Below are excerpts from this week’s sermon on Ephesians 1:19-22, which focuses on a personal (and corporate) experience of God’s power. (Reading time: 3-4 minutes.)

In chapter 3, Paul tells the Ephesians that God’s intention is to make known to rulers and authorities his wisdom – the absolute brilliance and effectiveness of his plan – and to do so through the Church. The Church is his proving ground, his test track. The church is intended to be the working model of what God can do in the world. The Church is on display as the prototype of God’s wisdom and power. That should make us tremble.

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Every year in January, Las Vegas hosts the country’s biggest tech show. People come from around the world to see the latest innovations: ai robots, personal mini-aircraft, a countertop CNC machine, even a transparent TV – you can watch your show and see what the kids are up to at the same time. This year at the tech show, GE introduced its smart indoor smoker, which burns real wood pellets in your kitchen while filtering out the smoke. It also has a separate heating element which you can control from your phone. (Next year’s model will even eat your brisket so that you don’t have to.)

Imagine you are at the Indoor Smoker display at the tech show. The guy running the demonstration looks at an app on his phone, which tells him that the brisket has reached 130 degrees. That’s not high enough, so he touches his phone screen, and the smoker turns up the heat. He shows his audience the phone and smiles knowingly. But then something happens. Smoke starts bellowing from the smoker, the fire suppression system is triggered, and water begins cascading from above. The AI robot assistant in the next display is electrocuted, the entire Expo Center has to be evacuated, and no one wants to have anything to do with GE.

Here is what we need to understand. Earth itself is a kind of Trade Show, and God has a display: the church. He is demonstrating his know-how and power in a group of very imperfect people, transforming them into what Dallas Willard describes as “an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with himself as its primary sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.”

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This transformation happens as we experience God’s power in our lives. Our desires begin to change (that is a fundamental part of the process), as do our attitudes and our relationships, and we gradually become that beautiful community of loving persons. Others, including non-human powers, see what God is capable of doing.

But when we sin and fall short of the glory of God by refusing to give and to forgive, by acting hypocritically, gossiping, manipulating, we catch fire, ruin the display, and empty the pews. And no one wants to have anything to do with God.

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But what if I have doubts? Doubt is not a big problem. Unbelief is. Doubt exists in the absence of knowledge and when knowledge is supplied, the doubter believes. But unbelief – the refusal to believe – is different. It is not motivated by lack of knowledge but by an unwillingness to submit. Doubt is routinely the predecessor to belief. Unbelief is routinely the predecessor to ruin.

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Imagine living six miles south of town on County Road 7 in 1936. You don’t have electricity (and don’t really trust it, either). None of your neighbors have electricity. But then Edna and her husband – he works at the car dealership in town – become the first to sign up. The Electric Company runs a wire from Mishawaka Road to the new pole and then to their house. If you want to see what electricity can do, go to Edna’s house. They’ve put in electric lights, a refrigerator, and even an electric toaster. The only way you’ll see electric power at your house is if lightning strikes, which is not very likely. Just so, God’s power may strike someone who is outside the Church and doesn’t care about Jesus’s mission, but it doesn’t happen very often.

This is hard for us to grasp. Western Christians tend to see a “personal relationship with Jesus” in isolation from Jesus’s mission, his church, and God’s glorious inheritance in the saints. But when God displays his power, it happens where Jesus is obeyed and his mission advanced. Since the Church is the prototype or the test site or the working model for what God can do, it is where we find his power at work.  

Imagine again that it’s 1936 and you’ve just got on the bandwagon and had the electric company run a wire to your house. You’ve got two electric lights in your kitchen, a lamp in your living room, and one in each of your bedrooms. You have five places where the electricity can actually accomplish something in your house.

It’s a good start. Now imagine that its 1966, you’re still in the same house, and those five light bulbs are still the only electricity-using devices in your home. It’s what you’ve become accustomed to, and you don’t think much about it, but you’re not experiencing many of the benefits electricity could provide. You’re still using an icebox and a woodstove. Your wife heats her curling iron over the fire before curling her hair.

Similarly, we will only experience God’s power if something in our life uses God’s power. Our houses have TVs and computers, stoves and dishwashers, fans and hairdryers, and they all use electricity. Is there anything in our lives that uses God’s power?

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One outlet for God’s power is being a witness to Jesus. In Acts 1:8, Jesus linked power with being a witness. Be a witness to Jesus at work or with a friend, and see if God’s power doesn’t flow through you.

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Helping others in Jesus’s name draws on God’s power. The disciples were surprised and overjoyed at the power they experienced when Jesus sent them out to proclaim the good news and to heal those who were hurting. When we engage in Jesus’s mission, we have Jesus’s power.

We need outlets for God’s power in our lives; do you have any? Every time one of us connects to God so that his power flows through us, it’s like a light comes on in the church. When we are all connected, the church becomes the success of the entire exhibition known as life on earth. It becomes, in Jesus’s metaphor, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.

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The Riches of His Glorious Inheritance in the Saints

Watch last week’s sermon below: The Riches of His Glorious Inheritance in the Saints. (Viewing time:is 23:00.)