Look What God is Able to Do!
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Author: Professor Noah Headrick
Passage: Ephesians 3:14-21
Date: January 19, 2025
To him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
to him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Really? God can do immeasurably more than all I can ask or imagine? It doesn’t look like that.
I had that Powerball ticket in my hand. I prayed like I’ve never prayed before. None of my numbers matched! No money. I didn’t even win my two dollars back. What gives? If God isn’t able to give me a billion-dollar Powerball payout, which I can totally ask and imagine, how is he able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine (3:20)?
Well, let’s look closer at what God actually says in all these verses. Look what God is able to do! God’s power and ability are limitless, but sometimes God chooses to limit what he gives us based on his love. And that’s where Paul starts – God’s love.
For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (3:14-17).
Paul is praying for Jesus to dwell in the hearts of the Ephesians – to permanently reside in them so he can influence every choice they make, every word they speak, and every thought they think. In other words, he’s praying for their faith to be strong and mature.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (3:17-19).
What is Paul begging God for here? What is he hoping and praying his people grasp? The love of Christ. The enormous, humongous, gigantic love of Jesus Christ for us.
And when you step back and take it all in, it is amazing. Think of what we were, what we are, and how much God loves us anyway. Earlier in Ephesians Paul wrote, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins; all of us gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts” (2:1, 3).
All of us have been there. Some of you are still there. You do what you want. If you desire it, you pursue it. You don’t think much about what God wants because you’re too busy thinking about what you want. God’s will? God’s glory? That’s not even on your mind.
And yet, even then, if you ask God, “How much do you love me?” he will show you. Look what God is able to do! God came to earth. God himself – Jesus Christ – wore our skin.
Jesus took the burden of your sin into that skin. God nailed that skin, with your sin, to a tree. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Who could have asked for that?
God’s perfect plan, to give us perfection through a perfect Substitute, was completed when he raised that perfect Substitute from the dead. Who could have imagined that?
Look what God is able to do! He raised Jesus from the dead! Water to wine? Child’s play for Jesus. Jesus raises the dead! Give you everything you need for your body and your life? Of course. God raises the dead!
Look what God is able to do! Nowhere is that more evident than in the wide and long and high and deep (3:18) love of Christ, who lived and died and rose for you!
“Alright Pastor, I get it. Jesus’ love is big. But shouldn’t love give whatever is asked for?”
Well, if you ask for a billion-dollar Powerball payout, is that what’s best for you? “Obviously!” Maybe, but maybe God knows better than you do. Plenty of lottery winners have had their lives ruined by it.
Conversely, plenty of people with cancer have said, “Getting cancer was one of the best things that happened to me, because it taught me to ‘rely on God, who raises the dead’ (2 Corinthians 1:9).” Maybe God knows better than we do.
Maybe that’s why Paul prays for spiritual maturity, because immaturity is a problem. Spiritual immaturity makes us pray for the wrong things or stop asking for good things.
You give up praying for your children to turn around, because you’ve asked enough, and if God wanted it to happen, he would have done it. Or my sinful nature tells me, “I’ve talked to my new neighbor six times. Jesus has come up. He doesn’t seem interested. It’s not worth it. God can’t really do anything anyway.”
Sometimes we live like sinful pessimists, and we don’t need to. Look what God is able to do: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us (3:20).
It’s hard to convey the power of God that this verse shows, immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). Our God is able to go above and beyond anything we could ever ask him for, anything we could ever dream up.
Look what God is able to do in the big things, like taking away your sins. The miracles of water and Word washing away sin, bread and wine giving the body and blood of Christ? Above and beyond all you ask or imagine!
Look what God is able to do in the little things, like the blessings you have just in being and breathing. Above and beyond all you ask or imagine!
So keep on asking big! Keep on thinking big! Who could have bigger, more audacious goals than a Christian? Who could be a bigger optimist than someone who follows the Son of God who rose from the dead? Ask big! Think big! God’s love and power are such that you can never ask too much.
All this he does according to his power that is at work within us (3:20). Hold on, wait a minute. The power that created the universe is working in you? The power that put your sins on your Savior, the power that raised him from the dead is working in you? Yes!
And this is not just power for power’s sake; this power of God is working in you, energizing you. Look what God is able to do! God is keeping you in the faith. God is keeping stubborn sinful me close to Jesus. That power is working in you!
With that kind of power on our side, power that is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20), we will want to ask for more. Don’t stop praying for your kids, even if they haven’t been to church in ten years. Look what God is able to do!
Don’t stop thinking big! How many people will God bring to your congregation to hear the gospel in 2025? Think, ask, pray big! That’s connecting to God’s power. How many students will learn about the gospel in your school in 2025? Think, ask, pray big!
Of course, we can’t say that God has to make our churches and schools bigger. Maybe he has other plans. But look what God is able to do, look what God has promised to do – immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). So pray for great things.
Martin Luther described it like this: “What would you think, if the richest and mightiest king in the world summons a poor beggar, tells him to ask for whatever he wants, and is ready to give this guy great, kingly gifts, but the fool just asks him for a cup of soup? You’d think the guy was an idiot, who never should have been there in the first place, because he treated the promise of his king like a joke!
“In the same way, it is a great shame and dishonor to God if we – to whom he promises immeasurable treasures – despise those treasures or don’t have the confidence to ask for them” (adapted from Large Catechism 3:57).
God gives us some pretty energizing verses here. Don’t let them go to waste. Ask big. Think big. Pray big, trusting God’s power and recognizing that God gives what he knows is best for us, better than we know ourselves.
Imagine if we all had this attitude, confidence that Godis able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (3:20). Look what God is able to do! What’s left for us to do? Think big, pray big, expect bigger. What’s left to say?
To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen (3:21).
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