David Jeremiah - A Prayer for Inner Strength
Dean Karnazes stumbled as he reached the front porch of his San Francisco area house. He had just spent an evening celebrating his 30th birthday, and he was really drunk. He had a successful job in corporate America, but he didn't know what his life was all about. He was totally off track. As he stepped upon the porch of his home, he looked down and saw a pair of old sneakers on the porch. He put them on and decided to go for a run, and he ran for 30 miles. He said, "I started sobering up around Daly City". And by that point, he was having so much fun, he couldn't stop running. "I was on this rural country road, and it was kind of misty, and the eucalyptus had these drips coming from them, and it was real pungent, and I just felt so alive, and that night changed the course of my life forever".
Decades later, as one of the earliest stars in the sport of ultramarathons, his feats of strength and endurance are legendary. Incredibly, he once ran 50 marathons in 50 different states on 50 consecutive days. That's 1330 miles, and no other person in history has ever done that. Perhaps even more impressive, Karnazes once ran for almost 81 hours straight without sleep, more than 3 full days. He covered 350 miles in that time span, and he did so without stopping. He estimates that he has run more than 100,000 miles over the course of his life, which would mean running around the diameter of our planet 4 separate times. As you might expect, with all that running, he's had a lot of time to think.
And one of the things he believes most strongly is that people tend to place limits on themselves and on their bodies that are unnecessary and unhelpful. "Your legs can only carry you so far," he wrote in one of his best-selling books. "Running great distances is mostly done with your head and your heart. The human body is capable of amazing physical deeds. If we could just free ourselves from our perceived limitations and tap into our internal fire, the possibilities are endless".
I like that image of an internal fire. More than perhaps any person in history, Dean Karnazes has tested the limits of physical strength, but as he and many others have discovered, physical strength can only carry you so far. We need something more substantial if we're going to thrive in this world and hold fast to both the promises and responsibilities that come with being a follower of Christ. What we need is inner strength. I have been told by researchers that we live in 40% of our capability. We have 60% more that we could bring than we bring because someone told us that 40% was the limit, and that's where we stop.
So as we move to the second half of Ephesians chapter 3, we have the privilege of listening to a prayer that's all about inner strength, a prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesian believers. It is one of the best sections of scripture in the whole New Testament. So as we explore this wonderful prayer, I hope you will realize in your life, that I will realize in my life, that we study this together as a message from God to each one of us individually. And at the heart of this prayer is Paul's desire that God would strengthen believers with power in their inner being. I think if we took a survey today among all of us in our honesty, there's never been a time when we each need more inner strength than we ever have before.
This inner strength is so critical to our spiritual survival that when Paul introduced his prayer, he marshaled all three members of the Trinity. "For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man". There you have it, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in this text. That should get our attention. So let's look, first of all, at the posture of Paul's prayer. "For this reason, I bow my knees to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ".
Now, that probably doesn't sound strange to you because it's a common habit among believers today, and it's a common expression throughout the history of the church. When we pray, we bow our heads. We often bow our knees. But that wasn't true for the Jewish people. The ancient Jewish people, to bow their knees in prayer was unthinkable. They never did that publicly. When they prayed, they stood up and lifted their hands up to heaven. Remember Jesus's parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector? "The Pharisee stood and he prayed thus with himself". You can almost see him, "Lord, I am thankful that I'm not like these other men, extortioners and adulterers, or even like this tax collector".
And what was the tax collector doing? Well, the Bible says he was standing afar off. So they stood when they prayed. But Paul specifically told the Ephesians that he was kneeling in prayer for them. You don't get the impact of it unless you see the contrast of it because he wanted to highlight the intensity of that moment, the intensity of his prayer. This was serious business. It was the kind of prayer that brought him to his knees. And he wasn't alone.
If you read the Bible carefully, you'll discover that Jesus was "withdrawn from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and prayed". And Stephen "knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not charge them with this sin.' And he fell asleep". And of course, we all know the famous promise from the book of Philippians: "At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord". One day, every knee, Jew and Gentile alike, will bow before the Lord God.
Back when I was a student in seminary, I remember the first time I attended the First Baptist Church of Dallas, where the famed Dr. W.A. Criswell was the pastor. When I walked into the sanctuary, I was surprised to see that they had installed kneeling benches connected to all the pews. This was a Baptist church. This was common in the more liturgical churches of that time, but it was strange to find kneeling benches in a Baptist church. Pretty quickly, I realized it wasn't strange at all. In fact, there was something special about the entire congregation getting on their knees every Sunday before God. He would tell us it was time to pray, and then you would hear this clanking of all the prayer benches coming down, and then everybody hit their knees in church.
And I remember one time standing up while this was going on and looking around. I never, ever forgot the impression of the people of God in a huge church on their knees in prayer before the Lord. What that says more than anything else is this, and I like this little phrase, I have this in my Bible. "Prayer is the declaration of our dependence". Prayer is our declaration that we're depending on God. We're saying when we get on our knees before God, "If you don't come through, we're not gonna make it. If you don't help us, we don't have what it takes to get where we're going. Lord God, we are totally dependent on you. We bow before you as your subjects. You're our King".
So that's what we learned from the posture of Paul's prayer. He was serious about this prayer he's about to pray for the Ephesian believers. Now, notice what he prayed for: four things. First of all, he prayed that the Ephesians would have inward power. You can kind of catch his prayer request by the little word "that" that introduces a purpose clause. He said, "I pray that God would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His power in the inner man".
Paul asked God to fill the Ephesians with inward power, with inward strength. Notice all the strong words in that section. He talks about riches in glory and strength and might. And the Greek word for might is found in the New Testament 120 times, and it refers to the power that God gives to people who belong to his family so they can accomplish their God-given assignments. And we need that inner strength today more than ever before. We discovered that our human physical strength is not sufficient for the things that we are challenged with. We wake in the morning and everything is all right, and before the day is over, here we are facing something we never dreamed we would face.
And I'm sure you've decided already that this is true for Christians and non-Christians alike. When you become a Christian, you don't get a pass that keeps this from happening. How do we stay secure? Our security is found in the fact that the one who is in us is greater than the one who is outside of us trying to give us all of this grief. We are strong in God. If we understand our inner strength, we will never be afraid of the alarms.
In his book, "The Strength You Need," Rob Morgan wrote these words. He said: "We're living in a difficult age, and events on the world stage are disconcerting. In times like these, we need to be stronger husbands, stronger wives, and stronger people. We need stronger children, stronger families, stronger churches, and a stronger determination to tackle each day for good and for God. If you're like me," he said, "you want a stronger faith, stronger peace, stronger joy, more stamina to do the work the Lord assigns each day".
That's our prayer. That's Paul's prayer for the Ephesians. You say, "Why is that important"? It's important because sometimes you can almost feel the strength of God's people diminishing. We're being overwhelmed by the things that are happening to us. We look out and we see a world that's much different than we ever thought it was going to be, and if you're not careful, you can just let that weigh down on you. And your strength inwardly seems to be evaporating. I want to be a man that has inner strength because inner strength is what will carry us through the days that we're in and the days that are before us. No matter what comes my way, no matter what things may be, not because I'm strong, but because there's a strength in me that is greater than I am.
So Paul prayed, first of all, that the Ephesians would have this inner strength about them. Not physical strength, this inner spiritual strength. And then he prayed for an inward presence, and this is really interesting. He says, "That Christ," there's that word "that" again. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith". And you say, "Well, that doesn't seem like the right kind of prayer to pray for somebody who's already a Christian. Doesn't he already dwell in your heart by faith"? Well, he lives in your heart by faith. When you become a Christian, Christ comes to live in your heart. He gives you the Holy Spirit who indwells within you. You can't be a Christian without Christ and without the Holy Spirit.
So what is the meaning of this prayer that Christ may dwell in your heart? The meaning is found in the word "dwell". The word "dwell" is a word that means to be at home. In the ancient Greek, in the language of the New Testament, this is a unique term that refers to more than just being somewhere or even living somewhere. To dwell in that context means to move in, to take up residence, to be at home. Listen to what Jesus said in John 14:23. He says, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him". Now, watch this, "And We will come to him and make Our home with him".
Do you know that Almighty God and his Son, Jesus Christ, have a great desire to be at home in your life? You say, "Well, he's in my life". I didn't say that. Is he at home in your life? Jesus Christ and his Father want to live within us, not just to be a resident, but to be president. They want to run things, they want to be there, and they want us to be at home with that. Are you at home with Jesus in your life? Are you at home with being a Christian? Are you excited about the fact that you've been translated into the kingdom of light? That's what he's saying. I want you to be at home with Jesus. Here's the third, "that". "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 all knowledge".
Paul's third request is that believers would be able to perceive God's love, to understand how much God really loves them, to live in the knowledge of the love of God. We have so many people today, they get into a discouraging thing, what is the first thing they do? "Well, God isn't listening to me. God doesn't care. I'm not on God's favorite list". No, you need to understand the love of God, and Paul gives us a really good way to understand it. He says, "I want you to know what is the width and the length and the depth and the height of God's love".
Let me give you something I will never forget and I hope you'll never forget it. This is John 3:16. Watch. The width of God's love. What is that? "For God so loved the world". The length of God's love. What is that? "He gave His only begotten Son". He went to that length to love us. And what is the depth of it? "That whosoever believes in Him should never perish". And what is the height of it? "But we would have eternal life". The width and the length and the depth of God's love, John 3:16. And we live in the midst of that even after we're saved. The knowledge that God so loved us that he gave his only begotten Son, and he did that so that we wouldn't perish because of our sin. But in fact, we won't just not perish; we will have eternal life with him forever.
Is there any kind of love that's greater than that love? Is there any kind of love you can think of that's greater than the love that God has shown us through his gift of his Son, Jesus Christ? Paul said to the Ephesians, I want you to know that. I want you to perceive that you are the object of that great love. And let me tell you why that's so important, because you can only love others out of the love that you yourself have. And I often think when somebody says, "Well, she's not very nice," or "He's not very nice," and somebody said, "Well, you gotta love that person. That's somebody's daughter. That's somebody's son".
Now, we love people not because it's natural. We love people as believers because God has poured his love into us, and I think of it as this great reservoir. "I can't love others out of my own strength, but because I have inner strength, I can love God out of the reservoir of the love he gave me. If God loved me as much as he loves me, knowing what I would do and be, surely out of that love I can love others". Paul said, "That perspective is on my prayer list for you, that you will know the height and depth and length and breadth of God's love".
You know, many atrocities were committed during the Spanish Inquisition. I've read all the history of that time when I was in seminary. And I once heard a story about a Spanish prisoner whose bones were discovered when soldiers opened up one of the underground dungeons used by the leaders of the Inquisition. Of course, flesh and clothing had long since dissolved, but the soldiers found the remnants of bones chained to the wall. And that wasn't all they found. On the wall of that prison, cut into the rock with a sharp piece of metal, was a cross. And above the cross in Spanish was the word "height". And below the cross was the word "depth". And one arm was length, and the other arm was breadth.
Try to imagine that for a moment. Even as that prisoner was starving to death, unable to free himself from the chains binding him, he was contemplating the grace of God. And he was pondering and perceiving the reality of God's love. And we have the same opportunity. I think of this often. I've said it to you many times. The cross tells me that one day, Jesus reached up to the Father, and then he reached down to us. And he made this reach available to all who would trust him. East, west, there's no one beyond the reach of the love of God. And the cross teaches us that, the height and the depth and the length and the breadth of God's love.
Paul said, "My hope is that you will learn how to live in the midst of that picture of what Almighty God has done for you". And remember, folks, let's don't forget this. Paul is praying this prayer right after he got done trying to solve the issue between the Jews and the Gentiles. And he's telling them, "There's something that surpasses all of the differences you have with each other, and that's the amazing love of Almighty God".
His first petition is for inward power. His second petition is for inward presence. His third petition is for inward perception, and here's the fourth one: a prayer for inward provision. This is the highlight of the prayer for me. I hope it will be for you when we're finished. Verse 19 says: "That you may be filled with the fullness of God". There's that "that" word again. "That you may be filled with the fullness of God". Notice the progression of these prayer requests. The inner strength of the Holy Spirit leads to the indwelling of Christ. The indwelling of Christ leads us to understand his love, and now his abundant love leads us to experience the fullness of God.
Now, this idea of being filled with the fullness of God needs to be explained. I remember growing up and I'd hear my dad preach about this. I used to think, "Well, I wonder how far up they're filled? Are they filled to the waist? Are they filled to the shoulders? If you're really godly, you must be filled up to right under your nose, you know"? And then I heard and realized that wasn't what it was talking about at all. The word "filled" doesn't have to do with the volume of liquid in a glass. The word "filled" in this text is a word that means to be controlled. When you are controlled by the fullness of God, your life will be totally different.
You say, "Well, how do we know that"? Well, in Ephesians it says this: "Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit". What does that mean? Don't let drunkenness control you. Let the Spirit of God control you. I have a personal insight into that that I don't know if I should share or not, but here goes. When I was a young boy, some of my buddies, we were paper boys, most of us, and we delivered papers, and we worked in a neighborhood, and there was a significant house in this neighborhood where a very mean old man lived. I mean, he was unusually mean, going out of his way to do everything he could to make life miserable, and especially for us. You dare not ride your bicycle over a little piece of his grass or he'd be out there.
So one Halloween night, we decided to get even with him. And we got together and came up with our plan. And I'm not gonna tell you what we did, 'cause I'm kind of ashamed of it. I don't want you to get any ideas here. So, well, we did this prank, and then we rang the doorbell of his house, but what we did not know is he knew we were coming, or he just thought we might. And he was standing on the other side of the house where we couldn't see him. When we rang the doorbell, he came running around screaming at the top of his lungs, and he had tin cans that he was hurling at us. I'm telling you the truth. This is something you don't forget.
So I ran off the porch. I ran down his driveway out to the driveway in the little housing, and the housing road led to a main highway, and it was a busy highway, and I was going as fast as I could. I didn't even stop to look at the traffic. I ran across that road, and I jumped over a fence into a cornfield on the other side. The next day I was delivering papers. I drove by the fence I leaped over and I thought, "How in the world did I do that? The fence was as high as I am". Then I realized I was filled with fear. See, so when you're filled with fear, what do you do? You do stuff you'd never do before.
Have you read the stuff about people being filled with fear and they lift a car up off of its ground? When you are filled with fear, you have ultimate strength you wouldn't have. And when you're filled with God, the same thing is true. You're not filled up to your head. You're filled with strength, and that strength gives you the power to do things you never believed you could do. God is always up to doing things in us and through us that are beyond our human ability so that he gets the praise and we don't. So what I want to say to you today is when you're filled with God, when you're filled with the Spirit, that means you have been empowered to live a life that's not natural; it's supernatural. It's not normal; it's beyond normal. And if you're a Christian and you've been one for very long, you've had moments when you have experienced that. And what God wants is for you to be filled with that moment so that it becomes the fullness of your life.
So let's pause for a moment and take stock. Are you filled with the fullness of God? To use a military term, does he have command and control of your mind and heart as you go about your day and especially as you encounter difficulties or unexpected opportunities? Do you respond to those moments based on what you want or what God wants? Do you act based on God's will or your own will? Here's one more principle. Don't let this one get lost. God will not fill you up if you're filled up with yourself. You have to have some emptiness in your life before God. You have to be able to come, as Paul said, and bow your knee and say, "Lord God, this is beyond me. I don't know how to do this. And so I'm just giving this all up to you. I renounce my own solutions and I accept yours".
That's what it means. As we bring this to a close, I want to highlight the potential of Paul's prayer because I know that some of you are sitting there and you're not believing this. You're not believing that God can take you from the way you live and give you a way to live beyond that in the power of God. You think, "Well, that's for other people. I'm not there yet. If I were a Christian longer, I'd be able to do this". No, this is not for seasoned Christians. This is for all Christians.
And the reason I know you can do it because it's not you; it's God, and God doesn't play favorites. He's not sitting up in heaven and saying, "That guy in the third pew, he's a candidate, and that guy over there..." No, we're all candidates for the filling of the power of God in our lives. And he is able to do that, and listen to the benediction. "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 to all generations, forever".
When you read this prayer that Paul prayed, you think, "Well, can God really do that? Can God give me strength in the inner man? Can he set up my house in my heart so that God dwells there and I'm wanting him to dwell there? Can he fill me with his fullness? Can he give me an understanding of his great love? Can he do that"? And my answer to that question is, "Oh, yes, he can. Oh, yes, he can". Because the Bible says he is able. He is able. What does that mean is, he's got the ability to do this. He's God. In my Bible, I underlined that phrase three times. And what can he do? He can do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think. He is able to do this.
And I want you to hear this passage in a different way. And "Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly. And now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly. And now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above. And now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all. And now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask. And now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask or even think".
That's the God we have. That's the God we serve. And only eternity will reveal to us how that power was at work in our lives when we weren't even aware of it because we were walking with the Lord, how he answered prayers we didn't even think he heard, because he's able. He doesn't just make minor improvements in our plans. He overrules them and gives a magnificent, worthy plan of himself. He can take what we ask, make it larger. He can take our thoughts and go beyond them. He can see where we can't see in the here and now, and he can see the then and where. He's able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all.
When you feel weakness in your space as a Christian, when you begin to wonder, "Can I do this"? just say to yourself, "No, I can't, but he can". I bow my knee because I'm dependent upon him. I can't do this. I don't know how many times people have said that to me, "Pastor, I just can't do this anymore". Maybe they're in a marriage that's coming unglued or they got children that have gone south or they have a financial issue or they're sick. "Pastor, I just can't do this anymore". And you need to say, "You know what, that's true, I can't either, but I know someone who can. He is able. He's able to do above all that you ever ask or think".
I want to leave you with a story that I read from history that if you don't hear anything else that I've said, you will hear this. In the list of American presidents, one man shows up twice. If I gave you a test this morning, could you tell me who it is? It's Grover Cleveland, the only chief executive to serve two non-consecutive terms. He occupied the presidency in the 22nd and 24th spots on the roll call. He's also the man who dedicated the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. And he's the only president to have gotten married in the White House. Think about that. He was 49 at the time.
His bride, Frances Folsom, was 21, making her the youngest First Lady in history, and their romance obviously took the nation by storm. Grover Cleveland was a Presbyterian preacher's kid who thoroughly was trained in Christian truth. He grappled with the issues in his office, and in the middle of a national financial panic, he faced a personal crisis. He was diagnosed with cancer and endured a top-secret surgery aboard a friend's yacht so nobody would know it.
The news was hidden from the nation for many years. And in his weakened condition as a cancer patient, he worked so hard that nobody ever knew he was sick. He kept up his strength and routinely worked past midnight every day. Historians have lauded him for his industry, for his courage and his common sense. His dying words summed up his life. He said, "I have tried so hard to do what is right".
The secret of President Cleveland's energy is found in the motto he lived by. It was a biblical promise which he framed, and he hung it right over his beds so every night when he went to bed he would see this, and when he got up in the morning, he couldn't miss it. He valued it so highly that he hung a copy of it on the law office where he worked before he became president. And throughout his life, he kept it within eyesight. It contained a family crest, and beneath were a set of words from the King James Bible, Deuteronomy 33:25. Here are the words: "As thy days, so shall thy strength be". As thy days, so shall thy strength be. When asked about it, Cleveland said, "If I have any coat of arms and emblem, it's that".
He awoke every morning with the firm conviction that God would give him the strength he needed for that day, and he believed God with all of his heart to live that day in God's strength because God had promised to strengthen him according to that day. That means if you live your life filled with God, filled with his truth, excited about what he can do, he will give you what you need for the rest of this day. And "as thy days, so shall thy strength be".
So here's the promise I take from that. I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. I have no idea how to manage what I'm trying to manage right now, by the grace of God, but what I do know is this. Whatever it is that God calls me to do, he's promised me he'll give me the strength to do it one day at a time. I cannot get upset with him because I can't feel his strength for three days from now when there may be something major on my schedule. God says, "Let me just empower you today, and I'll get you ready for the next day, and by the time you get to that day, you'll have a whole fresh infusion of the strength that I promise".
And friends, if you learn how to do that, if you learn how to live that way, nothing can ever grab hold of you and take you off your game. Because you can get off your game if you start thinking about what's happening next week or next month. But you don't need to do that. All you need to do is say, "Okay, God, it's you and me for today, let's go". And God will help you. He proves that to you every day. He's proven that to me to the extent that I promise you it's true. "As your days so shall your strength be," hallelujah.