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We’ve begun a new lesson series called overcome. Together, we’re going to be going through the next four weeks. We started last week, so we’re three weeks left in this series. On the idea of what it means to overcome according to Scripture. We’ve really titled this series Nike. We’re not talking about Tiger Woods or tennis shoes. We’re calling it Nike because the word for victory in the Bible is Nike. And you learned last week to those who enjoy the sports brand of Nike, that all this time you’ve been saying it like a bunch of hillbillies. The Greek way we pronounce Nike as Nike or Nike. It says in first John chapter five and verse four, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. That’s Nike to get the victory over the world. And this is the victory, the Nike, the Nike that has overcome or gotten the win over the world. It is our faith. But even though our faith gives us the opportunity to get the victory over the world, sometimes we don’t live in that victory. Last week we looked at overcoming our past, and the way that we overcome our past is not to identify ourselves through our past, but to identify ourselves in light of who Jesus says that we are. Ephesians chapter one reminds us that we belong to him, that we’ve been sealed with him, and that he’s blessed us with his kingdom and all of his goods in this world tells us in Second Corinthians chapter ten and verse five that we have an opportunity in our lives on what we choose to believe.
And it says that we, as people, should take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ. I mean, there’s all kinds of ideas and philosophies about who we are as people in light of our past or just what an individual is. But the Bible tells us to take every single one of those thoughts that we like to think about our identity and our self-worth, and grab those thoughts out of the sky and captivate them and everything that Jesus says that we are. Through His Word to not be defined by what others say that we are, but in who Christ says that we are. In addition, today we’re going to look at another way of overcoming, and that’s overcoming broken relationships. How do we get the Nike the just do it over those broken relationships? You know a few things in life that compare to the opportunity of love and being loved. There’s no greater joy and satisfaction that’s found more so than in the depth of our relationships. First being your relationship with God, and then how that lives out in light of your relationship towards other people. The Bible says to us that real heroes are those who seek reconciliation, truth and love and relationships.
It says in Proverbs chapter 20 and verse three, avoid a fight. Avoiding a fight is a mark of honor. Only fools insist on quarreling tells us in first Peter 122, now that you have purified yourselves, obeying the truth, that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply from the heart. God carries this idea with our identity. In him is as we come to know him, as he has displayed himself truthfully, that we expand and forever grow in our ability to love. And as as we begin to see God for who he is, we begin to love others the way that we should. Love, truth and love Of are important. God’s desire for us as people, the real heroes of the world aren’t those who are the toughest. That by displaying that that strength and going into the world and beating everyone up right. Society might have you to believe that whoever the last man standing in the battle is, that is the victor. Whoever got the last cutting word that hurt the most or punched someone in the face the hardest and you are still standing, you win. But in God’s world, it’s the those who lay down who humble themselves to meet the needs of others, who seek after unity and truth and love. The Bible tells us in the book of Matthew in chapter five, therefore, if you are offering your gift, these are people attending the temple to worship.
If you’re coming to church to worship today and you’re at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you. Leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled to them. Then come and offer your gift. It’s saying to us, when we have wronged people in our lives, rather than carry the burden and the guilt of knowing that wrong exists. God desires for you to love and seek unity in those relationships through truth, and go back and confess that sin to the individual you have wronged. Seek reconciliation in the Bible not only commands us to seek forgiveness when we’ve wronged people. It also commands us to forgive those who’ve wronged us. In fact, in different portions of Scripture, it tells us to then seek people who have wronged us for the opportunity of reconciliation. Matthew chapter 18 and verse 21 it says, Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? He says up to seven times. And Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven times, but 77 times. Jesus is speaking hyperbole here. He’s not saying literally 77 times, but he’s saying to us, you think seven times is enough? I’m telling you, multiply that by a bunch and then keep doing it. Why? Because in our forgiveness, in our humility, we mainly reflect the character of God.
Jesus was all about forgiveness and grace. He says in Second Peter, not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But it tells us in Matthew chapter 18 and verse 15 in the including passages just below, that it tells us that not everyone who we come to for reconciliation, whether we’re forgiving them or they’re forgiving us, they don’t want that reconciliation. Sometimes we experience still, even in our forgiveness, heartache in Relationships. It says in 1815, if your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. It goes on to say if they refuse to to seek forgiveness in you, then bring some more people along and and hold them accountable before other people. But ultimately, it goes on to tell us in this passage that they may not want to be forgiven. So the question becomes, what do we as people do? If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I’m going to invite you to turn to Ephesians chapter four. We’re going to get a key idea from Ephesians chapter four inches the first couple of verses in that passage of Scripture. Then we’re going to go through chapter three together. We’re going to look a lot into the Greek text today. You know what they say once you go Greek, whatever what they say, it’s all Greek to me.
Greek is supposed to be hard, right? It’s not true. Ephesians chapter four and verse two. It says this to us as believers. Paul has established this book, and the central idea of all of Ephesians is all about relationships. And the first couple of chapters Paul identifies for us as believers who we are in light of who Jesus is. How should we view ourselves in relationship to Christ? And as we grow in that understanding to a relationship with Christ, the rest of the book then compels us to pursue healthy and growing relationships with other people in light of knowing Jesus. In chapter three, he begins to define for us how to overcome broken relationships in our life, and he gets to the central idea of what he’s digging for. In chapter four and he says in chapter four and verse two, be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. God’s desire in our relationship is to carry an attitude of of humility and forgiveness, an opportunity to see and meet the needs of other people. That when we come to church, we have the idea that Jesus carried and and wanting to just wash the feet of his saints make every effort you understand in that language. It’s defining for us, just straining for this purpose, exercising, getting all sweaty.
Make that effort to keep the unity of the spirit is saying with us in verse two, bearing with one another as if we’re holding each other up for this desire that we may keep the bond of peace. I think the heroes in God’s eyes are those who work hard when the going gets tough, rather than tuck tail and run, rather than sock someone in the face or to say a cutting word, Jesus loves those who suffers for for the unity of His church. God’s desire for us in Ephesians chapter four is to be at this point in our lives. But the question is, how do we get there? You know, today you can find all across the country lots of churches on a single street. And when you go to find out the history of some of those churches, you discover that there was someone who attended a church and they became angry in the church. And rather than live. Ephesians chapter four and verse two, in their lives, they just decided, you know what? There’s another church down the road, or we can just start another church down the road. Forget them. Let’s go do this. And I got to say, if if that’s how all churches started, I would find God very frustrated with church in America. But God’s desire for us is rather than split rather than divide when it hurts, when we know we’re at our lowest point, continued to humble yourselves and make every effort in our lives to fight for that bond of peace and unity.
Why? Because it’s in forgiveness and grace in which God works through relationships without forgiveness and grace. Relationships can never flourish and grow. At some point, we all wrong each other. At some point I will say something stupid and offensive up here one day. I mean, I’ve got 45 minutes to say things right. Eventually, something bad may come out that you don’t like. So what’s our heart, then? To seek what Jesus seeks? The unity and forgiveness in a broken relationship. I was reading statistics this week and do you know by the year 2020, they say the second leading problem of people who go into the ER for medical attention will be for depression in our society, in which we have Facebook and texting and tweeting and whatever else. As forms of communication, though we have those things available, the depths of our relationships don’t really grow because we are consumed in the time of our lives. I think in so doing, we oftentimes find ourselves depressed and in the midst of our brokenness, we find ourselves experiencing heartache in relationships. Sometimes our response is, you know, I’m never going to be open or close that close to someone again in my life, which is good.
If your desire is to never have a broken heart again in your life. The negative aspect is that as you begin to experience loneliness and depression because God has created us for relationships, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and to love others. And so how do we overcome the the the problems of broken relationships for what God desires in our lives? I encourage you, if you’re in Ephesians chapter four, to go ahead and flip back to chapter three for just a moment. We’re going to pick up in verse 14, and we’re going to ask the question, how can God encourage me to overcome broken relationships? He says in the in the very first verse of that passage, for this reason, for this reason, this is a culminating statement. Jesus has done everything for you in chapters one and two for this reason. For prescriptions that God has given us starts in the first two verses. In order for us to overcome broken relationships requires for us to talk to God about it. We call that prayer. Paul says in this passage of scripture. For this reason I bow my knees before the father, from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name. Paul saying, for this cause I am praying. Interesting that I would even have to bring up prayer to Christians. But you know my Christian life, what I oftentimes find with people that struggle in life, one of the first things I ask is, are you spending time with God? Are you praying and talking to God? Are you reading God’s Word? Are you just letting God saturate your life? And you know what I find? Nine times out of ten, no.
In the last place that Christians oftentimes think to look for the solution to their problems is God. We’re so good in this world to to gossip and go tell our friends about our struggles. Anyone that would have a listening ear. But but the last place that we oftentimes think about is just communicating to God about our need. And Paul is saying to us, listen, if you if you have a struggle in your life, if you’re fighting for unity, like Ephesians chapter four, if you feel that loneliness inside, it begins with prayer before God, the word before. And the Greek text means face to face. It’s a place of intimacy. You kind of get the idea that this individual Paul going in prayer is just making this the most personal, God honoring, seeking his face prayer that he could offer before God. And he’s saying why he’s praying this. It’s for all the families that God has brought together. Prayer is important. Prayer should be a regular activity of our lives seeking the face of God. And it says in Jeremiah 33 three, call to me, and I will tell you great and mighty things that you do not know.
David said in Psalm 73. David says, you, God, are my portion and strength forever. You know, I find in our lives one of the reasons that God allows us to go through heartache is because it’s not until God is all that we have that we begin to realize that difficult lesson, that God is all we need. Paul opens up for us the identity for you as an individual to find and begin to be strengthened. To overcome broken relationships in your life is to begin a healthy, growing relationship with the one who will never disappoint. So many times in our lives, we seek fulfillment in other people. Satisfy my need. Fulfill that deep longing that I have inside of the pit of my heart. But God has created you to find Satisfaction in him. People will always disappoint. Even if you’re married and you know that more so if you are married. But the solution is to seek the understanding of who you are and your identity and love, and the one who created you, and the one who will never disappoint you. And Paul is saying, for this reason, I’m seeking the face of God for all the families so that they may begin to understand what we have in Jesus. So what does Paul pray? Prescription one. Pray prescription two for? It starts in verse 16, and it’s simply yield.
That’s easy to remember, right? Pray yield. You got it. Well, in verse 16 it says that we would grant you according to the riches of his glory. Let me ask, how bad is your need for God in your life right now? I mean, how, how, how difficult and depressed or how dark do you think your situation Is. Well, the answer to that is God is beyond wealthy in that area of your life. It’s from his riches that he’s going to meet your need. It doesn’t matter how bad your situation is, God is wealthier than the need that you have. He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Can I tell you, as we go through this passage for just a minute, before you can even transition to the next point, the next prescription that we make, it’s important that we grasp really what verse 16 and 17 is saying to us this morning. Listen, Paul says that God, we’re praying this prayer, that God would strengthen you. This means to impart power. And it tells you from where this power comes from, that God is going to place it. It says through his spirit in the inner man. It’s saying religion and the rest of the world. Everything will just put pressure on you in your life and and sometimes belittle you and make you go through heartache.
But God, when he changes you, he does it from the inside out. And while the rest of the world may, you may feel like it’s beginning to crush you in your life. God imparts his power into your inner man. This is the will of the person. This is where you have the throne of your life. This is where you make the decisions of what you’re going to do. And it says in this passage that God wants to strengthen that inner man. And this is why. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Jesus wants to take the throne room of your life, the place that you think you’re in control of. Ultimately, one day you’ll find out you’re not. But God wants to take that throne. And once you make those decisions and he wants to dwell on it, it’s saying the word dwelling here means to be at home. It’s meaning Jesus wants to come in the most intimate place of your home, whether it’s the bedroom or the living room or whatever you think is special about your house. God wants to come into that room, and he wants to sit right beside you, and he wants to begin to impart power into your life. The key is, is it’s according to your faith. You have a choice on what you believe in this world.
Whether you take every thought captive to Christ and give him the power over your life, or you choose to sit on that throne yourself. But let me just warn you, if you if you fail to give that throne room to Christ, that you may go through the rest of your life experiencing emptiness and brokenness in your relationships. Because Paul shares with us in the very next verse why it’s important to give Jesus the throne of our world. Says in the very second half of verse 17, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love. Did You catch that because you’ve given this throne over to Christ. You experience the rooting and grounding and love in the Greek language. It means this is continually happening in the life of a believer, that you are forever rooting yourself and grounding yourself in all that Jesus is, and understanding his love. The fertile ground of of true love. The fertile ground of finding fulfillment and satisfaction like we talk about in Jesus. To live in that love starts with surrender. And I’m not saying one aspect of your life God, I have this hurt and I want you to heal. I’m saying everything that you are. It starts with surrender. There’s a farmer I was reading a story about when he. He enjoys planting fruit trees in his yard And when he plants the fruit trees, especially when they’re young, one of the things that he likes to do is deprive them of water.
And the reason that he deprives them of water, because it teaches the young tree to dig down deep into the soil. And the deeper it gets, the the sturdier it is and the easier it is able to find water when it is plentiful and when it’s in a drought. And might I suggest to us this morning that that one of the reasons we’re not finding our satisfaction is because we’re looking to fulfill in other people. We’ve been babied in our relationship with God. And rather than dig deep in that soil, rather than root ourselves in the richness that is in Jesus, we’ve found satisfaction in other things. And when the going gets tough, the tree of our life falls over. For us to begin to experience the love of God, it requires us to surrender, to yield to him. Prescription number three is that we ask God to begin to grasp his love. Yield to him and ask God that we may be able to grasp his love. Let me read in verse 17 it says, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length, and the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.
That you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Verse 19, when it says to know the love of Christ, it’s not talking about intellectual knowledge in Greek, it’s talking about experiential knowledge. Meaning you don’t just know Jesus loves you because someone told you in your church hung a cross right behind people while they sang, you know Jesus love you because you surrendered to him, and you begin to experience the fullness of that love in your life. If we ask the question, why am I not experiencing the fullness of God’s love in life? The answer would be because you’re not really surrendered to Christ. Until all that you have is God. Is God that you understand that all that you need is God. That we may know the love of Christ, which surpasses the knowledge of God, that you may be filled up to the fullness of God. Notice what it says in verse 18 that we comprehend this love with all of the saints. It means we begin to grasp this, or we grab hold of what Paul is talking about here, and guess where it takes place with all the saints? This isn’t just talking about church on Sunday. This is talking about anywhere that Jesus followers gather together. What we should be actively pursuing is grasping the love of God in our lives. And as we begin to grasp the love of God together, it tells us that we understand the depths and the heights and the width of everything that God wants to offer to us.
How high would you describe your need? How wide do you need that love? How deep does Jesus need to go for you to find healing? Bible says to do that with his saints. The Mariana Trench is located just off of the country of Guam, some hundred miles off of shore. It’s the deepest part of the ocean. Coincidentally, it also happens to be the place where the world record was set for the furthest anyone has ever dove into the ocean. Mariana trench is seven miles deep. When the the divers originally went down to the bottom of the trench, what they expected to find is nothing. They say that the pounds of pressure that’s placed upon anything that would survive down there is over £16,000 per square inch. I mean, you’ve got to be Hercules to survive. And it’s a dark, dark place. A place that light can’t even go. And when the divers reached the bottom of the floor. And as they begin to dive into the Mariana Trench, you know what they found. Life. God was able to create a creature that could survive at the deepest parts of our ocean, displaying his glorious hand, saying to us today, if we are in a place of desperation and brokenness, how deep can your God go? We experience this with the saints, encouraging one another in our relationship with God, saying to ourselves, how? Why do you need Jesus to meet the needs in your life? How deep do you need to know this God? How high must he climb to overcome your need in your life? God can do it.
That we comprehend with all the saints. The love of Christ. God’s desire for us is to fill us up. God’s desire is the world. Presses you down, is to take that cup that’s empty and to fill you from the inside out. And we seek satisfaction and longing in our lives. And we if we picture ourselves as just having a cup, we sort of walk through life and find trying to find happiness and peace in the things that we have. Maybe our marriage and relationships to our children, maybe it’s some sort of entertainment, and for a while it may put a little in our cup to satisfy our lives. But what Jesus talks about in this passage of Scripture is that cup begins to overflow with the goodness of God. How do we get to the point? In Ephesians chapter four and verse two, where we are able to serve one another. It’s because we have been satisfied with everything that Jesus has said about us in experiencing that relationship with him, as we’ve yielded our lives to him, we’ve rooted and grounded in our love for him.
And in so doing, we can be humble in serving one another. We overcome our broken relationships through finding strength in our relationship with Christ. Prescription number four. You know we may get out of here early today. You guys hold on to that thought. That means a pastor just lied to you. I’m just kidding. Yes, I am, I’m lying. Okay. I’m kidding. We’re going to get out early. Prescription for. Simply this. Expect God to do it. Pray to him. Yield to him. Ask him to experience his love and expect him to do it. Verse 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 in us. There was an older man who he loved ordering his clothes out of a catalogue. And on this particular catalogue he was ordering from, he. He liked this shirt, and he and he placed his order and he put it in the mail. But he noticed as he got ready to send this, this order out, that the very bottom of the card, it said, if we’re out of stock in this particular item, can we send you another item of equal or greater value? And he just checked. Yes. It’s a guy who really doesn’t care what clothes he wears. Right? As long as he has a shirt on.
And so he mailed it in. And when the shirt came back from from this catalogue that he had ordered from, he noticed that he didn’t get the shirt that he ordered, but what he got was a shirt worth twice the value. And so from then on, anytime he ever placed an order in this catalog, he checked. Yes. Really big. And the point is, whatever you think the obstacle is in your life, for you to be able to experience the joy in your relationship, you’re thinking too small. God says in this passage that whatever it is, far beyond that, whatever you can think God can do in there, he can do so much more. That’s the God you follow. When we pray to him, when we surrender to him, and we begin to experience his love, God works miracles in our hearts. Expect God to answer those prayers. I like a story that Jesus gave to comes in the Gospels from his disciples. Story begins in Matthew chapter 11, when Jesus goes up to a tree fig tree and it didn’t produce fruit. Remember what Jesus did to that tree? He cursed it and he killed it. He placed a curse on this tree that it would die because it’s not bearing fruit. That day later, the disciples went by the tree, and as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.
And being reminded, Peter said to him, Rabbi, look at the fig tree which you cursed. It has withered. And Jesus answered, saying to him, have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he has said is going to happen, it will be granted to him. Now, I don’t think that we’re really going to move the Rocky Mountains when we leave today. I don’t think that’s what Jesus is saying. I don’t think there’s a need to move. And they’re pretty. Keep them there. What Jesus is speaking to us. He’s just taking something beyond our imagination. And he’s saying to him, see how enormous this problem of this mountain looks in front of us. If you just had faith to just talk to it and just say, in, in faith through me, a mountain out of your life, it’s going to happen. Might I say this morning one of the reasons that we haven’t experienced the depth of God’s love in our lives is because somewhere along the way, we stopped believing in a mountain moving God. Whether it’s because someone has came into come into your world, excuse me? Whether someone’s coming to your world and hurt you so deeply that caused you to be isolated. Whether it’s an obstacle or challenge you’re facing through some sort of illness, whether it’s a financial burden that you have.
God knows your need. And God is a mountain moving God. God can meet our needs beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power of him that works within us. How do we overcome our brokenness that we begin to experience in our lives? Can I say to you this morning to stop hoping in things that are going to disappoint. I’m not saying run away from the relationships you have, because we saw that what God desires is for us to enjoy those relationships and to humbly serve one another. But how can we get to that place that we ever serve one another in that way, even when it’s hard that we just want to serve and continue to love each other? The answer is, is because we have a healthy relationship with Christ. Believers, you’re taking the time to go before God in prayer. And as you’re praying and seeking his face, as Paul said, you are yielding the throne room of your life to him. And as you’re yielding that throne room, it says from the inner man, God is filling you with his love. And you’re asking God, God, fill me with that love. Because we know that even if our situation, no matter how deep and hopeless and dark it may seem, God is able to do well beyond all that we ever ask or think, because he is a mountain moving God.