Head, Heart, Hands
- Michael Dennis
- May 23, 2010
- Series: Ephesians: Alive
Welcome to North Village Church. My name is Michael and this morning we are going to continue through Ephesians. We are going to be in chapter 3 and throughout Ephesians we see three primary themes of who God is, what He is doing, and how do we respond. Those themes run throughout all of Scripture so that when you read Scripture on your own those are three questions we should always ask ourselves, “Who is God, what is He doing, and how do we respond?”
When I read Scripture I have a journal that I have off to the side and as I read through a passage I will ask, “Who is God?” I write down the names and descriptions of God that I see in the passage like, “God, Jesus Christ, His word, Savior, Father, Comforter, Provider, Judge, and Creator and in a passage of 5 verses there might be 10-12 names and descriptions of God. I do this because I need Scripture to teach me who God is and that is why we teach through books of Scripture here on Sunday morning because instead of me standing up here and talking about Michael’s random topics of the day we want Scripture to teach us.
If you look at verse 14 of chapter 3 we see Scripture giving descriptions of who God is. Look at verse 14:
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love
Verse 14 describes God as Father, verse 15 describes God as creator, verse 16 describes God as power, and verse 17 describes everything God does as being rooted in love so we see God is a loving God. Do you see that in those 4 verses? God is no longer a mystery, unknown, ambiguous, distant, uninvolved, impersonal god and in these four verses alone we God being revealed as Father, Creator, Power, and Loving.
Think about what comes to mind when you think of God as Father. There are words like caring, personal, providing, comforter, and we can approach Him with anything and it doesn’t change our relationship. Maybe some of us have a negative connotation when we think of God as Father. We think of our earthly father and we remember when he let us down, didn’t come to an event, maybe too hard on us, or intimidating, and there are so many emotions that come with the description of God as Father.
For some of us this morning we have the opportunity to be a father and as a father of two children I know no matter how hard I try to not let my children down they are going to grow up telling their friends stories about how I missed a game or a recital and how I was never there for them. I know I am going to drop the ball, going to hurt them, going to let them down, but my hope is that I can point them to one who will never let them down.
No matter what connotation comes to mind, positive or negative, when Scripture introduces the description of “God as Father” it is better than anything we could ever imagine. God is Father in every sense of the word and He fulfills all the things our father never was and He fulfills all the things we will never be. He is loving, firm, compassionate, dependable, understanding, protector, respectable, and He isn’t absent, abusive, or distant, or disappointed, but actively involved in the lives of His children.
His relationship to us as Father isn’t because we are good little boys and girls, isn’t because we always do the right thing, isn’t because we are His favorite, but because of our faith in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross. When we place our faith in Jesus’ work on the cross it is Jesus’ work that removes the barrier of sin, shame, guilt and disappointment. There is no longer wrath, no longer condemnation, no longer this feeling that you could always do better or try harder and it is because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus takes our sin, we receive His righteousness and through faith we know God as Father.
God is not only described as Father, but also as Creator. All of humanity and earth have been created by God and we were created to be connected to Him. He created us with beauty, distinction, and value and worth, and Scripture says that we were created in His image. Our culture tells us the complexities of human life spontaneously occurred out of chaos and happened to result in highly designed and creative life forms.
However, Scripture teaches that all of creation was created for His glory and humanity is not only apart of creation, but we are created in His image in Genesis 1. We were not only created in the image of God, we were made to be like Him. Therefore, the more we understand who God is the more we understand who we are. When we are asking, “Who is God?” We are asking, “Who are we?”
For example, we can look at Scripture and see that our God is a creator and we also are creators. We enjoy creativity, and we enjoy music, art, design and detail. We mow the yard and take a step back, “This looks good.” Not only in art and beauty, but also in organization and some of us can walk into to a room of chaos and within minutes create order. We get that from our heavenly Father, being made in His image, and we are creators.
Unfortunately, we don’t see what God intended. Scripture teaches us sin has entered into creation and disrupted and tainted everything God created to be good and left us with a distorted and broken view of His creation. We are left in a state of disruption where we are begging for completion and transformation. It is why as people we always look for more, never satisfied, unsettled and it is because God didn’t create it to be like this and we are waiting for His creation to be completed.
You need to know God is not going to leave it this way. He is continuing to create and His going to bring about new creation and Scripture teaches that transformation comes through faith in the life, death, and resurrection Jesus Christ, and Colossians teaches us that through faith in Jesus Christ we are being transformed into the image of God, the image God intended from the very beginning and this is our hope that one day there will be a re-creation.
God is not only Father, Creator, but and in verse 16 we see God as Power. Scripture teaches us that we have a powerful God. We live and are surrounded by a generation of “Eeyor’s” that think and live life in a lack of power. As though life is just okay, Jesus might do something amazing, and Scripture teaches us that power in God has been given to us through faith in Jesus Christ. It isn’t our power, it is His power and He gives us the power we need to live, breathe, approach Him and walk in Him and verse 16 teaches us that our power comes through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 1 teaches us when we enter into relationship with God He gives us evidence of the righteousness of God by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t just clean us up, but we become so pure that the Spirit Himself indwells us and our bodies become a Holy Temple. We no longer have to go to God, look for God, search for God, because He has come to us and in Him there is power. We have a God indwelling within us who is the essence of power.
Does that not change how we live? Does that not change our relationships? Does that transform our insecurities and our inadequacies?
The last one is in verse 17 and it teaches us our God is a God who is loving and our faith is rooted and grounded in love. 1 John says it simply, “God is love” and we look for a definition of love in movies, books, songs, and even relationships with one another and each of those are false definitions of love. We see ourselves fall in and out of love, we see romance, we see lust and we call it love, however, God shows us a completely different love. We love people because of what we get and in the hopes that we will be loved in return, however, Scripture teaches us God’s love is an efficacious love and He doesn’t love us because it makes Him feel loved, He loves us because it makes us more lovely.
God loved us while we were yet sinners, while we were enemies, Jesus lays His life down on the cross and we mocked Him, we spit upon Him, we hurled insults at Him, and all the while He never responded in threats. His love for us removes our sin, shame, and guilt and replaces it with the righteousness of God and when we experience that we become more lovely.
When we read Scripture we need to be asking, “Who is God?” and Scripture teaches us God has made Himself known through His Word. People will say the Bible is written by humans and is a fabrication of a false reality. Humans don’t write books like this. Humans don’t write books that describe themselves as fallen, broken, sinners who are helpless and need to be saved. We write books where we are always the heroes, the savior, who pulls ourselves up out of the ashes, and we save the day, however, Scripture teaches all of humanity is dead in their sin and completely separated from God until God shows up in Jesus Christ and He saves the day. This isn’t just another book, but a supernatural revelation of who God is.
From Genesis to Revelation, which covers a period of 1500 years, 40 different authors (others claims of supernatural writings run through one person, but the Bible has 40 different authors with varied backgrounds and education), 3 different languages, over 3 different continents, and it all points to the hero in Jesus Christ and Scripture reveals to us who God is.
We not only want to read Scripture for who God is, but we also want to ask, “How do we respond?” It isn’t just coming to Scripture for information, but a supernatural work that results in transformation. Look at verses 18-19:
18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
“Filled up to all the fullness of God” come through faith in Jesus Christ and verses 18-19 are teaching us that we can not only know about God, but that we can experience the fullness of God. We not only come to Scripture to learn, but also respond and the more we understand who God is and all that He is done we will fall in love with Him and His love will transform us, and we become more lovely.
It is the combination of our head, heart and hands. When we look to Scripture it takes roots in our minds, but it doesn’t stop there and leads to our heart. When it touches our heart it brings about conviction, passion, and excitement that leads to our hands. Head, hands, and heart!
Some of us are learning, but it never touches our heart. Some of us are experiencing soft hearts, but it never leads to action and response. This means we learn God is Father and it reminds us that we have a Father who is continually and eternally compassionate toward us which fills our hearts, but it doesn’t stop there and it moves us toward our hands and having compassion for others. We learn God is creator and it teaches us we have eternal value, which brings us purpose so that it leads to a response and we live differently. We learn God is power and it brings us peace in our hearts knowing God is in control, but it doesn’t stop there transformation in our relationships with others. Hands, heart, head.
What happens if we skip head and heart and go straight to hands? What happens when we go straight to results? It leads to exhaustion, frustration, and anger, working in our own power, but when it starts with Jesus Christ and it doesn’t just inform us, but goes to our heart and inspire us, and then our hands and transforms us and before we know it we will be loving toward others, patient, kind, considerate, gracious, and our spouses and friends will look at us like, “What just happened?” and we will be just as shocked and say, “I don’t know, it just happened.” The more we fall in love with Jesus the more lovely we become.
Listen we are living at a time in history where we are constantly downloading information from billboards, emails, songs, television, bumper stickers, radio, friends and our brains are little HD’s downloading information and we are sifting through data so fast that we don’t know what is sticking and what isn’t and it is happening so fast that we think we have an original thought and we don’t realize our thoughts aren’t original, they are just products of the information we have been receiving.
Therefore, we need to let Scripture sit on our minds and sift through to our hearts, and then to our hands.
I think the biggest hurdle to this is our perception of time. We think, “I would, but I don’t have time.” I know this could come across as guilt so I want to be careful but the less time we spend with Jesus the busier we will feel and the more time we spend with Jesus the less busy we will fill because as we fall in love with Jesus we will be changed.
As we fall in love with Jesus God will inform us of what our hands need to be doing, He will give us wisdom for our heads to understand, He will give us patience to guard our hearts, and when we neglect time with Jesus it tells us it is like a man trying to chop down a tree with a dull axe. Not happening. Scripture doesn’t teach us this to make us feel guilty, but to help and empower us and I guarantee it will make a difference. When we take time to connect with Jesus and fall in love with Him you will see it in your life, your marriage, your children, and your work. It doesn’t mean everything will get better, but it means you will tap into supernatural activity.
One simple way to take a step in this direction is to come to Jesus in prayer and ask him, “Are you doing the things He has called you to…your job, your children’s activities, your house, and your future investments?” If He has called you to it then He will empower you for it…but I can tell you that if you are involved with things that are keeping you from connecting to Him, keeping you from drawing closer to Him…that is an easy answer. Change jobs, downsize, or drop a car payment, because none of those things are worth disrupting your connection to Jesus Christ. Look at verses 20-21:
20 Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Verses 20-21 remind us we have a God who we can come to in prayer. A God who is Father, Creator, Power, and Loving and He desires for us to turn to Him in prayer. We can look to Scripture and ask, “Who is God?” and “How do we respond”? Verses 20-21 teach us to respond in prayer and come to Him because He is able. We have a God who desires for us to come to Him in prayer.
This morning I want each of us to take a moment to respond in prayer. For us to go to Him in prayer and reflect on where we are in our spiritual journey. I am going to lead us through some questions and each of us take this time to consider what is hindering us from taking that next step spiritually. What is that next step?
I am going to ask Luke to come up and play a little during this time and I am going to give us three questions and this is a time to let the Spirit of God grab our head, heart, and hands and speak to us. The first question starts with the most important and it is how we begin a relationship with God.
Do you know you have a relationship with Jesus Christ? Is it possible you have spent your whole life simply practicing religious activity and never experienced faith in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross. Do you know you have a relationship with Jesus Christ? 1 John says it like this, “These things I have written so that you may know you have eternal life with Jesus Christ.” Did you know that you can know?
It isn’t being born in America, isn’t going to church, being a good person, it isn’t just simply knowing information and knowing about a guy name Jesus. The book of James teaches us that demons know about Jesus, and instead of knowing about Jesus it is knowing your sin has eternally separated you from God and you are trusting through faith that when Jesus died on the cross He died for you and when He rose from the dead He rose for you and you can know you have eternal life.
Take some time to know that you have an eternal relationship with God through faith in Jesus’ work on the cross.
Are you experiencing time throughout your day to connect with Jesus Christ? This is how it touches our heart. It could be time reading Scripture, time in prayer, meditation, while you are running, but is there time where it moves from your head to your heart. Remember we talked about receiving so many messages throughout the day and we want to have time to receive the most important message so that it sticks.
In John 6:63 Jesus said, "It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life." The words of Jesus are the voice and life-giving power of the Spirit. If we don't hear his words, we don't receive his power.
If you want the power of the Holy Spirit in your life described in verse 20, if you are tired of being constantly weak and fatigued then change your routine and immerse yourself in the Word of God. Read it, think about it, memorize it, and let it hit your heart.
Take this time to consider what is stopping you from connecting with Jesus every day and what it will take to see it become a priority so that it touches your heart.
Do you believe the Word of God? Last one is related to our hands. What is stopping you from responding to the Word of God? For some of us we are still wrestling with the authority of Scripture. We struggle to trust it because of translations, time, people, and it is keeping us from believing the Word of God.
Some of us believe it is the Word of God, but we struggle to trust that the Word of God knows better than we do and in both cases instead of believing Scripture we believe ourselves. What are we hanging on to? What is stopping us from taking that next step?
What would it take to let go and trust His word? I feel like sometimes God will ask me, “Michael, how much longer are you going to hang on to those other things and just trust me?” How long? I am going to ask Luke to come up and just play a little as we have time to pray and reflect about these three questions.