This week's sermon: "The Immeasurable Greatness of His Power Toward Us"
The apostle Paul ventures a remarkable prayer in Ephesians 1:19—that Christians would consciously and experientially know "the immeasurable greatness of [God's] power toward us who believe." And by that power, he means God's great might "that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead" (verse 20).
Resurrection power now—that's what Christians can experience.
Paul is not praying that we get the power. He is saying: You already have the power of God toward you, and you don’t know it as you could. So Paul is praying that we would be spiritually experientially conscious of God’s power toward us as believers now.
The apostle then gives verses 20–23 to describing five aspects of what became of Jesus after the resurrection—and says that all of this shows the greatness of the power at work toward us now.
- The power of God toward us now is like the great might “that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead” (verse 20).
- The power of God toward us now is like the great might that God worked when God “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places” (verse 20).
- The power of God toward us now is like the great might that God worked when he exalted Christ “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (verse 21).
- The power of God toward us now is like the great might that God worked when he “put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church” (verse 22).
- The power of God toward us now is like the great might that God worked when he made the church “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (verse 23).
Satan and his hordes are real, but God's resurrection power is invincible. As surely as we are his, we will win the war.