The fourth of July is my favorite holiday. Any time you have a legal ability to blow things up it’s a good thing. Growing up in a small town we were free to blow up anything we could get our hands on. Many 4th of July mornings I was the first kid out of the house. The problem was old man Cromwell as we affectionately called him lived directly across the street from our house. Mr. Cromwell’s favorite holiday was any day I or one of the other ten kids in town did not bother him.
Can you see the conflict building? Mr Cromwell carried a very long pistol in his overalls. He hung the handle of the gun on the bib of the overalls so we could all see it. Mr. Cromwell was not afraid to whip that pistol out and point it at us kids if we made him mad enough. My dad always told me that the gun was not even loaded, but just having him walk out of his house was enough to make all of us run.
Looking back I think our problem is one we all still face today. Mr. Cromwell and I had a different view of what freedom meant. Mr. Cromwell’s view of freedom was being able to live in peace without kids being noisy and bothering him. My view of freedom was being able to prove that that old man was a curmudgeon who hated life and everything about it. Can you see the tension in our views.
Isn’t that the way our world is today. So many people have a different view of freedom that our tensions build and we grow to dislike or even hate the persons we disagree with.
Freedom is a sticky subject. While we as Americans have more freedom than any other country in the world we complain like we are being herded into train cars to be taken to concentration camps. But doesn’t it work that way? The more freedom we have the more we complain. The more we complain the less freedom it seems like we have. It’s a vicious cycle that we put ourselves into, and I know just as well as anyone how hard it is to get off the complaining roller coaster. Which is why I chose the scripture we read earlier for today.
Paul had a lot to complain about. Paul’s freedom had been taken, years before this letter so he had been in prison for some time. He was in Rome and under house arrest probably chained to something or some one most of the time.
Have you ever felt like that? Maybe, oh let’s say, YOUR JOB? Or maybe just your life in general. You feel trapped and you hate this or you hate your boss or your spouse or your kids. So what do you do? You complain. And God hears every word of it. Think about that for a second. Every time you complain God hears it. He hears everything you say, so he hears your complaint. In His book God Change My Attitude, James MacDonald says this, “God never shrugs off complainers. He deals with them. If you are a chronic complainer, just set your watch: discipline is coming.” How does that make you feel? Made me feel pretty bad, because I am a chronic complainer. In the Old Testament book of Numbers we see how the children of Israel complained. In Chapter 11 it says, “Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the Lord heard everything they said. Then the Lord’s anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp.” God had – had enough. He wanted them to trust Him and all they did was complain.
They complained at the Red Sea and God saved them. They complained because they were thirsty and he gave them water. They complained about not having food, and he gave them food. Then they complained about not having meat. And God had enough he gave them quail to eat, but it came with a plague.
Do you see the pattern? Paul has nothing to lose and everything to gain so he is content with what he had. The Israelites were free and only had to trust in God and all they did was complain.
So lets look at how Paul told the Ephesians to cope. In Ephesians 3:14 the first thing paul says he does is fall to his knees and pray. “My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth.” Remember, this is the guy in prison. This is the guy chained to something at all times and his response is to pray to the creator of the universe during this hardship. But he doesn’t pray for himself, he prays for the Church at Ephesus. He prays that they will have strength, that they will know the full love of Christ, that they will live full lives in Christ. Then he says this, God can do more than you can imagine or ask in your wildest dreams. I think that is his way of saying, “I’m gonna be okay.”
What does Paul say, “First things first.” the first thing you should do is get on your knees before God. Matthew 6 tells us to seek God first and we will have everything else. Our New church name has our mission as well under it Seek God, Serve People, and Share life. So What did he pray for them?
First he prayed that they would have strength. Not physical strength, but an inner strength that would help them get through tough times. Do you know anyone going through a tough time now? Have you prayed for them, or do you just say well it will be okay, God is in control. May be its you that has been kicked in the teeth. Maybe you need a real strength that can only come from God. Maybe you need a little intestinal fortitude to deal with what you are going through now. God can give it to you.
The second thing he prays for is that Christ will continue to grow in them and they will experience his love. Seeking God first is the key to this passage. When you let Christ in he begins to grow and change you as you open up your heart to him. The famous Christian cop-out is, “Well God Made me this way.” Yes he made you, but he loves you too much to leave you like you are. Paul says, “you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.”
The last thing Paul tells them in this part is God can do more than you can ever imagine. Not by being a bully and pushing us around, but by changing us on the inside.
When we complain we don’t put God first. When we put God first, we don’t complain. When we live in the fullness of God, we may not have money, or fame, but we will have a future that never ends.
We have all the freedom in the world today, celebrate by enjoying the fireworks and the kids and the noise. Celebrate with strength and love, and celebrate knowing that God love you very much, and knows what you are going through
About Steve Crenshaw
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