions, and how we do our work at home, school, or at our job?

4. Who is the story of 2 Samuel 7 about? What do we learn about the main character here? What good news is to be found?

5. How does this revelation of God change the way we go about our lives? What does it call for in response from us?

6. How might that worshipful life of submission look in your own life this week?

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:16-17).

The letter to the Ephesians is steeped in prayer. Paul begins with prayer, ends by calling the church to join him in prayer, and here in the middle, prays. As we discovered yesterday, Paul is on his knees in this prayer. It’s a posture of humility, recognizing that God is both the giver of every good gift, and the most consequential actor and authority in any of our lives.

Today we begin to discover what Paul is praying for. All these big themes have been coursing through the letter about God’s grace in Christ that creates the world, saves us, and reconciles us as a disparate humanity into a single, diverse, yet unified church. Now Paul prays quite simply that we will have the faith to believe it’s true. That we will have the power, not to do great things for God, but simply to hold space in our hearts for Christ to dwell there. Paul is on to something. This is indeed the very hardest of things to do.

It is easy to do great deeds for God. Go on a mission trip, fund a building campaign, make a big and vocal stand on principle, start an organization, or make pilgrimage to a big Christian site, rally, conference, or retreat. The extreme things are all pretty easy to do—we just go flat out, push ourselves to the end, and voila, there we are.

What is much harder to do is to simply believe.

Our inner beings are often not strong enough to hold space for this Christ and this faith. Our innermost being is most often filled with anxiety for the future, our children, our health, our work, the church, our country, and the state of the world. Fear, cynicism, mistrust, jealousy, fears, ambivalence, regret, and despondency are far more often what lines the walls of our inner being than the strength of the Spirit and faith in Christ.

So many of the things we hear or watch seem to suggest that this world and our lives are quite beyond hope or salvation. How then can we rest in any assurance that all these good words Paul has preached thus far can be true?

Left to ourselves, we can’t. Faith is a gift of God. Paul knows this and so he cuts his proofs and proclamations short to get down on his knees and pray that the God who has begun this good work in Christ will see it through to completion in us. He prays that our inner being might be strengthened by God himself through the power of the Spirit, that our hearts might be made ready to house a true faith in Christ. Even more: to house Christ himself.

Today as we read these words of Ephesians 3—we join that prayer. May God indeed dispel the shadows of fear and mistrust within us, strengthening us instead to be people of faith in whom Christ makes his home.

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name (Ephesians 3:14-15).

Concerning prayer, there are two questions or complaints that come my way regularly: “I don’t know what to pray for” and “My prayers are short, I think they should be longer.”

My response to the second complaint is to shrug my shoulders saying, “Don’t worry about it.” Then I quote Jesus who specifically said, “God is not impressed by long prayers” (that’s my paraphrase of Matthew 6:7). There are a few longish prayers in the Bible; most, like the one our text is from, are quite short.

In answer to the second complaint, I point people towards the Bible: read the prayers in the Bible as your own. Offer them to God. If you ponder them, they will fuel your imagination.

Consider with me our text which begins “For this reason…” If you have jumped in halfway through this letter, this is your invitation to start at the beginning to discover what Paul is referencing. He has been exploring the great cosmic scope of God’s redemption plan in Christ. Often, we limit this to human souls, suggesting that God offers Jesus as an escape route from this world. But Paul will have none of that. In the cross, God reconciles all people into a new community which we know as the church. This fellowship is the show piece of God’s saving work, demonstrating his wisdom before all the powers of the world.

Here are reasons for praise and adoration, for thanksgiving and delight, for petition and pleading.

Then he says, “I kneel before the father”. Thus, kneeling in prayer has a good Biblical foundation. Of course, it is not the only posture given in scripture. Laying face down gets more press. But the actual posture is not of greatest import. What matters is the posture of the soul, heart and mind. We can start praying with any number of postures: anger, frustration, boredom. Yet, if we are paying attention to what we are doing, namely, addressing God, somehow prayer always brings us to our knees, the work of the Spirit, no doubt. When we address God, we tend to relax into submission.

From this place of submission, we discover ourselves on our father’s lap. He cares for us. He loves us. It matters to him that we are angry, or frustrated, or bored. He holds us until we come to that place of trust and rest again. We discover that despite the negative postures with which we have entered prayer, attitudes which often bring shame, our father has held on to us. He has not turned away from us.

Soon, we discover that we are not the only ones he is concerned about. He loves all his people. So, we look around and see some rejoicing and we share our father’s joy. We see others in pain, having been abused, bodies riddled with disease, carrying the brokenness their own sins have caused. We find ourselves grieving right along with our father. And we pray for them.

We see his church hands raised in adoration, broken by division, puffed up with pride, indifferent to the mission given, and in other places carrying it out gracefully. Some of his children resisting the reconciliation of the cross. We feel his sorrow for these children. We petition and plead for the Spirit to sanctify; to descend in power; to do his work.

We see friends and family running away from our father or indifferent to his invitations. From our place of submission, prayers for them leak out of us. That they would head his entreaties, that they would stop running. Before the father, we discover there is so much to pray for. And we conclude with,

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you, which are your glory. (Ephesians 3:12-13)

Today we come back to earth from the cosmic scope of the heavenly realms. We are to understand that God’s power is both displayed and is sovereign over the heavenly realms. That is enough. The rest of the story is here—in the manifold wisdom of God’s grace displayed in the church by the mystery of the cross. The church that God has made is not a flat uniformity where everyone is crushed into sameness, no—it is a manifold wisdom we see here: a unity in and of diversity. This is the “peace” that has been made through Christ in the Church. No one is flattened, everyone is reconciled.

Given all this—the fact of God’s Sovereign rule over everything, including the heavenly realms, the fact of the cross of Christ that breaks down dividing walls and reconciles a disparate and diverse humanity into a single, colourful church, and given the fact that in Christ there is now peace between God and humanity and the possibility of peace between people as well—given all this, we can pray.

That’s a lot of great and grand things to rattle off only to tell us that we can pray. Was it really worth all the fuss? That’s a lot of planning and heavy lifting on God’s part over thousands of years. Is the point of it all just to get a conversation going?

Maybe it is that way. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, there was nothing—all was empty and formless. Then God spoke. And when God spoke—all of creation burst forth into life and colour, substance and form, noise and light. When God spoke: creation responded. A conversation began. The word of the King had its effect and did not return to him empty. At least, not until Adam and Eve broke the conversation.

Since that day—humanity has not always or even often responded to the words that God speaks. Creation likewise has become tongue-tied and no longer responds with the vitality and goodness that it once did.

But God was not content to leave the conversation broken nor the relationship forsaken. God spoke his clearest word in the conversation through Jesus—in human form. He took all our ill responses, barbs, criticisms, jeers, and violence on himself and put them to death. In his new life, a fresh start begins.

In our own experience we know that the simple everyday stuff of relationships and conversations can be the very hardest things to navigate. We respond with hurtful words and actions, or ingest hurtful words and actions from others. We puzzle about how to respond. Mistrust, bitterness, cynicism, distance, and even violence form. These are precisely the sorts of sins and breakings of shalom that Jesus took on himself and put to death so that forgiveness and reconciliation might result.

Paul, likewise as a minister of this good news of Jesus, takes these sins and sufferings on himself—putting them to death in the death of Christ he bears so that forgiveness, grace, and the good news of Christ might be seen and heard through him.

As recipients of this grace, we are called to the same. This is our glory: to enter the conversation with God in freedom and confidence because of Jesus, receiving the power of his death and life that reconciles us to him and others. When we give or receive hurts or barbs in our relationships and conversations with others, we put them to death in his death so that we might speak a word of confession or forgiveness in his name.

Slowly, the conversation begins afresh. Humanity and creation begin to respond to the Creator in freedom and confidence, and to one another again too. Prayer is that foundational to our reality. How will you respond today? God has spoken to you. Will you respond? Will you come before him in freedom and confidence today?

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians 3:10-11).

For many of us, when we think of Christ’s work of salvation, we think of individual souls being saved. We think of personal conversion stories. But when Paul writes about the mystery of the gospel, he expounds on the church. The result of the preaching of Christ’s unsearchable riches and mystery is the birth and growth of the church. Gentiles and Jews embraced the gospel, were converted, and found themselves joint members of the family of God and the body of Christ. The church is central to the redemption project of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It was happening as Paul wrote. The mystery that God revealed to him was taking concrete shape before people’s eyes. And in this new community, this new multi-racial humanity, the wisdom of God was being displayed. People could see it with their eyes. Indeed, the coming into existence of the church as a community of saved and reconciled people is a public demonstration of God’s power, grace, and wisdom.

God’s mighty resurrection power, his immeasurable grace and kindness, and his manifold wisdom were on display as people once separated by language, custom, politics and religion were forged into a new community through the anvil of the cross. The word for manifold means many-coloured, and was used to describe flowers, crowns, embroidered clothe and woven carpets. The church as a multi-racial, multi-cultural community is like a beautiful tapestry. Its members come from a wide range of colourful backgrounds. No other human community resembles it. Its diversity and harmony are unique. It is God’s new society. And the many-coloured fellowship of the church reflects the many-coloured wisdom of God.

So then, as the gospel spreads throughout the world, this new and variegated Christian community blossoms. It is as if a great drama is being enacted. History is the theatre, the world is the stage, and the church members in every land are the actors. God himself has written the play and he directs and produces it. Act by act, scene by scene the story continues to unfold.

But where is the audience? The audience are the cosmic intelligences, the principalities, and powers in the heavenly places. We are to think of them as spectators of the drama of salvation. Thus, the history of the Christian church becomes a graduate school for these spiritual beings.

Beyond this we cannot say much about what these spiritual beings are. We just don’t know. As the creation reveals God’s glory to humans, the church reveals God’s glory to these beings. We cannot see them, but they can see us. They watch fascinated as they see Gentiles and Jews being incorporated in the new society as equals. Indeed, they learn from the composition of the church not only the manifold wisdom of God but also his eternal purposes. This purpose he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in the arena of history, through his death and resurrection, the gift of His Spirit, the preaching of the gospel and the emergence of the church.

Who these beings are is not important. What is important is that we understand what God is doing. We must recon with the truth that the church is central to God’s grand design for history. God has a purpose for the church, she is the showpiece through which he reveals his power, grace, and wisdom. And all who believe in Jesus Christ become part of this great intergalactic drama.

It may not always appear that there is much power, grace, or wisdom in the church. But know this, God has no other plan. And he will work until all those rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms have bent the knee before the Son and declared him, Lord.

Then this doxology will be complete:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21).

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things (Ephesians 3:7-9).

This passage undermines a common misunderstanding of grace in the Christian church. In fact, it reveals, that we have shrunk grace down to something that we can manage. But it does not belong to us. It belongs to God. So we must allow him to define what grace is, what it means, and what it does.

For many Christians, we understand grace simply and only as something that we receive from God. It is limited to the forgiveness of sins and the “get out of jail free” card that permits us to escape this world into heaven someday. Its like grandmother’s fine china: as a precious possession, it remains locked up in the china cabinet for display and safe keeping. But rarely does it take up a place at the dinner table where life happens.

God’s grace is much more than that. It enlists us. Paul was made a servant because of “the gift of God’s grace.” The gift obligates and equips. Grace in this verse does not relate to Paul’s salvation, but to his ministry. Through grace he became a servant of the gospel. Grace connects us to Christ and to each other, but it also enlists and empowers us in the ministry of Christ.

Grace always brings responsibility. Paul alluded to this earlier, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith… For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (2:8a,10). In our text, we are told how it worked in Paul’s life. Paul viewed himself as a steward of the grace given him. His ministry to the Gentiles was unique, but all Christians are to be stewards of grace. All who have received grace should extend it to others.

This becomes the main theme in chapter 4, where Paul writes, “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it” (4:7). Peter puts it rather bluntly, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms” (1 Peter 4:10). To receive grace is to be taken into its service. Grace connects, enlists, and empowers. It will not allow us to be passive, for it is God’s power at work in us.

Do we think ourselves not good enough or worthy enough to serve in this way? Paul anticipates the objection. “Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me…” Paul says. He perhaps felt he should have been rejected because he persecuted the church, but God chose him anyway—a choice not based on his ability, but on God’s grace. Anything he accomplished was a result of the power of God at work in him.

What is the stewarding service that God’s grace enlists you in today? The answer is the same as the answer to the question of what you will do or did do today. Nothing in this world moves or works without God’s gracious gifts, provisions, and salvations animating it—these being “the boundless riches of Christ.” The breath we breathe is the breath of God. The skills, know-how, curiosities, and passion we deploy in our work, home, volunteering, and schooling are gifts of God. The world in which we live is his creation.

In other words: everything you do is already knee deep in the world of God’s grace. The only question is how will your life today reveal a God-attentive stewardship of all that grace? How will the grace you’ve received serve his glory? The fine china is already on the table: God put it there—use it!

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)