"In the Lord..."

Text: Ephesians 1:15-23

Focus: Thanksgiving

Function: To help people boast in the Lord and none other.

Form: Storytelling

Intro: Brother Paul shares with the Ephesians his encouragement by their faith.

This is a prayer of thanksgiving.

It reminds me of a story.

My first ever ministry was on the streets in the ghetto area of Atlantic City, New Jersey.

We planted a Church there in the midst of some crushing poverty.

All around the neighborhood, these Casinos worth hundreds of millions of dollars were being erected.

The People of Atlantic City voted them in, but then, because of the rules of the New Jersey Gaming Commission, most of them did not qualify for employment there.

And, we were caring for the poor in the midst of abject poverty.

Property values were skyrocketing, so landowners were selling houses out from under tenants.

It was desperate.

And it was a great learning experience for me.

I saw the power of greed destroy a community.

But in the middle of that community, that community of poor people, I saw God do great things.

The first week, we showed up in a broken glass littered playground. I played a tambourine, and Randy, my mentor, played a guitar.

We started singing praises to God and pretty soon, a crowd came to see what was up.

One family really stuck out in my mind.

Mary, and her son Johnny.

Johnny was hit by a car when he was a toddler and he had a metal plate in his head.

The settlement kept Mary in her house.

But she was a wreck.

She came slowly to see what was going on.

I can still picture her rounding the corner of row houses and looking at us.

The neighborhood turned to greet her.

She was sort of a matriarch.

We shared the love of God with those people and promised that we would be back the next week.

Mary asked us to pray for her. She had terrible problems with her legs.

Next week came, we started singing and the crowd came, almost running to us.

The atmosphere was electric!

We were dumbfounded.

Then Mary came.

She walked normally without the use of her cane.

Her nephew explained to us that the excitement came from Mary.

She had been crippled her entire adult life.

And Monday, she was better.

Her only explanation was this: “Two men from God came yesterday and prayed for me. And now I am better.”

We were dumbfounded.

But God loves the poor. God loved Mary. God saw the misery of that community and came down to them.

The ministry continued for 3 years. One day Mary called us in a panic.

She asked us to come and pray again. This time for her son, Johnny.

Social services were going to “evaluate” him and her home to see if she was a fit mother.

Describing Johnny is not easy.

He wasn't slow, but he had problems.

I don't know who to blame. And blaming people is useless, it doesn't solve problems.

I worked in the neighborhood for a general contractor and ran across them, and the other people from the ministry on a regular basis.

It was nothing to see Johnny, at 8:00 AM drinking a huge soda.

The playground we ministered in was strewn with broken glass.

But Johnny had thick soles. He, and the rest of the kids, would run across it barefooted all the time.

And Johnny loved to get attention. We would be preaching, singing, praying or something and he would ride his bike right in the middle of the crowd. Sometimes he would run into an observer. He was very distracting.

And I love the poor. No one hated him. He was just “the kid with the metal plate in his head.”

But he sort of annoyed me.

I wonder how much better our ministry would have been had we lived in that community?

So, we went to pray for the family on a Tuesday night.

And something strange happened while we prayed.

Johnny sat still. He actually sat through the prayers while we laid our hands on him and Mary.

And then, in all seriousness, he said: “I have a prayer request to!. Will you pray that I do better in school?”

Hope Church, forgive me for being judgmental.

God knows that I need patience.

I said to Johnny: “If you sit still, listen to your teachers, pay attention, you will do better in school.”

Hope Church, forgive me for judging him.

I wish I was perfect. But alas, I am not.

Johnny said: “I know, I know!. But prayers can help me to? Can't they?”

What faith!

So, of course, we prayed that Jesus would help Johnny in school.

Thursday evening Mary called us with so much excitement that it took us 5 minutes to calm her down enough to explain what had happened.

Johnny was blind in his right eye from the car accident.

And all of a sudden, his vision as 20-20!

He rode his bike into people, in the middle of the crowd and performed poorly in school mainly because he was legally blind.

(Look up to heaven) God, forgive me, forgive us, our propensity to judge others.

As I mentioned, this ministry was a partnership with Randy, who was one of my mentors.

I knew that my role in the work was faith.

I was there, as Barnabbas was to Paul, to encourage him.

I had a lot of stories of faith and answered prayers from the way my dad lived his life before us during my childhood.

My job was to encourage him.

When it seemed that Randy was secure in his position, the church plant was going well, Kathy and I were led by God for me to complete more formal education. So, we left there to attend Bible College and Seminary.

And a second, profound event happened on the move to college.

My twin brother came out to help us.

To save money, instead of the toll road, we chose to take Highway 30 across Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Rush hour traffic around Akron was thick. It was dusk; vision was difficult. It was raining hard and all of a sudden there was a traffic accident somewhere ahead of us.

My brother was driving the rental truck. When someone stops short, there is this sort of chain reaction in traffic because every successive car behind them has less time to slow down.

By the time it got to my brother, who was ahead of us, it was a panic stop without enough room.

The road, being wet, was slick. He turned the wheel to avoid the cars in front of him and the truck went into a sideways spin.

Disaster loomed. But he missed the cars.

The cars behind us missed us.

It was frightening. I think it was another miracle.

And my twin brother did something bizarre.

Traffic was stopped.

In the midst of this heavy rainstorm he jumped out of the truck.

And I can still picture him. He shouted: “My soul shall boast in the Lord of Hosts!”

Paul's prayer in todays lesson is that the Church would be strengthened in the providence of Christ.

My lesson, in all of this is that our boasting is in the Lord.

This is Thanksgiving week.

At times, I wonder if it is our most important, or most Christian holiday.

It is still a commanded holiday.

Not the specific date of it.

But the purpose.

I have a child who repented to me a couple of years ago.

He said this to me: “Dad, whenever something goes wrong, I get angry at God and blame God. But whenever something goes right, somehow, I forget to thank God. Why is it so easy for us to do this?”

Well, pride is human nature.

One of the passages that sticks out to me the most in the Old Testament comes from Deuteronomy 8: 17-18.

It is sort of a Thanksgiving story.

During the harvest time.

Or during the time when the people finally feel safe and secure, God reminds them to do this:

¹⁷Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” ¹⁸But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth,

It reminds me that even the strength to succeed is a blessing from God.

So, let our boasting be; “In the Lord.”

God is able!

God is good!

God is invested in our success!