Hello and welcome to the Arise Church Podcast.
We are so glad you're here and want to thank you for joining us
today for the audio version of our Sunday morning message.
We want to invite you to join us in person at our Sunday morning
celebration every Sunday at 10 AM.
We are located on Old Jenks Rd. in Apex, NC.
My name is Tim. I'm the senior associate pastor
here at church Ephesians chapter 3, where we're going to is where
we're going to be today. And when I got to had the
opportunity to speak last month, I asked if we would all stand.
And I just want to kind of, I, I kind of want to circle back to
that because I, I love standing whenever we're reading the word
of God. But just in case somebody
doesn't do that, it's not saying one way is better than the
other. Amen.
It's just kind of a preference preferential kind of thing.
So with that being said, would you stand with me this morning
as we read a, as we read the Word of God?
We're going to read Ephesians chapter 3 and I'd like to read
verses 2021. If you have your Bible, that's
where we'll be. If you don't happen to have a
Bible, we'll have it up on the screen.
You can follow along, but I'd love it if we could all read
this together. Let's go and have that up on the
screen, those passages there. Let's read this all together.
Ready, set, go now to him who is able to do exceedingly
abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the good
to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, Amen.
Lord, thank you for your word today.
Thank you that as we have been worshiping you, you are here
God, you are at work in our lives.
And Lord, as we turn our hearts to the word this morning, to the
spoken word, Lord, I pray right now that you would be the
speaker today, that Tim Versolono would be so far in the
background that the only voice that we hear is the voice of the
Holy Spirit. So Lord, speak to us today.
Your servants are listening in Jesus name and everybody said
Amen. As you're seated, give somebody
a high 5 and say get ready, Here we go.
So this may be a very familiar passage to many of you.
If you've been in the church any length of time, you may have
bought a poster or a wall plaque or written the Scripture down or
something. Because this passage of
scripture is one that is one of those like Christianity, one O 1
type scriptures. And I want to take some time and
unpack it today because last month as we got together, we
talked about how the anointing changes everything.
The anointing changes everything, and so I pray
whenever, whenever I pray, whenever I'll lead worship,
whenever I'm in the word, whenever I have the opportunity
to speak, when, whenever I am praying for my food, I'm
expecting the anointing to fall. When you're praying for your
food, Absolutely. The Bible says if I eat deadly
things, they won't harm me. And who knows all the stuff we
see on TV. You better be praying for your
food because anymore it's like, oh Lord Jesus, I am expecting
the anointing to change everything because that is what
the anointing does. And so today we're going to look
at this passage. We're going to 0 in on Ephesians
chapter 3, verses 20 and 21, but we're going to do some other
reading as well. So I hope you brought your pens
and your notes and you're ready to go because we're going to be
doing some turning in God's Word.
And here is the idea that I want to communicate today.
God's capacity is not measured by the size of your faith.
Let me say that again. God's capacity is not measured
by the size of your faith. It is measured by the
resurrection power that is already working inside his
church. That's a real good place to say
Amen. Yeah, we're going there today.
We are going there today, so let's take a step back here.
And what I'd like to do is I'd like to read Ephesians the prior
verses, verses 14 through 19. Ephesians 3 verses 14 to 19.
It says this for this reason. Now, I don't want to go into all
the reasons why Paul says for this reason that's going to take
too long for what I want to accomplish today.
But I want to encourage you go back and read.
You can read to the book of Ephesians in about 12 to 15
minutes. It's a pretty easy read until
you start saying, Holy Spirit, make real to me what you're
saying, and then you can be in there for a long time.
But for the sake of today, we're going to start with verse 14.
It says, for this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven on earth
is named, that he would grant you.
Somebody say, grant me that He would grant you according to the
riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through
His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith. Somebody say through faith that
you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend
with all the Saints what is the width and length and depth and
height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge
that you may be filled with all. Somebody say all.
Now the Greek word for all means all that you may be filled, and
we're going to be doing some digging in the Greek today, so
get ready to go there with me that you may be filled with all.
Somebody say it again and say all.
Does that leave anything out that you may be filled with all
the fullness of God. Then verse 20.
Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all
that we ask or think according to the power that works in us,
to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations
forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever, Amen.
So Paul is praying for things that verge on the impossible.
He's praying that we'd be strengthened in the inner man,
that Christ would dwell in our hearts, that we could comprehend
the the multi dimensional love of God.
That we can know this love that the world can't know until they
come to Jesus. That we can be filled with all
the fullness of God. So I just want to pause, and I
want to ask this question after a prayer like that, what does
somebody who is reasonable do? Well, typically somebody who's
reasonable says, yeah, let's kind of take a minute to think
about that. Is that really possible?
I mean, because God is outside of time, God, they're the
creator of the universe. Is that really possible?
And someone who is reasonable might be tempted to walk it back
and say, if we could get attained to some of the fullness
of God, then we're having a pretty good day.
But the apostle Paul pushes back on that idea.
He leans into it. He leans into it as a matter of
fact, so hard. It's not changing the subject.
It's Paul answering the objective to the prayer that he
just raised. He just said, hey, I'm praying
that you will be. Even if he just prayed that I
that you'd be filled with all the fullness of God.
We're spending a lifetime living out that prayer, aren't we, To
be filled with all the fullness of God?
It sounds like it's a possibility.
And so Paul leans into this really hard.
So what I want to do to you in this little bit of time that
I've got, I want to show you three things that Paul does in
one sentence. And I'm going to unpack some
Greek because our English translations do their best, but
they always fall short in trying to communicate what the Lord is
trying to tell us. So the first point today I want
to talk about is a new word. Paul did this quite often.
Jack Hayford was not the originator of coming up with big
theological words. The apostle Paul did it all the
time, and he uses this new word because God's ability outruns
language itself. God is bigger than any language
that has ever been written, that has ever been spoken.
And the Word tells us now to the one who is able the way it's
written, to the one being able above all things to do
exceedingly above. Now that reads a little bit
funny, but in the Greek text, that's how it's written.
So I want to unpack that because this is a foundational framework
that we really need to understand as believers in Jesus
Christ. So Paul opens in the with the
Greek word, it's dynameno. Somebody say dynameno,
Congratulations, you can speak Greek.
Good job. So the one being able is what
this literally means dynameno, the one who is able, God is
able. God is able.
And then it closes with another form of the word dynamen, which
is ordunamis is where we get the word power from.
The same root is at the beginning of the verb and at the
ending of the verb. Now the apostle Paul does this
intentionally, and we try to interpret this way.
Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all
we ask or think. Because really, if the passage
just said that God is able to do all we ask or think, that's a
good day, isn't it? But the apostle Paul is trying
to communicate something of God's nature that is so immense,
so seemingly ungraspable, that Paul says he is exceedingly,
abundantly above everything that we can ask or think.
That's how much. And we try to translate it in
English. So we just add another word to
tack it on, kind of like when the apostle John is writing in
the Book of Revelation when it says holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God Almighty. It's not that John said holy,
holy, holy. It's that John could not
describe the immense holiness that God is.
He is so holy that the only way he can say it is God is holy,
holy, holy. And this is what the apostle
Paul is doing. He says to the one who is able
and the one who is powerful to do everything.
See, everything extravagant that God does sits inside a bracket
of God's ability. Let me say that again.
Everything extravagant sits inside a bracket of God's
ability. You know the brackets.
Grammatically, God says, OK, here's what I can do, but I want
to do so much before I get to this part and after I get to
this part that you can't even comprehend it.
That's how big our God is. And this is written in the
present tense. It's not that God was able.
It's not in the future tense. Not that God will be able.
Maybe if he's having a good day. See God, the the ability of God
is not something that he summons for a certain occasion.
It's what he is. God is able tell the person next
to you. God is able.
God is always able. He always will be able.
And Jesus, even in the New Testament, his disciples say,
hey, are you? Are you able?
And Jesus takes a step further. He says, I'm not only am I able,
I am willing. See, not only is God able, but
he is willing. And it is so powerful that it's
kind of this supernatural sandwich that the apostle Paul
is writing with. And our word order in English
just, we just can't get it. And so we try to understand the
depth and the magnitude of what Paul is trying to communicate
about how big God is. He says God can do beyond all
things to do super abundantly. Let me say that again, God can
do. He goes beyond all things to do
them super abundantly. And so this verb is surrounded
and it's saying you cannot reach God's action without passing
through God's excess on the way in and excess on the way out.
Now, can I just tell you something today?
This is not Tim trying to be like, you know, let's get you
all hyped up and let's just say, whoo, yeah, God, this is not
positive mental thinking. This is just the reality of the
God that we serve. God is so big, and he wants to
do so much and he is so much. See, we get focused on the
things that God does that we forget to look at the part of
who God is. He's our savior.
He's my healer, and he's healed me and he's saved me.
He's my provider and he's provided for me.
See, God, oh man, I really hope we get this today.
You can't reach God's action without passing through excess
on the way in and excess on the way out.
So we get to a wordsmithed word. So Paul says, I've got to try to
find a way to communicate this so people really get it.
Because later on Paul says it's not just for this generation,
but it's for every generation to come.
That's you and me. 2000 years later, we're still part of the
family of God. And the word that Paul uses.
Here's another Greek word. You ready for this one?
It's hyperparicupesu. God bless me.
Thank you. So anytime you see the word
hyper or Hooper, it depends on who who is reading it.
You might be familiar with this one.
Romans 837 says we are not just conquerors.
It says we are. Help me out more than conquerors
through Him who loved us. That means that you don't just
conquer, but before you even thought about signing on the
dotted line to go to battle, you already won.
Because we are more than conquerors.
Because the Word says what can separate us from the love of
God? Can height nor depth, angels,
demons, things, past, present, future, things to come?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors.
Not in ourselves, because we can't conquer nothing without
the Lord. I know that's terrible grammar,
especially for someone who's working on his doctorate, but I
won't write papers that way. See a word that already meant
excess. Paul intensifies it, and he puts
hyper in front of it. You may have been hyper when you
were a kid. People would probably look at me
and say you were a hyper when you were a kid.
Well, I look at this and the word and being hyper is a pretty
good thing. I've heard people kind of slam
on people before say, well, that's hyper faith.
Well, is it possible to have too much faith?
I mean, really think about it. That's hyper faith.
You can't believe for that. Who says I can't believe for
that? If I'm reading this correctly,
and I'm pretty sure I am, that my God can do anything.
And if I'm in him, that means what he, what what he says is
yours I have access to. So Paul takes a word that
already means an abundance, an overabundance, and he
intensifies it. And he stacks it with the word
hyper on top. And it appears three times in
the New Testament. And Paul is the one who uses it.
And it is essentially nowhere in Greek literature before Paul did
it. He's trying to communicate
something about the gospel that the world needs to see.
Friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, we serve an abundant,
excessively amazing, powerful, hyper abundant God.
That is the God that we serve. And Paul built a word because
the language that he used couldn't carry the weight.
He had to find a way to communicate this.
Now this is not just a sudden burst of yay, let's get this.
Paul is very intentional about using this throughout the entire
book of Ephesians. So let me ask a question and
just go ahead and view and respond.
How many of y'all speak more than one language?
Oh wow, that's pretty awesome. How many of y'all are are kind
of kind of fluent? You can speak a little bit of
another language. I'll put my hand up with there
'cause hablo poquito espanol, but just just poquito, poquito.
Some would say it's you're a little bit better than you
think, but I don't know you'd be the judge of that.
So those of you who raised your hand, you already know something
that the rest of us have to be taught.
There are words in your first language that don't really
translate well into English, right?
There are some words that just don't translate from language to
language. Like I was having a conversation
with Obie the other night and he sent me this beautiful song.
I listened to that about six times the other day.
That is a powerful song and and in innocent language, I didn't
understand it, but he told me that he said the name Jesus.
Let me make sure I get it right. Was it say it again for me,
Yesu. And when you say Yesu in Obi's
language, it's not just saying Jesus, but it's it's that place
of honor and respect and he's worthy to receive praise.
And so when I got to the word in that song, I was like, I know
that word. I know that one.
That one translates really well, doesn't it?
From language to language. See, every English translation
here can't fully express the depth and profoundness of what
Paul is trying to communicate. Exceedingly abundantly above,
Far more abundantly beyond, immeasurably more than different
translators try to keep adding words.
Because no single English word does what one Greek word does.
That's how big God is. So let's get ready to get to our
second point here. So let me apply it first.
Can I tell you this? There are things that God is
preparing for a rise church that we don't yet have the vocabulary
for. I'm going to say that again.
Why don't you? Why don't you all say it with
me? Help me out.
Ready. Let's say it together.
There are things God is preparing for a rise church that
we do not yet have vocabulary for 'cause you don't know what
you don't know. Some things we do know.
Is God good? Is God great?
Is God the great test? That is great.
That's awesome. We know that.
But there's things that we just don't know what God wants to do
yet. But we are aligning ourselves
and preparing ourselves for him to do that.
I am so thankful that our times of worship, it seems like from
week to week, doesn't it just seem like we're just like we can
just linger a little bit longer. We can go a little bit deeper,
we can go a little bit further. We can just, and, and, and I
know some people are like, oh, we're going to sing that song
again. Yeah, I heard somebody tell me
one time I've, I've been a worship pastor and a pastor for
a long time. I had somebody tell me one time,
you know, going to Pentecostal and charismatic church is just
like going a, going to a 711. You've seen the same 7 words 11
times and you just sing it over and over and over.
And, and they kind of meant it like as a joke.
And I, and I'm like, well, how do I respond to this?
And I'm like, and I'm thinking to myself, Lord, how do I
respond to this? And I'm like, you know,
sometimes you need to sing those 7 words 11 times in order to get
it because so many of us get stuck on, oh, how many times
going to sing that chorus again? Maybe you need to sing it 15
times because maybe the 16th time you're going to get the
breakthrough that you've been praying for.
Oh, I'm going to be good today, I promise.
Can I just say this? Some of us have stopped praying
about some things because you couldn't articulate it, because
you just couldn't put words onto the ache.
And so you assumed that it wasn't a real prayer.
See, Paul is telling you that the vocabulary problem, it's on
our end, not on the Lord's end. God knows.
He knows what's in our hearts. He knows what's in our minds.
He knows what we're going through.
And even if you can't articulate it and all you can say is Jesus,
he knows what you're praying. If all you can say is Lord help,
He knows what you're praying because we can't articulate it,
but the Lord looks on our heart #2 Not only does Paul create a
new word, there's also a closed door.
You're probably familiar with the passage that God opens doors
that no man can open and shuts doors that no man can shut.
That's very true. God's ability outruns our
imagination. And this is where the faith
question gets answered. I'm going to go ahead and dive
into this one. God's ability, let me say it
again, outruns our imagination. And this is where the faith
question gets answered. The Word says more than we ask
or think, right? God can do exceedingly,
abundantly above all that we ask or think.
And so here's two things that the apostle Paul is hitting that
we need to really hit because this sounds great.
If I was reading this passage for the first time, I would
probably go, I'm going to put that on a wall plaque.
I'm going to put that in my office.
I'm going to put that on my lock screen.
I'm going to put that somewhere where I can look at this passage
and be reminded that God can do exceedingly abundantly above all
that I ask or even think. That sounds great and it is
great. But Paul is saying, here's two
things. He says what we ask and what we
keep on asking and what we keep on asking and what we keep on
asking and what we keep on asking and what we keep on
asking. See, it's a smaller circle.
It's what we would dare to request.
God, I just if your word says it, I'm going to pray for it.
If your word says it, then why do I think that you can't do it?
If you, if I just read that you can do exceedingly, abundantly
above all that I ask or think, and then he says this, He says
it's not just what we ask, but it's what we think.
And this is not just like daydreaming.
This is not just like, oh, I want to, I want the sky to be
green. That's just silly, right?
But how many of us, you think something and I've done this
before. Chances are you've done it as
well. You think something and I'm
like, no, that's just too I, I can't ask for that.
That's just crazy. That can't be me.
Well, what if it's the Lord putting something in your heart
that he wants you to pray and it's just seems too out there.
If somebody would have told me when I was a kid that I'd be
doing what I'm doing today, I looked at him and said, no way,
man, you guys heard a couple. You guys heard last month, I'm
going to be a chiropractor, being a pastor, That's got to be
the most boring job in the world.
This has been the least boring thing I've ever done in my life
because God is not boring. Walking for Jesus and live for
him is absolutely not boring. It's the best thing that we
could ever do and the apostle Paul says not just what we ask
and keep asking, but it's even what we think the things that
you pray. It's framing with a how many saw
the movie. I don't care whether you liked
it or you didn't a couple a number of years ago.
Green Lantern with Ryan Reynolds.
I will tell you I like watching superhero movies.
And so if if you saw the movie, awesome, you're gonna know where
I'm going with this. If if you didn't, I'll see if I
can unpack it for you. So Ryan Reynolds, the characters
playing, becomes the Green Lantern.
And and part of what he can do is he wears this green ring that
enables him to use the power of his mind to make constructs to
meet, to beat bad guys. You with me so far.
And the person who is training him because he's a brand new
newbie from the planet Earth who doesn't know nothing about
nothing. And this guy who's been a Green
Lantern for a long time, it says, he says the bigger the
construct in your mind, the bigger the, the, the, the thing
you can make with the power of the ring.
And I remember seeing that. I thought, oh man, that's like
what the word talks about. The word says anything that I
ask or imagine. So Lord, you're telling me that
when I was bi vocational for 10 years, it doesn't matter whether
I feel relevant or not. I'm relevant because you live
inside of me and the people that I'm working with in this
restaurant need to hear the good news of the gospel.
So Lord, that means I can trust you to open doors that I'm going
to. So I sort of pray and Jesus let
me lead some of these people to the Lord.
And that was a nice little small prayer because what the Lord
began to do is I got to not only lead some of them to the Lord, I
got to baptize some of them in water after they got saved.
I haven't got to marry one of my servers to her husband and
they're still married to have a whole bunch of kids.
I'm like, that's really cool. And I can't tell you the number
of people that would come up to me and say, Tim, can I, can I
talk to you for a minute? Can I ask you a question?
And it never had to do with how long does the food hold for?
What's the temperature of a burger when you sell it?
How cold should a milkshake be? It was always something that was
significant. My wife just left me.
My kids aren't walking with the Lord.
One that really got me. My husband is beating me.
And because my son sees my husband do what he thinks, it's
OK. So he beats me too.
And I was, I was full Lord. And I immediately started
saying, Jesus, I know why you put me here.
I know. And if it was great praying for
people to come to Jesus, but man, I got to live life with
people who needed to see Jesus in a place where a lot of people
don't see Jesus. So just a side plug by the way,
when you go to a restaurant, be Jesus in the restaurant, just be
listening to what the Lord might say.
Leave a good tip any anybody in food service industry.
Can I get an Amen leave a good and a good tip is not 10%.
That was in the 70s. A good tip is at least 20%.
OK, I'm back. That one was a freebie.
He says that he can do exceedingly, abundantly above
all that we ask or think. See, we can always imagine more
than we would presume to request.
But Paul says, hey guys, God is so big you can go ahead and
imagine as something as big as you can.
But then the apostle Paul says, guess what?
God lives even beyond that. Cause some of y'all got some
pretty big dreams. How many got some pretty big
dreams in this place? That's awesome.
Praise God. God's dreams are bigger, see?
So there's no loophole. He didn't say more than you
asked. He said you could always ask
bigger, He said, beyond what your mind cans conceive.
So here's the question you might be thinking.
Here's what I want to take a minute, talk.
Talk about for a minute. You might be thinking, well,
does it depend on whether I have enough faith?
Because you've probably thought that I've thought that.
You've maybe even been told, Well, maybe God didn't answer
your prayer because you don't have enough faith.
Well, I'm going to push back on some of that this morning.
See, Lord, help me communicate this the right way.
This passage says, let me read it again, find myself.
There we go now to him who is able to do exceedingly
abundantly above all, we ask or think according to the power
that works in US. Can I tell you I, I've been
digging into this passage for like the past five years and it
seems like every time I get back into it, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I
didn't see that last time. According to the power that
works in us. Now, is there something that is
according to the power like the, the, the amount of anointing?
Cause the anointing changes everything.
Yes. If God's big, then I'm going to
believe God for big things. So I want to make sure that
faith is active in my life. But here is what this is talking
about. The noun that the Apostle Paul
uses is the word power, not faith.
He didn't say according to the faith that works in US, because
faith is just a given if you're a Christian.
Amen. Without faith it's impossible to
please God 'cause he who comes that God must believe that He is
and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
Hebrews 11/6, he says it's not faith.
He said it's according to the power that works in us because
he knows that we're human beings and that we might say, well,
there's something that I need to do to get God to do something
that I want Him to do. And many of us would read this
passage that way. But that is not at all what is
being communicated here. See, faith is something that is
tangible. Hebrews 11/1.
Now faith is what? It's the substance of things
hoped for. It's the evidence of things that
we have not seen yet. And if you set your faith as the
ceiling, God's action would be capped at exactly the level of
your asking and thinking. And that is exactly what the
apostle Paul is pushing back on. I am praying.
Don't tell Pastor Ty this. I am praying for at least 500
people to come to the Arise Conference this year.
Now, I don't know if we'll have 500 people.
That's just the number that the Lord put in my heart.
That's not the number that we've talked about.
And I'm not trying to say I've got more faith than Pastor Ty.
Are you hearing me? I'm not trying to say I got more
faith than you. I'm just saying, Lord, I know
what you want to do with this thing.
I just have a sense. And I'm not even the pastor of
the church. I'm just a guy who's saying what
can we do to make it happen? And we've got a team of people
who are saying, what can we do to make this happen?
Are you hearing my heart with that?
I'm saying, yes, if we're believed for that, praise God, I
am not at all saying your faith is not where mine is at.
Not at all. So we're clear, yes, because the
Lord might say, OK, that's great that you're praying that I don't
want that many people there yet because I don't want you all to
be overwhelmed and run over and not and be falling all over
yourselves. But on the flip side, what if
500 people do show up? What if 1000 people show up?
We're going to be learning a bunch of stuff real, real fast.
But if 152 hundred 300 show up, praise the Lord, praise God.
See, if my faith is the ceiling, then God's action is capped at
the level of my faith, and God is far beyond the level of the
faith that I have. Faith is the instrument of
Christ indwelling. See, faith is the conduit.
It's our receptivity, and it's the direction of where we're
looking. It's never the determinant of
quality or, excuse me, quantity. It's never the determinant of
quantity. I read that wrong.
Which is precisely why Jesus says, OK, you can have faith
just like a mustard seed, that's all you need.
You got a little bit of faith. That's enough for me to work
with because Jesus always has more.
Tell the person next to you. He's always got more.
So before we move along here, I'd like to, I'd like to
establish a kind of a guardrail. See, this is a praise wrapped in
a prayer. It's not a mechanism.
Here's what it answers. It answers how much is he able
to do? That's what Paul's talking
about. How much is God able to do?
It's not answering this question.
How do I get him to do it? Because we live in a world, we
live in a society, right? That says OK, if you do XYABC
you will get XYZ. We live in a very performance
oriented society, don't we? When I worked in the restaurant,
we had a a scorecard. It was green, yellow, red.
And if you were green, you were good.
If you were yellow, you better get close to green.
If you were red, you got some stuff to work on.
And we were based. We live in a performance based
society. And we think if I, if I go to
church this many times a month, if I read my Bible every day a
week for at least an hour and I pray and I get bruises on my
knees and I know every song and I go horse singing every song
and I'm at every single church event and I witness to all my
neighbors and I do all this stuff, then God will do
something for me. You might be thinking, oh, I
don't do that. Well, if you play sports, you
probably do it and don't even realize it.
Some sports people are the most superstitious people on the
planet. My son played hockey for a long
time. He played hockey for 21 years
and they were on a winning streak when they went to the
state championships living in California and these boys were
nuts. This is going to sound kind of
gross. They were little.
They were like 10/11, 12:00-ish years old.
They all sat in the same car in the same spot on the way to the
rink every single game because they wanted to make sure they
did everything to win the next game, to win the next game, to
get to the championship. Not only did they sit in the
same car, they had to listen to the same songs, they had to wear
the same outfit. They didn't change their clothes
for like 3 or 4 days or wash them.
It was disgusting. But can I tell you what?
They won a championship, but can I tell you we do the same thing
as Christians, don't we? We get to a place where we feel
God's presence and we're like, oh, if I can just get to that
place right there, then it's like I'll hit the slot machine
and I'll. And that's not the way God
works. See this scripture is answering.
It's not, it's not how do I get God to do it, but how much is he
able to do because his power is at work in us.
When we turn it into a mechanism, worship becomes self
examination under an unmeatable standard that becomes shame the
moment the prayer isn't answered.
See this passage is not a lever. It's not read this scripture.
Boom, pull a lever and bang, God shows up.
God's already there. He's already there.
So let me say this to those who have walked with God for
decades, like me. I've been a Christian.
Today's the 9th. I've been a Christian for 50
years now. Wow, some of you guys have been
a Christian for five weeks. That's awesome.
Praise God. Best decision ever.
But to those who have walked with the Lord for a long time,
you've seen him move. You could probably testify right
now, a whole bunch of testimonies.
But can I tell you somewhere along the way there was a prayer
that maybe didn't get answered the way that you wanted, and you
made a quiet internal adjustment.
You kept all the doctrine. You said I believe it.
I know what the word says, but you lowered your expectations.
Nobody knew it. You can still quote the passage,
you just stopped anticipating that God would actually answer
your prayers. To those of us who are younger,
you live in a world that measures everything.
How many steps did you break today?
How many streaks did you keep today?
What is your social media output?
What is your level of engagement?
Are you an influencer? What influencers do you follow?
So faith becomes one more metric to optimize, and every
unanswered prayer can become a performance review that has at
best, at best a potential for failure and at worst a loss of
faith. See what the apostle Paul is
communicating in this passage. He says, hey, I know there's,
there's going to be people who walk with the Lord for a long
time. There's going to be people who
start walking with the Lord and will be.
Will there be some unanswered prayers?
Probably. I'm not going to ask by a show
of hands how many of us has had unanswered prayers.
But I also don't want to ask how many have had answered prayers
because we would all probably raise our hands to one of those
questions, if not both of them. See.
But both have misread the same word in opposite directions.
Both are living under the same lie.
What God wants to do depends on me.
I can't save anybody. I can't baptize anybody with the
Holy Spirit. I can't heal anybody.
It's not me that does the work. Look at the person next and just
tell him, it ain't you, sweetheart.
It's the Lord who does the work in us.
So can I just tell you, release the critique and the criticism
of your faith, get rid of it. Just get rid of it.
Oh, that's easier said than done.
No, it's not. Just say, Lord, forgive me for
being critical. You can do anything, anything
you want to do. So Lord, whatever you want to
do, you just do it. I'm just going to love you.
I'm going to live for you. I'm going to follow you.
And if you answer my prayers, praise God.
I am going to pray in faith with everything that I pray for.
I'm going to pray expecting, anticipating every single time.
If I go into the grave, people have heard me say this for
years. If I go to the grave and I'm
still wearing glasses, Jesus is still my healer.
It doesn't mean that he can't heal my eyes for whatever
reason. I haven't had the full
manifestation of healing yet, but when Jesus said it is
finished, it was done. My healing was one 2000 years
ago and he knew at some point Tim Versalono would get to 4th
grade and discover that he needed glasses and would feel
like a geek the most of his life.
But that's OK because Jesus is still my healer.
He will always be my healer. I don't care what anybody says.
You can tell me till you're blue in the face.
He doesn't do that stuff today. That's why you're not healed.
Baloney. Baloney.
I've seen God do way too much for me to doubt that God can do
anything at all. So I just want to encourage you
today if you have quietly lowered your expectations and if
you're exhausted from trying to believe hard enough, this
prayers for you take. Let me just pray with you.
Just hang on a second. Let's just pray Jesus right now,
wherever we're at in our walk with the Lord, Lord, wherever
we're at, whether we've been Christians for a long time and
we've been disappointed, whether we've been hurt, whether we've
questioned God, why, whether we're a younger believer and,
and we're, and, and everything is a metric and we're judging
for this and we're looking for that.
Lord, we say today, forgive us, Lord, forgive me, forgive me.
Lord, I don't want to just give mental assent to your word
because every word that you speak is true.
I will build my life upon your word.
It is a firm foundation. So I say in Jesus name, Church
fam, be free. If you receive that today, would
you say Amen #3 Last point. God's power is always, always,
always, always, always working. God's power is always working.
It's a good place for somebody to say Amen.
His power is always working. So here's this last part of the
passage I'd like to take a look at.
It says, according to the power working in us.
Now this is what's really cool. When the apostle Paul writes
this, he doesn't write this and say it works according according
to the power working as he doesn't say out of the power in
us. He says according to There's a
big difference between the two. A wealthy person gives out of
their wealth a small gift from a large fortune.
Now there may be people who who are are wonderful and they do a
lot of great things and they give big gifts and that's super
if there's any philanthropist in the house, my birthday's in a
couple weeks. So here we go.
Give me a small gift from a large fortune.
But the word says that God gives according to Now there's a
difference between out of and according to.
Y'all are starting to see where I'm going with this here.
If he gives according to something, God is giving
something that matches something he already has.
So that means we can stop praying.
Lord, if you just bless me just a little bit, just a little to
God, if you could just just you know Lord, I don't want to
trouble you. I know I missed church 3 out of
four Sundays this this month, but I've if I go this week, Lord
could just a little, just a little bitty blessing is all I
need. God says no, I want to bless you
according to not out of because when you take something out of
something that is no longer there and whatever was the, the,
the the, the repository has diminished some right.
Let me give you a real world example.
I want to make sure you track with me when you put gas in your
car, when you spend however much you spend to put gas in your
car, what happens? The meter goes, it's a full,
doesn't it? The moment you pull away from
the gas station, you might not see it, but you are using out of
the gas tank and at some point you're going to say, oh, oh, I
need to go back to fill up my gas tank and you refill it.
If God gave us out of God would be less God because he gives us
out of what he what he supplies. But the Bible says that God
gives according to. So when you pray, guess what?
That gas tank from heaven never goes down.
The full is always, it's not just full.
You know how when you click, click, click, click, click,
click, click, click, and the gas station says don't do that.
But you're like, come on, I got to round it up to the nearest
dollar, click, click. And I want just a little more
gas. I'm trying to stretch it.
And you get that thing above the F in the car.
You're like, I got more than full.
That's what God is all the time. God is always more than full,
and that's what the apostle Paul is trying to communicate.
He says God wants to minister to you out of the place of more
than. And it's not just out of it's
according to because he never diminishes, He never sleeps, He
never slumbers, He never scales down.
See, the scale of his power sets the scale of his action.
Let me say that again. The scale of his power sets the
scale of his action. So pray those big, big prayers.
Pray em, go for it. God might just surprise you and
answer your prayer. And then you can pray for
somebody else and teach them to pray big prayers 'cause that's
how big our God is. Let's get ready to wrap this up.
So what is the power? Paul talks about it again in
verses chapter 1/19/20. He stacks 4 power words,
Dunamis, Energia, Kratos, and Iskis and then he anchors all
four to one event. All four of these power words
are anchored to one event which is the source of our power.
It's the resurrection of Jesus because Jesus did not stay in
the grave. Muhammad still in the grave,
Buddha still in the grave, Confucius still in the grave,
Jim Jones still in the grave. All these guys still in the
grave. There's only one that is not in
the grave whose power is limitless.
Jesus Christ is the source of our power.
See, the measure of the power at work in you is a fulfilled
resurrection. Believing did not calibrate it,
and doubting does not uncalibrate it.
Jesus has always raised, he will always be raised from the grave.
I maybe say wait a second, wait a second.
I heard you say something about doubting and and, and
uncalibrating it. Well, the word says if we doubt,
then we need to think that we're not going to get anything from
the Lord. So I don't want to be a doubter,
but my doubt is not going to diminish God's power.
It might diminish my receptivity, right?
But His power is always big. It's in that full position all
the time, and it is always at work.
It's not power that once work. It's not power that will work if
all the conditions are met. It's present, present,
continuous right now. God's power is at work right
now. See, you don't need to wait for
prayer time and ministry time. You can be healed right now, all
you got to do is just grab hold of it.
Tim, I've tried that before. Well, great, keep holding on.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say let go of the promises of God if
they didn't get met in your time frame.
See, the real question is not will we believe hard enough for
God to act? Oh God, I'm just going to
believe you harder. Here's what the question is.
Do we recognize that it's already working?
His power is already at work. It's a perception problem, not a
production problem. We need to shift our mindset to
see what the Word of God says. We need to shape our lives by
the word not our not not shape the word by our lives.
I've heard people preach that my whole life you don't let your
circumstances dictate your life, but you let your life dictate
your circumstances. I can tell you I've been on both
sides of that coin and on the side that that dictate that
circumstances dictate my life. It is not fun place to be.
Now you heard JJ share a little while ago we were super bummed
when we lost our house to foreclosure.
We were super bummed. Oh man we were disappointed.
We're like God, we prayed, we believe, we tried to be
integrity and makes every payment and that bank just and
we licked our wounds for a minute, but but we had to say,
OK, you know what, Lord, we're not sure why that happened, but
you're still God, you're still in charge.
It might have surprised us, but it didn't surprise you.
So we're going to put our faith in you.
We're going to put our trust in you and we are going to continue
to hang on. And God, somehow you are going
to get us out of this hole that we didn't try to get into, and
you are going to do something that we can't do.
And that's exactly what the Lord can do with every single one of
us. It's a perception problem, not a
production problem. So let's apply this because
we're going to receive communion in just a few minutes and seal
this deal. See, God's power is not coming.
It is here right now. God's power is here in this
room, and it is in each other. It's working to some degree in
all of our lives right now, according to the power at work
in you. If you love Jesus and you're in
this room and you can hear the sound of my voice, God's power
is at work in your life right now, right now.
Tell the person next year, right now.
So I'm on a courage to stop praying for what you already
have and start stewarding it. Oh, God, give me your power.
He gave you his power. He wants us to steward it.
He wants us to handle it. The prayer is God opened my eyes
to what is already at work and see the plural is the point.
Because you can't access this by yourself.
Oh, what do you mean by that? You can't access it by yourself?
Some of what God has for you is currently sitting in a in a
chair 3 rows over. After COVID, I can't tell you
how many people decided to just do Christianity all by
themselves. I don't need the church.
I can do this. And and I can tell you pastoring
a church through COVID was absolutely 0 fun.
I'm just going to be. Is it OK if I just be completely
completely like heart laid bare open with you?
Pastoring through COVID was a drag.
I love pastoring. I loved our congregation through
it, but man, it was hard because after COVID, there was the
assumption, well, when everybody comes back and when everybody,
everybody didn't come back, like over half of our church, I was
like, whoa, wait a second, what's going on here?
Where'd everybody go? And all of us pastors, in trying
to do a good thing and keep people connected, we all became
televangelists. We all began recording our
service. We all began broadcasting online
because everybody said distance and don't and all that stuff.
And, and a large majority of us did it out of great heart and
great intent. But I got to tell you, it was
hard. When I'm like people, I'd bump
into people in town and they'd be like, hey, Pastor Jim, how
you doing? I'm like, great, I miss you.
Oh, yeah, I've been watching the service online.
I'd be like, Are you sure? Are you positive?
And what happened was a lot of us discovered that we can go
here for great worship. We can go here for a great word.
And if it gets too intense, we can just log off all together
and just say we're going to church.
See, we can't do this alone. This is and this is not to beat
anybody up. If that was you, that is not to
beat anybody up at all. But what is being stressed here
is it? This is the family of God.
We grow together. Pastor Lilia, last week.
Man, what a word. Last week, being planted in the
House of the Lord. There's no reason.
There's no wonder why so many people aren't flourishing.
They're not planted in the House of the Lord.
They're trying to do Christianity all by themselves,
and it was never designed to be that way.
So let's wrap this up. You probably received an element
if you need a communion element. Got mine here somewhere.
We find mine feel like it's a wedding day and oh, there it is.
This pocket's got a spare pocket in it, Terry.
It's got a little pocket. There it is.
Like there's my mints in there and there's something there.
And, but take your element out because we're about to come to
the table of the Lord and I. Here's what I'm hoping that we
take away today, the the trajectory of this passage.
If you need an element, just hold your hand up and ushers can
get one right to you. The trajectory of this passage
is this. Take a look at this.
It's God's ability, super abundant action that leads,
leads us past the limit of what we can think, the limit of our
conception, things we can conceive in our mind, which is
measured by resurrection power. The same Spirit, the same Holy
Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead.
Have you ever thought about that?
The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead.
That's what the Word says. The Holy Spirit who came in and
said, OK, Jesus, time to get up, get up.
That's what the Word says. The Holy Spirit, the third
person of the Trinity, who raised the second person of the
Trinity from the dead lives inside of us.
It's measured by resurrection power that is located in us to
him be glory in the church. Notice here's what the results.
It's not that we're going to see this stuff.
It's not result, result, result, even though we'll see that the
apostle Paul writes and says to him be glory in the church.
Because even Jesus said, I do what my do I do what I do
because my Father in heaven will be glorified.
And if Jesus wants his Father in heaven to be glorified, how much
more should we want to make sure our Father in heaven is
glorified? Because when there's glory in
the church, stuff happens. Miracles start happening, signs
and wonders start happening, needs start getting met, and we
just go, wow, Lord, we're just doing what your word says to do
and God gets the glory for it. Could you all put up that first
slide again the the Ephesians verses 20 and 21?
I want to ask you to just close your eyes, take the element in
your hand and the word says now to him who is able do
exceedingly abundantly, above all we ask or think according to
the power that works in US to Him be glory in the church by
Christ Jesus. We want to thank you again for
joining us for the Arise Church podcast.
We hope you were encouraged by what you heard today.
You can find us online at Arise Church n-c.com and on Instagram
at Arise Church NC. If you need prayer or support or
are interested in learning more about Arise Church, we encourage
you to connect with us online or in person at our Sunday morning
service. Thank you and God bless.