Looking again from the pulpit, I see that
there are quite a number among us today
who are new to this congregation.
Whether you're visiting us only for the occasion
or you've moved into the city or whatever,
we want you to be assured of our
warmest possible welcome to you in the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
May this be a great day of renewal
and refreshment in body, soul and spirit.
It's a great thing to be able to
meet with the Lord's people and to know
that we do not meet in the absence
of our Lord himself.
Welcome to you all therefore and peace be
to you.
I have departed from the series that we've
been following this morning on this Whip Sunday
or Pentecost Sunday, however you wish to refer
to it, and I have felt constrained that
we should turn for a little while to
the words that you will find in Ephesians
chapter 3 and verse 16.
I'm reading the New International Version, though we
shall quarrel a little later on with one
or two things here.
However, let me read it to you.
I think it's the most popular version among
us just now, and it goes like this.
The Apostle Paul, of course, is the petitioner
here in prayer, and he says I pray
that out of his glorious riches he may
strengthen you with power through his Spirit in
your inner being.
It is a prayer that the Spirit of
God would strengthen the Christians in ancient Ephesus
in the first place, and make them strong
in the inner man to face whatever their
duty in God's will and their problems met
in the course of obedience to him.
Now the New Testament is never satisfied with
a mere spectacle of men and women coming
to new life in Christ.
You've noticed that, I'm sure.
Everywhere the New Testament urges the disciples of
Christ to go and make disciples of all
nations, leaving no one out.
We are all to go.
We are all to be fishers of men.
We are all to seek the lost.
We are all to be concerned about the
Christless and the godless and the dying of
this world.
The most miserable man or woman in this
world this morning, and will be eternally, is
the man or the woman that knows not
the Christ whom God sent to be the
Savior of the lost.
And we are commissioned everywhere in Scripture, directly
or indirectly, the burden is laid upon our
shoulders as the church of Jesus Christ to
be about our business of evangelizing.
Even so, the New Testament is never satisfied
with that.
It rejoices as the newborn babes creep out
of nature's darkness into light.
New Testament saints are gladdened and the angels
of heaven we are told rejoice when one
sinner repents and returns in faith to God
in Christ.
But the New Testament always yearns to see
that young babe growing up, casting off the
things that relate to childhood and immaturity, and
leaving behind him or her the things of
the kindergarten of the spiritual life, and becoming
mature in Christ so that he or she,
by life and by lip, adorns the doctrine
of the gospel.
That's a remarkable statement coming from the pen
of the Apostle Paul.
The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is
the most wonderful thing in the world, for
it is the gospel of his Son.
It is the gospel of the power of
God present in his Son.
Nevertheless, says the Apostle, it is possible for
believing men and women to bring an adornment
to the gospel, to beautify the beautiful, to
make the excellent more excellent still in the
eyes of men.
You ask how can we possibly do that?
We do it insofar as the life we
have received at the new births, matures, grows,
develops in us so that our minds think
his thoughts after him.
We think along the lines of God's thinking,
and our hearts breathe his love and his
hatred.
His love of that which is good and
just, and his hatred of that which is
abominable and iniquitous and unjust.
We do so when we walk in fellowship
and in harmony with God, and are pleased
with what he says and what he does,
whatever its nature or complexion.
We adorn the doctrine.
Now there are multitudes of young Christians, and
not so young Christians either, who this morning,
even known to me, are languishing.
Languishing before the onslaught of temptation in the
world.
Languishing as they look at the calling, the
high calling of the gospel of God in
Christ Jesus.
The kind of life they're summoned to live,
the kind of things they're called upon to
do.
And they ponder and wonder, is it practicable?
You may be among them.
Someone asked me recently, are all these promises
in the New Testament, do they all mount
up to nothing but a mirage that attract
the eye?
And when you launch out, you find that
really there's nothing there.
That person, for one reason or another, had
missed what our text speaks about this morning.
I think he would not ask the same
question today, but at any rate, at that
point in time, he was missing something.
He'd taken the wrong turning.
And the promises did not seem to make
sense.
And all the problems came as clouds in
between.
And he looked at his problems through those
clouds.
On Pentecost Sunday, I'm so delighted to be
able to come across a passage like this.
I pray, says Paul, that out of his
glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power
through his spirit in the inner man.
And if you read the rest of Paul's
letter to the Ephesians, you will know what
for.
To live our life in the home, in
the community, in our workplace, at large, anywhere,
everywhere, to the glory of the God who
called us and prepared good works for us
before the world was made that we in
time should come and do them.
Now, two things I would like us to
look at this morning.
First of all, the might by which Paul
would have all the Christians of ancient Ephesus,
and by which God would have all of
us in our modern Ephesus and Toronto, be
strengthened, strengthened with his power in
the inner man, or the inner being.
Now, you notice the sphere of life with
which the apostle is primarily concerned here.
This may not be language that we generally
use today, but I think it's clear enough
for us all to understand what he's getting
at.
He's talking about the inner being, the inner
man, the inner person.
Paul uses the same language again in a
number of other places, as for example in
2 Corinthians 4 16.
There he says, Whatever translation, whichever translation you
have, it may vary a little.
In the King James, the outer man is
wearing down.
Our outward man is wearing down little by
little, getting weaker and weaker.
But the inner man, says Paul, according to
the King James, is getting stronger and stronger.
He's being renewed day by day.
He's referring to two aspects of our experience,
two aspects of our natures.
The inner man, the man of the soul,
the man within, and then the outward man,
the man of the body.
The emphasis being in the one, of course,
upon upon the spiritual, and in the other
upon the physical.
The key to success in Christian living lies
not in the condition of our physical body,
nor in our material circumstances, but rather in
the condition of the inner being, or of
our inner nature.
Remarkable thing in the history of the Christian
church is this, that you can show, you
can refer to people who have been in
all kinds of circumstances.
Evil, iniquitous circumstances in many cases.
Difficult circumstances in many more.
Circumstances that seem to hedge them in, and
make it impossible for them to do the
will of God.
And yet they've overcome.
Some were weak in body, some were blind,
some were deaf, some were destitute, some were
maimed seriously.
And there were all kinds of conditions, but
by the grace of God, they've been able
to overcome, because in the inner man they
were strong.
And this is the key to success.
This is not to minimize the importance of
having a healthy body, and so forth.
The Bible doesn't do that.
Our Lord Jesus Christ spent many, many days,
and much of his ministry, in healing the
sick, and attending to the physically, and materially
needy.
He did not, he did not in any
wise, minimize the importance of that.
But the secret of success does not lie
there.
I understand that many societies today will only
take on missionaries, and and evangelists that are
good looking.
You've got to be a specimen there, that
attracts physically.
This is sad, you know, but it's true.
And if you haven't got that mesmeric look
about you, and if you're not a good
athlete, or at least you look like one,
then you certainly are unacceptable.
As if the secret of success were in
the physical attraction.
That's a complete denial of the doctrines of
grace.
They say that the Apostle Paul had a
terrible squint, and a long nose, and many
other apparent physical blemishes, which I will not
repeat.
I will not give the devil the opportunity
of smiling.
But my, what did he accomplish?
In the inner man, in the soul of
a man, in the spirit of a man,
was the spirit of God, in power, in
fullness, with great glory.
That's the secret of things as far as
the Bible is concerned.
I repeat, the Bible nowhere underestimates the importance
of the physical, or of the material even.
But the really important element and aspect of
life is the soul, is the spirit of
a man, is what you are within.
If you have the power of God within
you, you can face all the circumstances of
life and death.
As Paul dares say it, I can't read
the passage now, at the end of Romans
chapter 8, and he says, we are more
than conquerors in the midst of all these
horrible things that may or may not happen
to us.
In the midst of them, he says, we
are more than conquerors.
And writing to the Philippians when he'd undergone
so much anguish and pain and imprisonment and
floggings and whatnot by that time, he says,
I can do all things through the Christ
who strengthens me.
Whether I'm in need or whether I've got
more than enough, I can handle both situations,
he says, because the Christ lives in me.
That's the secret.
So, we must be careful to note that
Paul is referring to the inner nature of
the inner man.
And the inner nature of the inner man
who has already come to new life in
Christ, who has been regenerate.
He's not addressing unregenerate men and women.
He's not telling men who have not come
to Christ for salvation, look there's something in
you and it only needs to be opened
up and fanned a little and you'll be
all right.
He's not saying that.
In chapter 2 and verse 1, he speaks
of a spiritual resurrection that must precede all
else.
But when we have been brought to life
from the dead, he says, in that man's
soul can be the secret of daily and
perpetual success for God.
Not necessarily what men call success, but success
in the doing of the will of God.
The sphere of life with which Paul is
concerned primarily.
Now, the strength for which the apostle, please
listen to his words, strengthen you, he says,
with power through his spirit.
Paul uses two different Greek words here in
order to convey the impression of the sheer
sufficiency and the sheer adequacy which Christian people
may have right there in the very center
of our being, in the inner nature.
Strengthened, that is one word of power, strengthened
with a wealth of power, and then the
word power is an entirely different one.
So he brings two words together and they
make quite a combination.
Now let's just analyze this a little.
Paul has in mind here such strength as
makes possible the mastery of ourselves and the
mastery of our circumstances.
And then the God-honoring fulfillment of the
service that he has given to us in
life.
I have previously referred this morning to the
fact that there are certain good works that
God prepared from before the foundations of the
world for you to do, for me to
do.
I may not know yet what some of
them are, you may not know yet what
some of them are, but he's prepared them
for you and he's preparing you for them.
How can I do what God expects me
to do?
Here is the answer.
There is a power of God that can
be communicated into your innermost being that will
make you sufficient to do all that God
requires of you, strengthen you with might through
his Spirit.
A man has not followed far in the
footmarks of our Lord Jesus Christ, ere he
discovers the opposition of Satan and the weakness
of self-will and the subtleties of satanic
powers.
Even so, Paul envisages the possession by every
Christian of such power, notice, in the depths
of your being, in your inner man.
You haven't always got to go to church
to get it.
You haven't always got to run to talk
to your pastor to find it.
You're not dependent upon any man anywhere at
any time.
You're dependent only on God.
In your inner man, in your inner being,
God can deposit such power there that you
have all the resources you need for every
day you're asked to live and every night.
Power in the depths of one's own being.
This wholly adequate power in the inner being
is made possible by the ministry of the
Holy Spirit, through his Spirit.
Now, it's important to note that Paul is
not here thinking of any power innate in
us then, I must repeat this, but rather
he is thinking of a new power which
originates in God and is transmitted to us
by the third person of the Trinity, by
the Holy Spirit.
Paul is not thinking of any alleged natural
capacity that we may have.
He is thinking of that which the Holy
Spirit brings personally into our hearts, into our
lives, into our experience.
In so far as our possessing salvation or
working it out is concerned, actually Paul thinks
that the whole of mankind is terribly weak.
You remember that great word of his in
writing to the Romans?
He says, among other things, that when we
were yet without strength, Christ died for us.
That is the Apostle's view of human nature
as far as capacity to do spiritual things
is concerned.
We are without strength and we could do
nothing to save ourselves and we can do
nothing to perfect ourselves apart from the Spirit
of God.
But here he says, by the Spirit of
God, those who were once without strength can
have all the strength they need to do
all the will of God and all that
he requires of them in their life.
But it comes not from the natural part
that remains in every believer, not from our
fallen natures, but it comes, as Jesus says,
from on high, from on high.
The Spirit's power is conveyed from on high.
Or as Jesus, or as Jesus, that's right,
says in Acts 1.8, I was going
to say Luke says it, but really it's
our Lord's word, when he told his disciples,
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come down upon you.
This is not something we generate ourselves from
within, work ourselves up to a pitch and
say, I've got power.
No, no, no.
This is something that comes down from above,
from a world over which we have no
control.
But coming down from above enters into us
and imparts there what previously we did not
have.
That's the ministry of the Spirit.
Now you may well ask me, well, give
us some illustrations.
What really does the Spirit do there?
What can we expect?
Here are some young Christians and they've perhaps
not had time to read the New Testament
through yet.
Give us some illustrations.
Give us some pictures.
Tell us what can we expect?
Let me read you three short passages.
First of all, the Spirit is responsible for
giving us adequate graces and gifts to do
God's will.
This is a very basic fact.
Whatever God's will is for you, Christian, the
Spirit of God makes himself responsible to give
you the grace and the gift that is
necessary to do God's will.
You say, where does the Scripture tell us
that?
Let me read to you from Paul's letter
to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 4 to 7.
Paul is introducing himself to them and he's
reminding them of certain things about themselves.
He says, I always thank God for you
because of his grace given you in Christ
Jesus, for in him you have been enriched
in every way, in all your speaking and
in all your knowledge, because our testimony about
Christ was confirmed in you.
Therefore, you do not lack any spiritual gift
as you eagerly wait for the Lord Jesus
to be revealed from heaven.
What a remarkable statement.
You don't lack any spiritual gift because you've
been enriched with everything is in Christ.
Christ, you see, is full of all the
plenitude, all the fullness of grace.
Everything that we need is in the Christ
who has been given to us.
That's the portrait.
And having Christ, we have everything, including the
Holy Spirit.
By the ministry of the Spirit, men may
be in every way enriched, in every way
enriched.
That's a quote.
So that they no longer lack any spiritual
gift.
Those words are really breathtaking.
They turn back on me and they say
you have no reason, you have no excuse
to give for your failure this week.
Whether it be in doing this or going
there or whatever, you have no excuse whatsoever
because the Holy Spirit was available to give
you all the necessary power and enabling.
Brothers and sisters, that is true, you know,
of all of us.
When we fall and when we fail, it
means that we despise the power and the
grace that God has put within our reach.
In some way or other, we grieve the
Spirit.
We do not trust Him.
We act as if we had no confidence
in Him.
And it is a grieving thing to do.
It is a sin so to act.
Let me take one step forward.
First of all, the Spirit is responsible for
adequate graces and gifts to do God's will.
Secondly, the Spirit enables the production of prolific
fruit of a manifold nature in the lives
of all those in whom He rules.
You give the Spirit of God His way.
Let Him have control of you.
Hand over your self, body, soul, and spirit
to Him.
Let Him control you.
And this is what will happen.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self
-control.
And against such things as for there is
no law.
You can't go too far.
You can't grow too many of these.
And you can go on growing them and
growing them.
And there is no law against it.
Do as much as you can.
There are some things you shouldn't do too
much of.
But here you can go as far as
you like.
There's a speed limit and you should not
overtake the speed limit.
There are other things that guide us on
the road here.
You shouldn't go through the light when it's
on red.
Some people do.
But as far as growing this fruit of
the Spirit is concerned, you can go as
far as you like and as fast as
you like.
There's no law against it.
God says, hell is the ultimate till you
grow up into the fullness of the stature
of the Man Christ Jesus.
Strange you know, we want to do the
things that God has put a limit to.
We're so slow to do the things that
God says we can do without limit.
Here is one of them.
Cultivate in our lives the fruit of the
Spirit as far as you can and as
fast as you can.
Though remember, fruit doesn't generally grow too fast.
It takes its own time.
Here you can fructify it.
You can get the best circumstances, the best
set of circumstances, the light and various other
things that may help a little.
But ultimately, fruit takes its own time.
First the year, the blade, corn in the
year, etc.
No, no, things take time.
But sooner or later, God has promised this,
the Spirit will do it.
You see, this is the challenge when we're
asked to do things for the Lord.
We say, well I can't do it.
You know, that's quite irrelevant.
If God is calling you to do something,
it doesn't matter two hoots whether you can
do it.
If God is calling you, He will provide
the wherewithal.
He will give you the gift, He will
give you the grace, He will enable you,
and ultimately our enabling is from Him.
I think that the way of growth involves
our accepting the impossible.
I don't meet Christians who have really grown
by just doing the commonplace.
The Christians I notice who grow are those
who face the impossible situation that they cannot
cope with, and they know that, but they
believe God is leading them that way, and
so they go forward with God, knowing they
can't do it.
And they look to Him, and they find
Him faithful.
That's growing.
You see, that's one reason why God allows
many of us to have problems.
We don't trust Him when we And then
when we can't go left, and we can't
go right, and we can't go backwards, just
have to look up.
You see, if we were more obedient to
the Lord, there would be no need for
some of the problems that we have.
Now some of you may think that's heresy.
Well, all right, don't take it too far,
or it may be heresy.
I don't think it's heresy as I said
it.
Paul says so in 1 Corinthians 11, some
of you are sick, he says, and some
of you have died, and if you had
judged yourselves, I wouldn't have had to chastise
you like that, if you had judged yourselves.
That's what I mean.
Now I believe there are many circumstances that
God allows into our lives.
He wouldn't need to allow them, if only
we were obedient and trusting and discovering the
wonders of his sufficiency in the impossible situation.
The third thing I wanted to note here
was this, the Spirit assures the progressive influence
of those thus blessed, so that, it's almost
a baffling and overwhelming word this, our lives
will resemble a life with rivers flowing out
of our inner man, our inner beings.
Jesus said that in John chapter 7.
It was the last day, the great day
of the feast, and Jesus stood and said
in a loud voice, if any man is
thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has
said, streams of living water will flow out
of him, from within him.
By this he meant the Spirit, whom those
who believed in him were later to receive,
up to that time the Spirit had not
been given, since Jesus had not yet been
glorified.
Do you get the point?
Out of him, rivers.
This is influence.
All the world around is arid and desert
-like.
The place where you work, the place where
you live, it's all so difficult.
It's like, it's like uncultivated territory.
There's nothing but weeds all around and sand.
What can you grow there?
Oh, says the Lord Jesus, come and drink
of me, you thirsty one.
Come and drink of my Spirit.
Come and receive of me.
Come and keep on coming.
That's the tense here.
Keep on coming, keep on drinking, keep on
believing, keep on trusting, and I'll fill you
to overflowing.
And what will happen is this, out of
you will flow rivers, rivers, rivers.
That's how God keeps his people going.
He is in them a well of water,
John 4, and out of them rivers.
John said, he's the water of life.
And by the Holy Spirit, he is able
to extend his influence into territories unclaimed, alien
and full of enmity.
He captures and captivates them.
The other thing I wanted to stress this
morning, moving from the might by which Paul
would have believers empowered, I wanted to stress
the measure according to which such might may
be prayerfully sought and expected.
I'm reading this now from the RSV, that
according to the riches of his glory, you
notice that's not in the NIV.
The NIV says, out of the riches of
his glory, according to the riches of his
glory, the RSV, he may grant you to
be strengthened with might through his Spirit in
the inner man.
Now what I want to bring out of
that is something which is to my mind
absolutely central to Paul's thinking here, namely the
immensity of the power that is available for
each of us and for all of us
who are God's people.
It is just incredible.
You cannot take it in until you begin
to experience it.
The imponderably immense power of God that Christians
may draw upon and actually experience in the
outworking of their salvation in this world.
The Apostle Paul was tremendously impressed both by
the power of God in giving birth to
the gospel, giving us the gospel, the power
of God's mind in thinking about it, the
power of God's will in deciding and choosing,
the power of God's love, the power of
God's goodness, the power of God's persistence, the
power of God's righteousness, and so forth.
Paul was very impressed by the power that
gave us the gospel, that sent forth his
Son to do what was necessary to do
that we might be saved.
But so was Paul equally impressed by the
power that came into our lives through the
gospel.
And here in this particular passage before us
this morning, he just is flooding over with
it.
He doesn't know quite how to get it
across.
He doesn't use normal language here.
You remember how he says in Romans 1
16, I am not ashamed of the gospel
because it is the power of God for
salvation to everyone who believes.
Moreover, the gospel which originated in the omnipotent
power of God has brought its incalculable resources
into the life of every believer.
And as we walk in obedience and by
faith, these things are ours to discover.
Now, Paul, what are you saying about the
measure of this power?
Negatively and positively, there are certain things to
notice here with these I close.
Negatively, the measure of spiritual power available for
Christians is reflected by the terms the apostle
did not use.
He put them all on one side.
There are certain ways in which you would
have expected Paul to express what he says
here.
New Greek people can read it over again.
Always good to have the Greeks with us.
You can read this over and you will
be able to say what others have said
before you that there are various alternatives that
you would expect Paul to choose, but he
didn't choose them.
Take one or two examples.
Early in this chapter, Paul describes the sheer
wonder of the fact that to him, the
very least of all the saints, the grace
and privilege have been given of preaching among
the Gentiles what he calls the unsearchable riches
of God.
That's chapter 3 and verse 8.
Even so, he does not hear pray that
God would empower believers according to the riches
of Christ.
He doesn't do that.
Unsearchable though they are, immediately before that, if
you go back to the beginning of the
chapter, Paul traced the privilege of being made
a servant of the gospel to quote the
working of his power and another quote to
the gift of God's grace again, his unmerited
favor.
Paul traced both his salvation and his calling
then as a servant of God.
He traced everything to grace, the unsearchable grace
of God.
Even so, Paul does not pray that God
will empower believers in the inner man according
to the grace of God, even according to
the riches of the grace of God.
Well, how does he pray then?
What does he ask?
Well, positively, listen, that he may grant you
according to the riches of his glory, to
be strengthened with might by his spirit in
the inner man, according to the riches, not
of his grace, wonderful as that would have
been, but his glory.
Mark those words, not the riches of his
grace, but the riches of his glory.
You say, what's the difference?
Great and wonderful as God's grace may be,
it is infinitely less than his glory.
It is but one aspect of his manifold
glory.
It is less than his glory.
Grace is but one aspect of God's perfection.
Glory is the perfection of all the attributes
of God functioning in their perfection and casting
forth their luster in concert.
God's glory is the luster which is the
result of all his perfections shining together like
all the colors in the rainbow.
Grace is but one of them.
And in praying for power for the saints
in their innermost beings, the apostle pleads that
it should be in a manner, notice, that
is in accordance with God's glory.
Consistent with his glory, not just with his
grace.
And I say two things very briefly.
Paul does not ask that God would bless
his people then with power even out of
the riches of his glory.
Now that's why the NIV is incorrect there.
Contrary to what some of the translations as
well as the NIV really do, there is
no preposition in the text which means out
of.
None at all.
It's not found in the Nessl text from
which most of us work these days.
Paul is not simply asking that God would
put his hand into the divine treasury and
bring out something out of his riches in
glory.
That's not the point.
And the reason is not far to go.
Why?
Well you see, now I don't know you
good people, many of you, some of you
may be richer than others.
And assuming that there was a beggar coming
into the church today asking for something, now
we might all put our hands into our
pockets and we might all bring out a
dollar.
And I'm sure a beggar would be very
pleased if he got a dollar from each
one of us.
Now each one of us would have given
a dollar out of our riches.
But there may be a millionaire here.
Though he would have given out of his
riches, he would not have given according to
his riches.
He wouldn't have given in a manner consistent
with his riches, or he would have given
out of it, but not according to it.
And what Paul is praying is this, you
see, that God would not simply put his
hand into the treasury of heaven and bring
out a gift and pour it upon his
people, period.
No, no, he says, I'm asking for something
more.
Oh God of glory, he says, put your
hand in your treasury and bring out something
that is consistent with your glory.
Something that will manifest the greatness of your
grace and the wonder of your power and
the eternity of your resources.
Hallelujah, isn't it?
This is the grace of God.
And you and I, brother and sister, and
if there's somebody doubting it, it's to you
especially, poor doubter you may be.
Listen, for you this morning, this is a
word of God, that according to the riches
of his glory, he is able to make
grace and power available to you in your
innermost being.
You can go out into a new week,
and you can go back to your home,
and you can go wherever you're going in
the name of the Lord, in obedience to
his will you may go, and you can
be assured of this, he cannot fail you.
Oh glorious Pentecost, oh blessed day of celebration
of that which happened 2,000 years ago.
Yeah, but this of a beginning of realization
that the Spirit who came in all the
plenitude of the fullness of the Godhead is
with his people still, and is able to
make us competent servants of the living God
in the most decadent age that ever was.
And he can do that for you, and
he can do that for me.
Will you go out from this service this
morning then, not so much looking at your
own failures?
Good to remember them sometimes to humble us,
but don't remember them so often that they
incapacitate you.
But if God has forgiven them, and the
blood of Jesus has cleansed them, and you've
come to realize that God has given you
provision not to go that way again, the
way of failure, then this is where your
eyes and mind should be focused.
Look away, this is God's gold standard, to
live in the power of the Spirit, to
the glory of God, and thus be able
to say someday with awe, I've finished the
course, I've kept the faith, what God bad
me do I've done, now I'm ready.
Lord, call me yonder when you will.
Let us pray.
Oh heavenly Father, we bow humbly and gratefully
before you now, in acknowledgement of the fact
that the kind of good news that we
have been announcing this morning is no figment
of the imagination.
Oh Lord, it would make a wonderful story
even if it were not true.
Thousands upon thousands would want to read something
of this kind amidst the jungle of stuff
that is brought out of the secular press
today.
But blessed be your name, this is no
mirage, this is no make-believe, this is
true.
So that 2,000 years later, men and
women are living for you and dying for
you, and men and women are discovering in
their lives the freshness of Pentecost and the
hope of the resurrection.
And a thousand churches have been established this
last week again, as on every week this
year, and the one continent of Africa.
Oh Spirit of God, we worship you with
the Father and with the Son today, and
we pray that you will keep us from
grieving you, and quenching you, and lying to
you as they did in the days of
Pentecost even.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh upon
us and feed us with heavenly food.