Sermon Tone Analysis

Some of you have felt it.

It’s frustrating; it’s bewildering; it’s a transparent moment when the truth dawns and the answer is not at all what you had expected.

It happened to me behind a lawn mower.

O it had happened before and it has certainly happened since.

This time just sticks out in my mind.

Since I wasn’t old enough to drive (but old enough to cut grass) my father had taken me over to the church to mow the lawn.

Now he wasn’t being cruel; I got paid $5 to do it.

Big money for me back then.

But this wasn’t just any drive.

On the way he had a little discussion with me about my attitude and my behavior.

He pulled his trump card on me; the thing he always used to get me.

I don’t know exactly how he said it, but the gist of it was that a Christian should not have the kind of attitude I had been having.

Well, how do you answer that?

I had to admit in my own heart that he was right, but I also knew that he didn’t know the pressure and the temptation I had been dealing with.

I didn’t dare tell him either because I didn’t want to invite even more scrutiny, but as we arrived and started unloading the lawn mower, I remember looking at him and making this statement.

It was that transparent moment of frustration and bewilderment I mentioned.

From the bottom of my heart I meant it.

I looked at him and said, “When it comes to the Christian life, Dad, I just can’t live it.”

Have you ever felt that way?

I would dare say that every person sitting in this room who has genuinely tried to live for God has been there.

After a real effort, you have been to that frustrating place where you discover, “I just can’t live it.”

NEED

Some of you may be saying that today.

You feel like your Christian life is nothing but a failure.

If that’s you, can I just tell you that “I just can’t live it” people usually fall into one of three groups.

There are those who “just can’t live it” because they have no desire to live it.

Their desire is non-existent.

To them, the Christian life is a big question mark.

While they may somewhat admire people who call themselves Christians and live it, they walk away from their conversations with them scratching their heads and asking one question: “Why are these people putting themselves through all this?

What’s the point of trying to live so “perfectly.”

While I admire their consistency, I have to question their sanity.”

If that’s you this morning, I am concerned.

You see, one characteristic of someone who is on their way to heaven is this: They want to live like they belong in Heaven.

They may not always get there, but they desire it to be so.

If you really don’t have any desire to “live it,” there’s probably a real good reason.

You’re not alive.

You’ve never experienced the new birth.

And then there are those of us who have some desire this morning, but we lack it in some very key areas.

For instance, they may know that God wants them to study His Word and spend a significant time in prayer, but they don’t do it and, as much as they may say it is, it isn’t because they don’t have time.

It’s that they really don’t want to do it.

They may be saved, but their desire is very weak.

Now that’s where some of us are this morning, but certainly not all of us.

The majority of us are believers and we do have a desire to “live it.”

But between our desire and our life is huge gap that seems unbridgeable.

We echo the Apostle Paul when he said in Romans 7:19–20 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.

20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

We have a desire, but we lack the ability to carry out that desire.

We just can’t live it because we have not appropriated God’s ability to live it

Now here’s what I know about you, regardless of the category within which you fit.

If you are living beneath the holiness to which God has called you, you lack joy.

But I’m not telling you anything you didn’t already know.

You’ve sensed the lack of real joy in your life and you already know that you are often walking around in spiritual failure.

What you need isn’t as much diagnosis as treatment.

I want to tell you the answer this morning.

You need grace.

Now as soon as I say that, you may be disappointed.

You might have thought that I was about to offer some innovative solution that you haven’t thought of yet.

But . .

.Grace?

Really?

Isn’t that what you receive in your salvation?

Well, yes that is a part of the concept of grace, but the concept goes much deeper than this.

Strongs dictionary defines it like this: the divine influence upon the heart, and its reflection in the life.

Someone else has defined it as God’s “enabling desire.”

As Life Action puts it, Grace is the dynamic quality of God that gives us the desire and the power to obey.

Now may I ask you, if you are one of those joyless, “I can’t live it” Christians, isn’t this what you need?

You need the desire and the power to obey.

Our question, then becomes, how?

How do we receive the desire and the power to obey God.

I think that our text has part of the answer.

Ephesians 3:14 begins:

14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

You see, whatever the reason for your failure, there is a process by which a Christian can receive both the desire and the power to obey God.

It is a product of Grace and it follows a process.

In fact, “process” is a good word to describe what happens in the life of a “next level” Christian.

There is a process of change that transforms tired “I just can’t live it” Christians into next level believers, and if your life is to change, you must embrace that process.

In verses 16 and 17 this process is described and you can break that process down into 3 steps that every believer must take if they are to allow God to work that process in them.

The first step is this: You can embrace this process of change if you

DIVISION 1: REALIZE THE PLACE OF THE PROCESS.

EXPLANATION:

Paul is very clear in describing that place for us.

Notice in v. 16 he says that he is praying that God would strengthen them “in the inner man.”

You may say, “Well, Paul may have been clear about the place of this process, but what in the world does he mean when he says “inner man?”

Well, some would call this inner man the “soul” of man.

It is that part of us that is conscious of a reality that is hidden from our natural, “outer” senses.

It is that part of us that senses the eternal when we see a beautiful sunset, or seems to breathe a little more deeply when it hears a bubbling brook.

Martin Lloyd Jones, speaking of this passage, describes the inner man as the connecting point between the mind, the will, and the heart.

And when Paul prays that the inner man be strengthened, he is actually praying a prayer for all three of these areas.

He says that the mind needs to be strengthened because we are constantly assailed by doubts and fears by our enemy, the devil.

It is also true because the unsearchable riches of Christ can never be comprehended without divine help.

He goes on to say that the heart needs to be strengthened: In our own power, the fears that beset us and the circumstances we encounter will cause us to imagine or even plan all kinds of escape or evil in our hearts.

We are fatally vulnerable if God does not strengthen our inner man.

This strength affects the mind and the emotions, and it also affects the will.

The very minute we are honest with ourselves, we discover that when it comes to saying yes to righteousness and no to evil, we are weak indeed!

Furthermore, we find that the more we try to make ourselves strong enough to do right, the harder it seems to become.

“I cannot make myself strong.

I cannot put this ‘iron’ into the walls of my soul; no matter what I do I fail.

But Paul is promising that, in the middle of this struggle, God is strong, and He can “ . . .

strengthen us in the inner man.”

The inner man is the place of this process.