What is God’s Greatest Gift Today?

I’d like to ask you a question. What is the greatest gift that God can do for you right now? What is the greatest gift that he can give to you right now, this side of heaven? I’d like for you to hold that question in your mind. I want to address it as we go to Ephesians 3, 20 and 21.

Paul has just written a prayer for the Ephesians. And at the end of that prayer, he adds a doxology. He says, Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that is within us, to him be glory through the church in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

You are well aware, I’m sure, that the word doxology is a reference to a bursting forth in praise, adoration, and exultation of God the Father, or God the Son, or God the Spirit, or concerning the entire Godhead. The word doxology is a word that is made up of two Greek words. The first one is doxa, which means glory. And the second one comes from logos, logia, which is the Greek word for word.

If you take those two words and put them together, making a compound word, and transliterate it, it will most likely come out to being doxology. It is a word that basically and fundamentally means a word of glory, or to stretch it out just a little bit, it would mean a word that glorifies God, our Heavenly Father, or glorifies Jesus, our Savior and Lord, or a word that glorifies the Holy Spirit that indwells us, who is the down payment on our eternal life, or a word that glorifies the entire Godhead.

It is true that there are times that you will use this word doxology concerning a very intense expression of gratitude for the blessings, the benefits, and the plenitudes that we have in Christ Jesus our Lord. I have found eight of these doxologies in the New Testament. I’m talking about full and complete doxologies. I’m not talking about just a line that would be a kind of doxology. There is one at the end of Romans chapter 16, verses 25 through 27. There are two in the book of Ephesians. One in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 3 through 14. And the second one in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 20 and 21, the one that we have before us. There are two in 1 Timothy, one in 1 Timothy 1.17 and another in 1 Timothy 16, 15 and 16.

There is one at the end of the book of Hebrews, Hebrews 13, 20 and 21. There is one found in the first chapter of 1 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 1, 3 through 5. And then the final one the eighth one is found in Jude 24 and 25. Two of these doxologies are part of the introductions to the books of which they are part. Four of these are part of the conclusions of the books in which they have been placed and two of them are part of the content of the books in which they reside. I believe that the most beautiful of these eight would be the find the one found in Ephesians 3 20 and 21. Paul has prayed for the Ephesians twice and he has just finished his second prayer. It’s a fairly long prayer. It starts in verse 14 goes down through verse 19 and then as an addendum to that prayer as a postscript to that prayer he utters this doxology. It’s sort of separate and apart from the prayer but he says now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us. To him be glory through the church in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.

Amen. You will notice that this doxology is actually divided into two parts. In the first part, there would be a description of God. God is described in terms of the mighty power that he makes available to use as he answers our prayers. In the second part, there is an ascription. That is, Paul ascribes to God glory for his manifestation of his power as he fulfills our prayers. Now, it is the first part of this doxology that I want you to look at very carefully? Because by looking at this part carefully, you’ll be able to answer the question that we started off with. You remember that question. What is the greatest gift that God has chosen to offer us in this life on this side of heaven? He will describe God in three ways. And as he describes God, he will use three words, each of which start with the letter A. This is based upon the way our translations are made and how they are divided up. And each of these different words will give us some aspect of the power of God as he answers the prayers that we pray to him. The first word is the word Abel.

This word able reflects the intrinsic power of God. Now, unto him who is able, it reflects the intrinsic power of God because we’re not really talking about the prayer itself. There’s no power in one sense in the prayer itself. There’s no power in the words that we use. They need to be the right words. They need to be scriptural words. But the power does not lie in the words that we use. It does not lie in the length of the prayer, but the power of prayer lies in God.

Charles Hodge, a number of years ago, wrote a little book entitled Prayer, the Voice of Faith. And in almost the first line of that book, he said, I don’t believe in prayer. I believe in God. Therefore, I pray. The point is, you and I come to God in prayer, and we ask God to answer our prayer.

We ask God to manifest his power in our behalf, and this doxology says he is able to do that. This doxology is at the end of this prayer that Paul has uttered about the Ephesians in chapter 3. And in this prayer, Paul will utter four petitions. And the way our Bibles are translated, each petition begins with the word that. Consequently, we have come to refer to this prayer as Paul’s that prayer, T-H-A-T.

He says, I’m praying for you that your inner spirit might be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. Secondly, he says, I’m praying that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. And thirdly, I’m praying that you may be rooted and grounded in love. And fourthly, I’m praying that you may attain unto the fullness of God. These are four of the most beautiful petitions that anybody could pray regarding others.

In fact, they are so beautiful because they ascend. One dovetails into the next on up until we come to the fourth one. And that would be the high point of the petitions. So you could really list these four petitions in the following way. I’m praying that your inner spirit might be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So that you may be rooted and grounded in love. So that you may attain unto the fullness of God. And as you and I meditate upon these petitions, we’re just sort of overwhelmed by them. They are so strong and so powerful and so far reaching that almost accidentally we ask ourselves, can God really do that?

Can God answer these petitions for us? And it’s as if Paul thinks of that. And so as he comes to the conclusion of his petitions that he has made to God, he inserts this doxology in which he exclaims, Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, God is able not only to answer these four petitions that I have prayed in behalf of the Ephesians, but he is able to answer those petitions far beyond our ability to understand what I have asked and what I have thought about. Is God able? Is he able to answer the petitions that you offer to him? Is he able to answer the petitions that you offer to him in behalf of others? Paul says he is able. In Daniel chapter 3, there were three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Three young men, about 20 years of age, we estimate, who refused to bow down before a golden image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. He had set up this image and he had requested that all of his officials and government bow down to that golden image and honor the God that it represented.

One of the gods of the Babylonian panthenon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to do it. They were not going to worship any God except the true and living God. They were brought before Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuchadnezzar apparently knew them. He had put them in office, and he said, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to send you back out there, and the band will play again. And if you men bow down before the golden image, all is well, and we’ll go ahead with our festivities as we dedicate this idol today.

I don’t know which one spoke up, but one of the three spoke up. He represented all of them. He said, O king, we know that our God is able to deliver us from your fiery furnace. But if not, we will not bow down to your golden image. In other words, we believe in our God’s power that he is able to deliver us. And we believe in our God’s wisdom. If he does not choose to deliver us, we know he has made the best decision. And we will not imprune his wisdom. Nebuchadnezzar was infuriated by what they said and he bound them and had the warriors to take them up top and dropped them down into the fiery furnace. The flames leaped out and destroyed the warriors that pushed them in. And they went down to the bottom of the fiery furnace.

The ropes had been burned away from their hands and they found themselves walking in the fire. And there was a fourth in the fire. I believe that was the Son of God mentioned in 1 Corinthians 10 verses 3 through 4.

And whenever they came out of that fiery furnace, their eyebrows had not been singed, their hair had not been burned, and there was not even the smell of smoke in their clothing. Their God had been able, able to completely and thoroughly and victoriously deliver them. The first word, then, is the word able, and it emphasizes the intrinsic power of God, that God, the one who has all power, is the one who is going to answer our prayers.

The second word is the word abundantly. It is a word that suggests the indescribable nature of God’s power. Paul says, now we know that he is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we can ask or think. How does the Holy Spirit in this verse describe to us the indescribable? He does it through superlatives and redundancy. He will use about four to five levels of words. Level number one, unto him who is able to do. Level number two, unto him who is able to do abundantly. Level number three, unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly.

Level number four, unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think. There are some things that I can actually articulate that are pretty big. And there are some things that I can think about, but I’m not able to articulate. And Paul says he is able to go far beyond what you can say and what you can think about. And he’s not only able to go far beyond what you can say and think about, but he’s able to go exceedingly abundantly beyond all that you can think about.

This is the indescribable power of God. And that’s the kind of power that is available for him to use as he answers the prayers that you and I pray. Hannah was the wife of Elkanah, as is indicated to us in 1 Samuel chapter 1.

But she was barren. Elkanah had two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Peninnah had several children, and she brought that up to Hannah quite often. Hannah was broken hearted because she could not give birth to a child. They would go up to the tabernacle quite often to keep the feasts that would be observed there.

On one occasion when they’re up at the tabernacle, they’re eating a sacrificial meal. And Elkanah made sure that Hannah got a double portion because he loved her very deeply. But she wasn’t interested in eating. She left the meal and she went over and stood in front of the tabernacle or knelt in front of the tabernacle.

Eli was nearby She was moving her lips But she was praying in her heart Eli thought she was intoxicated He said woman why don’t you go home This is not a place for a woman like you In the shape that you’re in She said oh no I’m not intoxicated Let me tell you what I’m doing Let me tell you who I am I’m a barren woman And I’ve been praying to God And I’ve told God if he will give me a son I will bring that son Back to this tabernacle and I will dedicate him to the Lord. Eli then said, woman, go home and may the Lord answer your request. She went home and she conceived. She gave birth to a boy. She named him Samuel, which means ask for. And when she had weaned him, she brought him up to the tabernacle and left him there.

God not only gave her a son, but he gave her a great son. God gave her two more boys and two daughters. He not only answered her prayer, he answered it exceedingly abundantly above all that she could ask or think. I’m sure she didn’t think about Samuel actually becoming one of the greatest prophets of all of the Old Testament.

One of the greatest men of prayer in all of the Old Testament. Samson was going to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines with his muscles. But Samuel delivered the nation of Israel from the Philistines with his ministry of prayer.

Samson was going to use a sword, but Samuel used supplication. And the text says he completely delivered the nation of Israel from the Philistines. And he started the succession of prophets. And over in Hebrews 11.32, Samuel is mentioned. He is in the hall of the faithful. God not only answered Hannah’s prayer. He answered it exceedingly abundantly above all that she could ask or think. I want you to remember this. Whenever you pray. Whenever you utter petitions to your heavenly father in the name of Jesus. Will you remember that God, if you’re walking in the light, you’re yielding to the will of God and you’re praying in harmony with his will.

God is going to answer those prayers. He’s going to answer those petitions. On a far higher level than you ever imagined when he answers those prayers he’s way up there on a far higher level than anything you had in mind when you were praying for somebody to get well he will answer your prayer exceedingly abundantly above and beyond all that you could ask or think. The third word is the word according. This is a word that suggests the immediacy of God’s power, the instantaneous nature of God’s power. The first word able suggests the intrinsic power. It’s God we’re talking about. He has all power. We’re not talking about power in prayer. We’re talking about God’s power. The second word, abundantly, is the indescribable nature of his power. You can’t even get into your mind, your little brain box, the great power that God has.

He has all power. And the third word is the immediacy of God’s power. It’s almighty power. Whenever you became a Christian, when you became a disciple of Christ, according to John 14, 23, Jesus said, my Father and I took up our abode in you. I take it that God and Jesus took up their abode in us through the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit.

And we have in our hearts, we have in our lives, the almighty power of God. It is there and it is available for us to use. Now there’s another prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians. That would be the one that’s found in Ephesians chapter 1. It might be a little bit longer than the one found in Ephesians chapter 3. But he starts it in verse 15 and goes all the way down through verse 23. We call it a prayer for knowledge. And at the beginning of the prayer, he will give general requests. I’m praying that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. I want you to be full of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. Those are general petitions that he is offering. And then we come down to the latter part of verse 18 and he will offer three specific petitions and all three of these petitions in most of our translations begin with the word what and we call this Paul’s what prayer and look at these petitions the first one is found in the latter part of verse verse 18, I want you to know what is the glory of your hope. I want you to know the kind of heaven you’re going to. And I want you to know the kind of blessings that will surround you even as you live tomorrow in this world. Number two, he says, not only so, I want you to know what is the riches of God’s inheritance in you. What does God get out of this? He gets you. Do you know how valuable you are in the sight of God. You are his prize. You are his trophy from this great redemption that he has provided for us. And then his third petition is, I want you to know what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. The surpassing greatness of his power.

And after he mentions this petition, he immediately elaborates upon it. He says, the power that I’m talking about is the very power that raised Jesus from the dead. It not only raised Jesus from the dead, but it also exalted him. Listen to him. What is the suppressing greatness of his power to us who believe? These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might, which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion in every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come and he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church which is his body which fills all in all the point is that we have in us resident in us, available for us to use the power that raised Jesus from the dead, the power that exalted Jesus to the Father’s right hand in heavenly places. Some time ago, I was reading some of the writings of C.E. McGaughy. C.E. McGaughy was a good gospel meeting preacher, and toward the end of his life, he decided just to dedicate his life to holding gospel meetings. And he said there were times when he would hold 40 meetings a year now that was back during the days when we would have meetings that would go all week long start on monday go all the way through sunday he was traveling all over the united states holding gospel meetings he went out he said on a train going to a gospel meeting he decided he had break the monotony of traveling in a car or on a plane and he decided to take a train and he was seated there in the train going down the rail thinking about the preaching that he was going to do and the conductor came back and he said now our engineer knows you he’s heard about you he’s heard you preach and he wondered if you would like to come up and sit with him in the engine and ce enjoyed things like that so he went up and sat down in that big engine room here’s the big engine that pulled the whole train a mighty engine and he sat down there beside the engineer and he began to visit with him and in their conversation he said how fast are we going And the engineer said, oh, we’re going about 40.

And C.E. Said, is this as fast as she will go? And the engineer said, oh, no, this has great power to it. I could go 65, I could go 75, I could go 85, I could go 90, but they won’t let me go that fast.

They think it would be dangerous going around some of the turns and across some of the bridges. But C.E. Said he came back and sat down in his seat and he began to think about the church. Here’s the great engine of Zion. Here is the great church of Christ brought into existence by the death of Jesus our Lord.

This is it. This is what was prophesied in the Old Testament. This is what our Lord laid the foundation to during his entire earthly ministry. This is it. This is the kingdom of heaven. This is the kingdom of God. It’s the body of Christ. It’s the church of Christ. How fast are we going? Here’s a congregation of the Lord’s people. How fast are we going? I hope we don’t have to answer, oh, we’re just going about 40. Well, is this our power? Is this our strength? Oh, no. We can go 65. We can go 75. We can go 85. We can go 95. Well, why then are we only going 40? Well, the answer would be because we don’t tap into our power. The almighty power is here. The almighty power of God is available to you.

And it is resonant within you. In Daniel chapter 10, Daniel said that he wanted to know what the end times of the Old Testament era would be like. And he decided that he was going to pray. And he set aside three weeks. He said, I’m just going to give myself to praying for these three weeks. I don’t think he took a typical bath during that period of time. He said he didn’t put on any perfume. Maybe he took a sponge bath. I don’t know. But he said, I didn’t eat any tasty food. He was going to concentrate totally on praying to God. And for three weeks he prayed. And at the end of those three weeks, God said, I guess, Gabriel. And Gabriel said to Daniel, oh, Daniel, man of God, God sent me at the very moment you began to pray.

God hasn’t been waiting for three weeks. When you began to pray, God began to send me. He said, now I had to stop and spend a little time with the Persian king. And I was held up there until Michael came and spelled me. And then I came on. There is an instantaneous nature to God’s power. And whenever anybody comes to God in prayer as a genuine follower of Christ, loving God, walking in the light, seeking to do the will of God, As you begin to pray, God begins to answer that prayer. He does not wait. He does not put you on hold. He does not delay. I’ve been praying for six grandchildren. Three in Nepal. Three in Fort Worth. I’ve been praying for them for quite a while now. I know that I can’t see the answers to those prayers for quite a while.

The oldest is ten. I’ve been praying that they would marry a Christian and have a Christian home. And that they would be faithful Christians all the days of their lives. God can’t answer that prayer immediately. But I know this. When I started praying, God started working on the answer. There’s an immediacy to the power of God. Well, the question is this. What is the greatest gift that God can give you right now? This side of heaven. What is it? What is the answer to our question? I’m sure you’re ahead of me. You’ve got the answer. We would not say prayer. But we would say prayer is a part of it. The greatest gift that God can give you, the greatest gift that God has willed to give you right now this side of heaven, is fellowship with Himself.

He’s given you Himself. And as you live a faithful Christian life, you are living in Him. And you are surrounded by His power. And you tap into the wonderful blessing of living in His fellowship by praying. You’re in His great refuge, surrounded by His power and might. And the greatest experience of life is living in fellowship with Him. It’s the greatest gift that He can give you. Jesus didn’t die on the cross just so we could be forgiven of our sins. He died on the cross so that through our being forgiven of our sins, we can walk with God. The greatest privilege of life is to walk with Him. Jesus prayed a lot, but didn’t ask for much. He had everything. He was the Almighty Christ. But he missed his father. And his father missed him.

So Jesus would come aside and pray to have fellowship with God. He did ask for some things, as we see in the Garden of Gethsemane. But he would come apart and pray, pray to his father. It’s not a tragedy that we don’t pray. The tragedy is we don’t see the need to. We don’t see the need to tap in to the power that surrounds us. We don’t see the need to live in fellowship with the God who loved us and sent his son to die for us.

Somebody has said that as a Christian is in prayer, so is he. That’s probably a good way to say it. The best thermometer to your spirituality, to my spirituality, would be prayer. Are you really tapping into the power of God? Are you really living in God’s fellowship? As you look back over this past week, how is it with you? What kind of prayer life did you actually have? Oh, I know that you and I said, thank you, Lord, for our food before we ate it. And maybe at other times we said, Lord, I need this. Lord, I need that. But I’m talking about your prayer life. I’m talking about your communion with God. I’m talking about your living in God. What was it like? Once you answer that question, you’ve answered this one. Have you really received the highest that God has to give you?

There’s a legend that I know has some error in it, but it does have also some truth. It goes like this. A man died and went to heaven and an angel was showing him around heaven. And they came to a big room and it had all these gifts in it. It had big gifts and little gifts and in-between gifts. And the gifts, seemingly, were ready to be sent out. They were wrapped and ready to go. And this man said, well, what is this? And the angel said, well, these are gifts that God has for people on earth. Well, he said, it looks like that they are wrapped and ready to go. Why are they still here? Why hasn’t God sent them? And the angel said, well, God has these ready. But the people down on earth are not asking for them.

Do you and I understand what we could really be if we ask for it? Do you understand the blessings that you could have if you would ask for them? James says, you have not because you ask not. Do you understand that you can have fellowship with the almighty, the divine, holy God who created the earth, who supervises all of the expanses of space, who keeps in the sky and in space all of the planetary bodies, that almighty God, he wants to hold you in his heart.

And he has extended to you the privilege of praying to him. So we come to him. We come to him as his children. And he delights in our being there. And he delights in our requests. And he grants them in many cases. He says, don’t hesitate to pray to me. Thinking, well, I might pray for the wrong thing. You don’t have to worry about that. This is the confidence, John says, that we have in him. That if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. The invitation is yours to come to him and receive the best that God has to offer. Will you come? Will you tap into the power that God has made available to you? Will you limp along through life unaware that almighty God’s power is there available for you?

If you come to Jesus in faith and penitence, confession and baptism for the remission of sins, then he will bring you into Christ. He will cleanse you of your sins and bring you into Christ. And then you can spend the rest of your life living in him as you prepare to live with him more fully in eternity in the world to come.

While together we stand and sing, we invite you to come.

End of transcript. Thank you for reading along!