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Oct 03, 2010

Communication In the Divine Romance

Passage: Ephesians 1:15-23

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Postcards from the Front: A Wartime Romance

Category: Ephesians

Keywords: communication with god, prayer, the church

Summary:

Communication is always interesting in a family, even God's family. Paul immediately tackles our communication with our Father in this letter with an outpouring of what prayer can (and should) focus on in regard to others. This sermon attempts to help people become more comfortable and active in their communication with God.

Detail:

Communication In The Divine Romance

#4 in the series “Postcards from the Front:  A Wartime Romance”

October 3, 2010

Ephesians 1:15-23

Ever been to a dysfunctional family reunion…or a reunion of dysfunctional family?  If you have a sense of humor, it can be great entertainment.  But if you want sincere and deep relationship, it’s usually tragic. 

When it comes to God’s spiritual family, the church, there is bound to be a whole lot of weird dysfunctional stuff going on whenever we get together.  We’re all at different levels and “ages” spiritually.  Some are right in the prime of spiritual development and responsibility while others are still pooping their diapers.  You don’t scold a baby for using its diaper…but you may try to just pass him off to the nearest competent-looking diaper-changing adult, right?  J

But what would you think of a family that loved to celebrate “family reunions” like nobody’s business but who invited the patriarch of the family… and then ignored him? 

How would you describe a family whose living granddad had started a world-famous business, grown it into a multi-billion dollar company, all the while fathering and raising a host of kids, investing incredible attention, love and time in each of them and then, at the family reunions, this patriarch was really not the one most of the family sought to be with or talk to?  What if they were all really enjoying chatting, laughing and playing with each other but didn’t spend more than a minute of two the whole time seeking out the conversation and company of the beloved patriarch? 

Sounds almost like a tragedy, no? 

Whenever we come together for “church”, we’re really having a family reunion.  Whether it’s “2 or 3 gathered in Jesus name” OR 20-30,000 in a mega-church, there is only one God and Father of this family. 

      Yet how uncomfortable are most people spending more than a few minutes “chatting” with God in a worship service? How many church-goers would opt for a church where big chunks of the service were focused on communication with God through prayer?  How many would come back to a church that spent the majority of the hour/80-90 minutes praying?  Why is it that prayer…that closest of conversation between God and his children…is so threatening or downright awkward for so many? 

      The easiest people in the world for me to talk with are my family.  I love to spend as much time as I can get (usually) sitting around the dinner table weeknights or the breakfast table on Saturdays talking about life, everything from sports to politics, people to pets.  That kind of conversation bonds us together.  It lets us into each other’s lives.  It helps us know how to help each other. 

In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, it takes him 1 whole sentence (albeit really long sentence…14 verses) to get around to talking about how he talks to God about them and their church.  In vss. 15, Paul starts to share a little of what his conversation with God looks like when he prays for his spiritual family in Ephesus. 

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to take a look at as well as actually engage in the kind of “romantic praying” Paul is doing in this chapter. It’s praying that he entered into time and again for God’s people. 

      I just have a problem talking about prayer without doing it.  ILL:  It’s the same sort of problem I have with going on and on about the mechanics of kissing without actually grabbing my wife and doing it!  J  The transformation is in the touch…not the teaching, right?

Obviously, prayer IS a different sort of communication than we are used to engaging in every day with other people.  It takes a different set of “ears” and a different sort of “listening.”  It takes a different “voice” and a different sort of “speech.” But for those who have learned the language of prayer, it is every bit as rewarding…and often much more meaningful…than conversations on the human plain.  I’ve been moved emotionally more deeply in some experiences of prayer than in the vast majority of conversations I’ve had with people.  I’ve received more insight and wisdom in the experience of talking to and listening for God than in a host of board and business meetings I’ve sat through. 

Paul’s prayer here is by no means an exhaustive treatment of the subject of prayer. But it certainly contains some elements of prayer that, if learned and engaged in, can become the means by which we cultivate this divine romance with God in life-transforming ways. 

Having talked about the amazing blessings we all can have in relationship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, Paul now says in vs. 15,

      “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you….”

      When was the last time you read a news article about how the faith of some church was being applauded, held up as exemplary for the community?

      When was the last time you read or heard a report about some Christians whose love for each other was being held up as a model for the rest of the culture to follow?  Unfortunately, what usually gets the headlines or airtime are actions like this that happened in one Korean church.  (YouTube video of Korean Christians fighting   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wktqLKchwB4 L)

So rather than fight today J, I’d like us to talk to each other about the very thing that moved Paul to be a praying man about the church.  It was their “faith in the Lord Jesus” and their “love for all the saints” that moved Paul’s heart to pray for this city-church in Ephesus. 

CONNECT-?uestion:  (5 minutes)

  • Tell someone about some Christian brother/sister’s faith that has been a personal blessing/encouragement to you in your life?  How did they evidence deep faith in God and what did that do to you?
  • Tell someone about God-like, extraordinary, self-sacrificing love you have seen or heard about in some group of Christians you know of? 

NOTE:  how closely tied faith in God (vertical/divine relationship) is with love for people (horizontal/human relationship).  People in a great faith-relationship with God are always people who demonstrate that in great love for people.  It may not make the headlines of the evening news, but it will change lives for the better…always. 

      This is why James wrote in James 2:14-17…

14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

What would a group of God’s people look like who had amazing faith in God’s ability to transform the lives of people, body, soul and spirit?

  • The answer probably has little to nothing to do with buildings or budgets.  It didn’t in this church at Ephesus.
  • It would probably have little to nothing to do with the size of the church or the socio-economic class of the people.
  • I’m thinking it would probably have a lot to do with believing God for humanly impossible things.
  • It would probably have much to do with being salt and light in a community…experiencing loving marriages and families…not giving up on people everyone else has given up on. 

What would an extravagantly loving church be doing that was so like the loving God we claim to know and serve?  [Ask for ideas.]

  • Never giving up on each other.
  • Carrying each others burdens and heartaches.
  • Building into the next generation of Christ-followers by discipling individually, mentoring and coaching personally, etc.

God has put us in Spokane.  He has made us part of His church in this city.  He not only wants us to be giving him thanks for the amazing people of love and faith he has put in our lives already, people who have already impacted us.  But he wants us to also be thanking him for the faith and love we are seeing and/or hearing about in other parts of His body, the church here in the Inland NW. 

PRAYER TIME:  (5 min.)

  • SILENT prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving for individual people whose faith and love have personally impacted us.
  • CORPORATE prayers for other parts of the Church of Spokane whose faith and love we’ve heard reports about. 

Action Option:  postcards

Take the postcard and write a note to another believer or another church thanking them for the faith and/or love you have experienced or heard about in them.  We’ll mail them for you. 

“…I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”(Eph. 1:16)

Now Paul starts ASKING God for something.  It isn’t freedom from jail…which I would have mentioned pretty early on in my communiqué with this church.  It isn’t better living conditions…or a better job…or even better health.  Paul’s prayer time for God’s church didn’t have a whole lot of stuff that gets stuffed into our prayers. 

NOTE:  Don’t get too knotted up about what you pray when you are learning to pray. God would far rather have us talk with him like toddlers do with their daddy than to not have us talk with him.  But as we “grow up” in Christ, our conversations with God really should sound different than it did as a spiritual toddler.  It really should deal with deeper things in life—the stuff that we know, according to God’s word, matters not only for time but also eternity. 

Here’s Paul’s first request:

Verse 17--I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

First, notice WHY Paul prays for this:  “…so that you may know him [Christ] better.” 

ILL:  Conversation with my son Yohannes this week at our breakfast-out time (going through Dobson’s book Preparing for Adolescence).  We were talking about how long you should know someone before you decide to marry them.  My personal philosophy and observation is the longer the courtship (2+ years), the easier the adjustment to marriage. 

WHY is that a good idea?  (Ask for responses from those who are or have been married.)

  • You see what their character is like.
  • You see them in a variety of situations, all of which will show how they handle crisis, fatigue, hunger, money, people, communication, family, friendships, etc.

The more life you experience with someone, the better you will know them.  (That’s why if your marriage or friendship with someone has grown stale, try inserting some new life-experiences that force both of you to grow personally as well as in the relationship.  Go serve a poverty-stricken city together for 2 weeks…or come downtown and work with youth on the street…or help a neighbor remodel their kitchen…or….)

Paul is asking God to give the church something that will enable them to know/experience God better…more…deeply.  Isn’t that the definition of “eternal life” according to Jesus in John 17:3—“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

That’s why, speaking biblically, eternal life starts in this life.  Eternal life grows in this life the more you and I experience of God in this life.  Every inch of life, every experience of life, every challenge and joy and suffering of life can be an opportunity to experience more “eternal life”, more life in Christ.

So if a growing relationship with God is what you want for either your own life or the life of someone you love, this is the kind of prayer that should spill out of your heart and mouth often:  “God, please give ________ the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that _______ may know Jesus better.” 

WHO is Paul talking to when he prays here?  (God the Father)

NOTE:  Biblically informed prayers are most often directed to God the Father.  You don’t find Jesus teaching his followers to pray to Him but once (Jn. 14:14—“You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”).  He invites us to pray “in his name…according to his will.”  But those prayers are to be addressed to the Father usually.  That is what brings the Godhead glory (See Mt. 6:6-13; Jn. 16:23).

Question:  I thought we saw last week that every child of God already has the Spirit of God in their life and over their life as a “seal” and “deposit”?  Why, then, is Paul asking God to “give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation?”

      The Greek here is what is called anarthrous, which means that there is no definite article here with the term “Spirit”.  That’s why many of your Bibles have a footnote on this verse which gives an equally legitimate reading of “a spirit” (small “s”) rather than “the Spirit” (capital “S”).

      Since Paul has already made it clear (1:13-14) that they already have the Spirit of God as a seal, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to pray that God will do something he has already done, i.e. “give” them the Holy Spirit.  (See also Rm. 8:9—all believers possess the Holy Spirit…or they don’t belong to Christ.)

      This term “spirit” in the N.T. can refer to 1.) the Holy Spirit, 2.) the human spirit, or 3.) an attitude or “spirit” of demeanor.  Since every human being already has a human spirit, that interpretation doesn’t make good sense.  So we’re left with the last concept which is an attitude or disposition or influence.  (Jesus in the Beatitudes used it this way when he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit (meaning “humble attitude”)….” 

      So Paul is effectively praying for every Christ-follower to have godly knowledge and wisdom, i.e. knowledge and wisdom that come from God but can be ours if we pursue and embrace it. 

What’s the difference between “knowledge” and “wisdom”?

  • Knowledge = what we must know and understand in order to experience someone or something “in truth” or correctly.
  • Wisdom = goes beyond understanding and applies truth to specific life situations that enable us to live life to its fullest and intended potential. 

Now, it is also true that the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of wisdom”.  A couple of O.T. passages bear that out.

Deuteronomy 34:9
“Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the LORD had commanded Moses.”

Isaiah 11:2
“The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD….
So you have the Holy Spirit residing in you as a believer in Jesus Christ.  And that Spirit is working to give you and me a disposition and “spirit” of wisdom and knowledge too. 

So, just HOW do you develop or receive or embrace a “spirit of wisdom and revelation”???   How does that become part of your very core? 

            Clearly, Paul believed in praying for it.  So if he asked God to give or build that into the lives of Christ-followers of his day, it is probably one of those prayers we should pray for ourselves and those we know in the church, right? 

HOW does God give a “spirit of wisdom and knowledge”?

  1. Immerse yourself in the Word of God.  Through correct “knowledge” about God and life found only in God’s revelation in the Bible.  (Not all knowledge of God is there but all knowledge there is authoritative, without error and powerful.)
  2. Invite the Holy Spirit to speak to you.  Through the wisdom in the Bible and that comes through the Holy Spirit who applies the truths of God’s word to our lives and this life.  The Bible tells us that our “natural minds” are not capable of grasping the personal and spiritual significance of the truths of God (I Cor. 2:9-13).  "No eye has seen,
          no ear has heard,
       no mind has conceived
       what God has prepared for those who love him"[b]— 10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
          The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

ILL:  Experience this past week praying in Manito Park with Doug.  We agreed to spend the first 5 minutes just being still, waiting for God to speak rather than speaking to Him.  5 minutes turned into 20…and God spoke to both of us. 

      Doug reminded me before we started of the practice of combining the physical experience of breathing with the spiritual experience of “taking in” the love of God and “breathing out” my love for God. 

      It was very interesting what God spoke to my heart during those minutes.

  • The park became a metaphor of my time with God:  a place of beauty, greenery, nature, tranquility…surrounded by traffic, sounds of emergency vehicles, etc.  So too, my life is often surrounded by the sights and sounds of emergencies and need.  But even in the midst of that, God can make oasis/sp. “parks” where there can be renewing encounters with Him.
  • The sounds of children playing and laughing—God spoke to  me about becoming more like a little child in learning to play, laugh, have fun in life.
  • The breeze that blew gently the whole time led me to think of Jesus’ words in John 3 about how the Spirit works—he’s like a wind that you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going but you feel it’s presence.  God reminded me that, even though I may not consciously be aware of the wind/the Spirit, He is present.  God is breathing the very breath of his presence on me constantly.
  • The setting sun filtered through the trees caused my closed eyes to recognize that I was in the presence of great light…and that God is light. 

We spent about 10 minutes praying audibly and then we went on to the business of our day.  We had met with God by quieting our own thoughts enough to let him take his Word and his world and speak to us through that. 

Those thoughts were not what I was expecting to hear…another sign that this was of the Spirit, not of me.  They corresponded to the “knowledge” I had of the Word of God, but they were prompted by events in our physical world that God chose to use. 

Prayer really is a communication process.  It is a two-way street in which I move towards God and he moves towards me.  But it is I who must do the bulk of the moving. 

This “spirit of wisdom” that we are to be seeking in our prayers will have certain characteristics.  James speaks of the nature of the wisdom God will give when he answers this prayer in James 3:17 & 18-- 17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

If we are asking for a life led, moved, dominated and determined by the Holy Spirit, then these are the kinds of character traits that he will strive to stir up in us.  And anything that is contrary to these qualities, he will point out and speak to us about IF we make this our prayer with the intent of acting upon whatever God chooses to deal with in or about our life. 

So, let’s close this teaching by engaging in what the Apostle Paul was praying for in his day for his brothers and sisters in Christ.  We’ll ask God to give to us that “spirit of wisdom and knowledge”.  After I invite God to do that, I will mention, very slowly, word-by-word, James’ description of the wisdom that God’s Spirit brings to our lives.  As I do, allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you about people, relationships, anything in your heart or life that God wants to talk with you about.  Then, in the silence of this time, briefly respond to what God may be speaking to you about in an appropriate way (confession of sin; praise, asking for help; committing to right a wrong, etc.)

CLOSE:  Long-time lovers know that communication takes work.  They don’t always feel like working at it.  But because they know that communication is the cornerstone of a great love relationship, they take the time and effort to do the things that will lead to heart-to-heart living. 

      This “divine romance” between us and God is no different.  It must involve ongoing and ever-growing communication if we are to grow under strong and mature under his love.  PRAYER is to our relationship what conversation is to a loving couple. 

      As we’ve hopefully begun to see today, it isn’t just any kind of communication either.  It is prayer that is informed by our experiences with Christ, by the work of the Holy Spirit and by the truths of the written word of God.  All of that takes steady and growing interaction with the Living God…just as a great romance takes steady and growing interaction with your beloved. 

How would you like to grow in your prayer communication with the Lover of your Soul? 

  • Do you want to start reading the Bible in a new, fresh version in order to hear more of God’s voice? 
  • Do you want to make time in the day with God a priority?  (Share Barb’s story of rising before 4am every day in order to be able to get 1.5 hours with God before work at 6am.)
  • Do you want to get in a group of people who pray (Mom’s In Touch; Men’s Prayer Thurs. am; form a prayer group; pray with your spouse and family daily, etc.)  [Come pray with the Alpha Course Prayer group.]
  • Do you want to learn to pray in different ways (Silent prayer, listening prayer, intercessory prayer, prayer walking, etc.]
  • Do you want to carve out/schedule in specific times of prayer each day that will transform the mundane into the divine?