John K. Jenkins Sr - Ask or Think

You don’t mind opening your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter 3? Say «I got it» when you get there. Ephesians 3:20 says, «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.» Amen. Father, bless our time together this afternoon. Speak to us; allow Your perfect will to prevail. I pray for all of those under the sound of my voice, those who are watching via the internet or broadcast, however they are being exposed to this message, this Word, and this worship. We pray that You would anoint this, Father, and allow it to accomplish what You desire. Let me be Your mouthpiece and Your conduit so that the name of the Lord Jesus Christ gets all of the glory and honor. I thank You and I give You praise ahead of time in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, you can be seated. Let me find out by a show of hands how many of you were here for Thursday night at either one of our two watch night services. Let me see your hands. Wonderful! If you missed either one, let me see your hands. Let me see the hands of those heathens, jacklegs! Where could you possibly have been other than the house of God? I promise you wherever you were, it was not as good as the church we had on Thursday night. I introduced our theme for our church for 2010, and it is, in fact, what I’m going to preach about. It’s part two today. I’m going to spend a little time rehearsing and reviewing what I went over on Thursday for the benefit of those who missed it, and then I will launch into the rest of it. But our theme for 2010 is «Beyond Beyond, » and that’s what I want to talk about today. See, those are the people who were here. Amen, they got it. A handful of folk got it: «Beyond Beyond.» Here 's the background to the passage I want to cover today: the Apostle Paul writes his letter to the church in Ephesus. It is, in fact, an engaging and impactful church. I love that church for many reasons, but I love it because it impacts its community. As a matter of fact, when Jesus writes the seven letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor, the rebuke He has for that church is minimal; and the little rebuke that He does have is not based on their behavior. They are an engaging church; they transform their community. They made an impact because they understood the writings of what Paul wrote. Paul wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus, and he told them some important things. I covered some of that on Thursday night. In particular, he addressed in chapters two and the first part of chapter three their position in Christ. What 's causing a lot of people to miss out on achieving significant things is that they don’t understand who they are in Christ. Amen. Pastor Jake is gone; this is the 12 o’clock crowd. They just got in from the club; they’re still asleep. You talk to them about being seated in heavenly places, being joint heirs, being heirs together. He talks about many things to them and concludes his teaching about their position in Christ with the benediction of verses 20 and 21: «Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think.» That 's the benediction and the closure of him highlighting who they are in the Lord. I wanted to talk about this today, and I mentioned it on Thursday night. This verse in verse 20 tells us that God is able to do. That 's enough to shout about-that we serve a God who has the ability to do some things! Have y’all ever had friends who want to help but aren 't able? Y’all have never met anybody who said, «I would help you if I could, but I’m not able.» We serve a God who wants to and who is able to do. Somebody say hallelujah! This is important because we’ve gone through a tough 2009. It was a tough year with a lot of drama, pain, anxiety, frustrations, and disappointments. 2009 was tough. 2008 was tough. Wait a minute-2007 was tough. 2006 and 2005, it was a tough decade. I don’t know about you, but I’m glad that decade is over. We had some highs in the decade, but we also had some lows. I believe God is now launching us into a new dimension, into a new season. That 's what I believe God has spoken so clearly to me for our church and our community: that this is the year of «Beyond Beyond.» Where do you get that from, Pastor? Right here in verse 20. Look at what verse 20 says: «Now to Him who is able to do.» Listen to what He says: «exceedingly abundantly above.» And let me back up for a second to take a look at that. The word «exceedingly» is a Greek word that means over-the-top. It means above, exceeding-it means to be more than enough. The best way I know to describe it is that it means beyond, way out there, over yonder. Yonder doesn’t mean any of that.