216 - THE GENEROSITY OF GOD
Ephesians 3: 19 - 21 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
First of all this morning, in the 19th verse, Paul prays that we may know something that is past knowledge. In other words it is a paradox to know something that is unknowable. How is that possible? He says He wants us to know the love of Christ that is unknowable—that is past knowledge.
1/ First of all, we know that we are not very lovable. There is certainly nothing in us that would cause God to love us. We haven’t anything by nature or by character that would make God love us—but we know, nevertheless, that God loves us—He says so.
2/ Then we know that He loved us before we loved Him. It is not a matter that He loved in return for the fact that we loved Him. He loves us even though we do not love Him.
3/ There is one thing that all of us want. We all want to be important, and we all want to be loved. It is delightful to be loved—but think of being loved with a love that passeth knowledge. So we come to the thought knowing the unknowable. Maybe I can use this illustration to show you. See this darling little baby in its mother’s arms? Looking up and cooing and responding in its mother’s arms. You and I might say, “Let me hold the little one”. And we hold out our hands. Once in a while I do that at the door. Just last Sunday a young mother went by with a beautiful baby girl, and so I held out my hands to take that baby, but the baby looks at me, and clings more tightly to its mother, it starts to cry, and this one did—it wailed with a loud voice, and actually what it is saying, is, I don’t know you—I don’t know whether you like me. I know my mother loves me, I know my mother likes me, and I know my mother takes care of me. I know I can trust her. But you can say, what does that baby know about a mother’s love? Can it understand a mother’s love? No, but yet the baby enjoys the love that the mother has for it. So, it is with the child of God. God loves us. How does He love us? I can’t comprehend it with my own mind, with my earthly mind, but I know I can enjoy it, can bask in it. He has proven it to me over and over again. Just as that mother has proven her love for the baby in the past, just so God has proven His love to me. He sent His Son to die for me. What a wonderful program He has prepared for me. So, therefore, even though I may not understand it, I can certainly enjoy it and rest securely in it.
4/ The words, to know, are the translation of a Greek word which speaks of knowledge gained by experience. So we have to have experience to know this love of God. We will never really understand it—it is beyond our feeble minds, but by experience we know that God loves us. He has proven it over and over again. So the longer one lives the Christian life, the longer one is enabled to be living with Christ, the longer he will know by experience the love of Christ. Here a young saint cannot begin to understand this the way an older saint can.
5/ Then, you’ll notice, that we are to know this knowledge of the love of God by experience in order that we might be filled with all the fullness of God.
6/ You know that even though we cannot understand the love of God, we are to enjoy it. That is the thought here. We have this same thing true when we have the peace of God.
Philippians 4: 6, 7 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
We cannot understand the peace of God—it is way beyond us, because God never gets ruffled, He never gets upset, and this is the peace He wants to give us. We can’t understand it —we can’t get to the point where with our minds we can comprehend it, but we enjoy it. In the same way, we enjoy the love of God.
7/ Also notice, even though we do not understand the love of God, even though it is beyond our grasp, the Apostle does not hesitate to use it when he tells us in Ephesians 5: 2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.
And then Ephesians 5: 25 Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
So he uses the love of God as an illustration here, or as an example unto us.
8/ Now, you’ll notice, if we are rooted and grounded in love, if we comprehend God’s program for today—the length, the heighth, the depth, and we know the love of God by experience, there can be only one result. What is that result? We are filled with the fullness of God. The word, with, means, unto. But you cannot hold all the fullness of God—so therefore, filled unto all the fullness of God needs careful consideration. Only one among all that ever dwelt on earth, or in Heaven, has been fully filled with all the fullness of God.
Colossians 2: 9,10 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
And there we read that, In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. So all the fullness of God dwelt in Christ, but not in us, but yet we may be filled unto the fullness of God. How is this possible? I am sure that most of you have been down by the seaside, you walk by the seaside, and maybe you have a son or daughter there, and if they are small they have their bucket. So they take that bucket, they go into the ocean and they fill the bucket with water from the ocean and that child if they could comprehend it, could say, “See, daddy, my bucket is filled unto all the fullness of the ocean.” In other words, there is still plenty of ocean left, but that bucket is filled with all the ocean it can take. And so it is with us. When this program gets a hold of us, and we understand this program and the love that motivates us, and we know it by experience, the only result can be that God will fill us, and we should be filled with God. We can’t be filled with all the fullness of God, but we can be filled full with God. We may be filled unto His fullness.
King Solomon cried out, “Even the Heaven of heavens can’t contain Thee,” so we can’t contain all that there is of God, but we can be completely filled with God.
9/ Now we come to the doxology of Paul’s prayer. Notice, Ephesians 3: 20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
This verse does not say that God is able to do what we ask. It does not even say that He is able to do above all that we ask, nor does it say that He is able to do abundantly above all that we ask, nor does it say that He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask, but it does say that He is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all that we ask or think as well. There is a great deal of difference between the two thoughts. Let us recognize the difference, so that we may appreciate this 20th verse.
You may ask for something, but our thinking goes way beyond our asking most of the time.
We think of things that we would never put into words. Here is a child, it asks its father and mother for something, but the things it asks for only scratches the surface of what the child has been thinking about, and what it would like to have.
When we pray, we make our requests known unto God. The requests that we put into words and tell God about, do not compare with the things we think about that we would like to have, that we just wish we did have in our possession. Now, God is able to do not only what we ask, but far above what we think.
10/ The word ask, in the Greek, means to ask God that something is given, and the verb here is in the middle voice, and it means to ask for one’s own interest. Some say, we should never ask for things for ourselves. We most certainly should.
Philippians 4 tells us we should make our requests known unto God. It is true that prayer should be more than just making requests known unto God, it should be more the just asking, but God wants us to recognize that we can ask.
11/ Then the next two words that are important are the words, able and do. God is able, and He can do. How is He able to do? In an exceeding abundant fashion. These two words in the Greek are literally thrilling. The first one, is exceeding, and this in the Greek, HOOP – ER which means over and beyond. And the word, abundantly is PER – IS – SIGH – AH and it means super-abundantly or surplus. And so with this word, Hoop-er in front of it it means over and above super-abundance of surplus. So it is super-abundance, upon super-abundance, upon super-abundance.
12/ Let us look at that word, super-abundantly, or abundantly in the Greek. It is used in Matthew 14: 20 And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full.
And here it tells us that they did all eat, that is the great multitude, and they gave until they were filled, then they took up the fragments that remained, twelve baskets full. Remember the Lord had but five loaves and two fishes. He had taken the loaves and fishes, and placing some in each of the twelve baskets, one basket to each disciple—as they passed among the
thousands, the miracle of multiplication took place. It wasn’t a matter that at the end they had twelve baskets full of scraps, not at all. They could have fed ten million just as easily as they did the thousands that were there. So the word, remained, is Per- is- sigh- ah in the Greek, and it means super-abundance. In other words, as they took each one out of the basket, that basket filled up again—it never went down one bit. The baskets were always filled as they passed among the people. They never even made the baskets get a little bit lighter.
13/ The word, full, there is PLAY – ROW – O and it means filled to overflowing. They were always filled to overflowing. That is how abundantly God is able to feed the multitudes. In that same manner we can ask on our own behalf, and He is able to do in that same fashion for me. Nothing is too hard for God. Of course, we do not want to ask anything out of His will.
14/ That same old illustration that we use again, a husband and wife can say that they are saved and how they had to go into mission work, and they want to have a family, of course, but they don’t want to be bothered taking care of their family, so they can pray to God and say, “You give us children without the taint of sin and thereby we will not have to raise them, they will be perfect, and we can be about our business of preaching the Gospel to others.” But that is not the will of God, and it is foolish to ask for that. It is not a matter that God is not able to do, because He is able to do, but we must fit into God’s program, and whatever we ask in God’s program, He is more then able to do for us.
16/ Let us look at some portions of the Scripture, to see how exceeding abundant God worked on the behalf of His children. Let us look at an example.
Exodus 14: 29 But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
Take the Red Sea experience of the Children of Israel. When they passed though the Red Sea they passed through on dry ground. It didn’t have to be dry, it could have been muddy, and they could have still gotten through, but God was making their journey through the Red Sea in a comfortable way. It was dry. Then also, God could have just as easily kept the enemy on the other side, but He didn’t do that. He did actually more then was needed when He removed the enemy completely by having them destroyed by the walls of water coming back upon them.
17/ II Kings 4: 7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.
Here we read, of a certain preacher’s widow, struggling along in the days of Elisha, doing her very best to make ends meet. Her husband, like many preachers had left many debts for his widow, and the creditors came and they wanted their money, and when the money wasn’t there, they took her two boys to be slaves. She went to the man of God, and Elisha told her to borrow vessels from all of her neighbors, then behind closed doors she was to pour out into the vessels from her little pot, and she was to keep on pouring until all the vessels were filled. And then the man of God said, “Go and sell the oil, and pay the debt and live, thou and thy children of the rest. If she didn’t live with a great abundance, if she didn’t live in wealth, it was her own fault. It wasn’t just that God said, Go and pay your debts, but He said more then that —this exceeding abundantly able God was able to do more than that. Not only pay her debts, but live as well.
18/ But let us be careful about what we ask. We should be careful we don’t put all our emphasis upon material things.
Luke 12: 15 And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.
Here Jesus Christ gives a warning. This is a warning to all in all ages, for here He says, Take heed, beware of covetousness, for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth.
The word, abundance, here is the same Greek word, Per-is-sigh-ah, and you have to recognize that you must have something more than material things, you should ask for spiritual things as well.
19/ Ephesians 3: 21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
Unto Him refers to God the Father, the definite article appears before Glory—it is the Glory, it is the Glory due Him—it is the Glory to be given Him in the Church—the dominion in which He dwells, and of course, it is to be rendered Him by Jesus Christ.
AMEN
Ref: 03/06/1960 / 216 - THE GENEROSITY OF GOD / 08/01/2020
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