The Fullness of God Dwells Within Us

Ephesians 3:19b

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Will you take a Bible please and turn to Hebrews 2:9, “But we see Jesus, who for a little while was
made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that
by the grace of God he might taste death for every one.

“For it was fitting that he, for whom and by glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation
perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have all one origin.
That is why he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, ‘I will proclaim thy name to my
brethren, in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee.’ And again, ‘I will put my trust in
him.’ And again, ‘Here am I, and the children God has given me.’

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same
nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and
deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage. For surely it is not
with angels that he is concerned but with the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made
like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in
the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has
suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.” May God help us to receive
that into our hearts, amen.

The gospels seem — especially Matthew, and Mark, and Luke seem preoccupied with the historical
figure or the person and what he does in the Palestine area in the first century. And then, of
course, it all changes with John and if you look at it, you’ll see it. The whole thing just is
different, the whole atmosphere. John 1:1, and suddenly he just throws you back on your heels. He
starts not with Jesus was walking in Galilee, and talking to the other people that he knew, but, “In
the beginning…” And he jumps right back to the beginning of everything, and says, “In the
beginning…” And you realize this is somebody that isn’t just focusing his binoculars on that little
area of Palestine; this is someone who’s looking back into eternity and saying, “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

And of course in the other verses you can catch that he’s talking about Jesus. He says, “We have
beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” But the whole atmosphere in which
he speaks of Jesus is different. And I would submit to you that it’s different from the normal
interpretation of Jesus in ‘this’ century and through most of the centuries that we’ve passed.

There is a very, very strong emphasis on Jesus the man, the great teacher in Galilee, the man whose
example we ought to follow. And perhaps it starts with us in Sunday School, I don’t know. But
somehow we catch the idea that Jesus is our example, and that we ought to be like Jesus if we want
to get to Heaven. And that I think is as far as many people get throughout their whole lives. And
of course John just shatters the thing in the next verse. “He was in the beginning with God;” this
man Jesus did not just start in Mary’s womb in 4 or 5 B.C. he was in the beginning with God. He was
with God from the very start. And then verse 3 — we hardly touch it in our language about Jesus
these days and for most days. “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything
made that was made.”

And of course we all know the verse, and we have talked about it often, but still I think there’s a
very strong preoccupation in all of us with Jesus the physical man that lived in the first century
and the things that he did, and there’s a very strong determination in us to see him as over there,
and us over here. And we read that verse, but we still think, “Well yes, but Jesus is there, and
he’s Gods Son, and he lived in the first century, and I have to try to be like him. And when I die
I will go to Heaven and I will meet him. But he is over there and I am over here.” And of course
this verse 3 just shatters that: “All things were made by him and without him was not anything made
that was made.”

And of course the translation of that verse and the next one: It usually is… The Greek really says,
“Anything that was made, was life in him.” That’s the way the Greek reads. “Anything… “ It takes
the last few parts of that clause in verse 3 and it makes it the subject of the verb, ‘was’, in
verse 4. And it runs, “Anything that was made was life in him,” and of course it ties up with what
we have all talked about in Ephesians 2:10 that, “We are God’s workmanship, created ‘in’ Christ
Jesus…” “Created ‘in’ Jesus.”

And yet we are so egotistical; we are so tied to what we can see and touch and feel ourselves that
we keep on thinking of ourselves as separate individuals. Part of it, I do think, is what sin is.
We always think, “Sin is immorality or sin is rebelling against God.” And really sin is
independence. Sin is just thinking of ourselves as outside of God; thinking of ourselves as on our
own. And of course you don’t need me to tell you that all our anxiety comes from that obviously. I
mean, at our worst moments of anxiety we see ourselves alone, with only our own abilities and our
own strength to do anything. And that’s, I think, what the heart of sin is! It’s a separation from
God. It’s seeing ourselves as ‘not’ part of the one in whom we were created.

And so everything, of course, becomes very, very difficult for us: especially verses like this:
Matthew 5:48. It just lays us flat on the ground. We just think it’s utterly unfair! And of
course we ignore it. I mean it’s just horrifying isn’t it, it’s just we just say. “No, no it can’t
be. I mean Christ would not lay that on you. I mean it’s impossible! It’s impossible!” [Reads]
“You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” [We say] “It’s impossible! I
don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know how to expound it. I don’t know how to get out of it.
But it is impossible, and it’s unfair, and it’s not right.”

And we say that ‘all because’ we think of ourselves still as separate from Christ. We think of
ourselves as separate from God and we put ourselves in the position of people who are not really
part of God, trying to be like God.

And of course that’s what this verse that we’re studying today deals with. It’s Ephesians 3:19. If
you look at it, it’s what I call C part of the verse, the last part of the verse if you divide it up
into A, B, and C. And you remember Paul is praying “That you may know the love of Christ which
surpasses knowledge, ‘that’ you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” “…That you may be
filled with all the fullness of God.”

And we have a tendency to say, “That is impossible! It’s a nice thought, but ‘to be filled with all
the fullness of God,’ it is high; I cannot attain to it. It’s impossible; it’s a poetic aspiration
that Paul is expressing, but you can’t be filled with all the fullness of God.”

And I think we think that because we have this old attitude inside ourselves, just a secret mental

conviction that we are ‘little Martha Nelson’, born of her mom, Mrs. Nelson. We are little Ernest
O’Neil born of his mom. We are little Trish Overby born of her mom. And we keep on thinking of
ourselves as just these little people that are born of our human mothers, and we’re part of them,
and we have their characteristics. We’re not part of Jesus; we don’t have his characteristics; we
hardly even know him, and we certainly don’t have his fullness… And yet loved ones, those are all
the things that this dear Word says are true. There’s a verse — you’ll know it when you see it.
Actually it is John 1:16, “And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.” “And from
his fullness have we all received grace upon grace.”

Those of us who love English literature and Wordsworth, it throws us back to old Wordsworth, who has
talked about children being nearer to heaven — of course it wasn’t tapping the depth of
interpretation that scripture has, but he talked about children as being nearer to heaven than the
adult. And he said, “At length the man perceives it die away and fade into the light of common
day.” That is, the glory that he comes with. “And we come trailing clouds of glory.” That’s what
he says, “And we come trailing clouds of glory.” And so he in some way saw, in, presumably, the
light that God gave him, that we actually come from something that is filled with glory, and we’re
trailing clouds of glory behind us. And you see it in us when we’re little children. There’s a
brightness, and a lightness, and a clarity in our perception. And that is because we have taken and
partaken of the fullness of Christ.

And that’s why Jesus says, “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Not because we can do
it on our own, living in the lie that we’re separated from him, but because we are part of him, and
because from Jesus we have received some of his fullness, and the fullness of God that dwelt in
Jesus is coming to us through the Holy Spirit, and that we are meant to be filled with the fullness
of God. And that’s what the verse says, “That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

And you, I think, can see very well that if you don’t rise into the wonder and the beauty and the
infinity of that, life sinks back into self. And I’m sure you’ve noticed; I’ve seen it very
clearly. We sink back into a manipulated surrender where we’re still surrendered, we’re still
filled with the Spirit, we’re still crucified with Christ, but we actually run our own lives, and
are preoccupied with our own lives, and are limited by our human powers. And we settle into a
complacent — really it’s a half surrendered life, but it’s a complacent controlled life that has
nothing of the wonder and the beauty and the infinity of the Holy Spirit. And this is why this Dear
Word says, “We’re to be filled with the fullness of God.”

And from Jesus we receive that fullness. And of course when you or I think of Jesus we don’t only
think of “the Lord of life as he goes meekly by.” We don’t only think of Jesus walking down the
highways of the road and of the earth, but we see him looking on each situation and each person, and
filled with his Fathers love and desire for them, and filled with an absolute confidence, when he
comes to a difficult situation that, of course his Father has already solved it, and its easy. And
so he is filled with the fullness of God and the confidence of God as he walks through life, and
that’s what he has for us.

Why? Because to avoid it you have to jump out of him. To avoid having the attitude of Jesus, you
have to jump out of him. That’s what we do. That’s what we do. “Stop the world I want to get
off.” We get off. We get off at all kinds of moments; we get off. You can know it; I mean, I know
it: anxiety, worry, tension, irritability, they’re all… There’s just an angel tapping on the
shoulder and saying, “You’re off; you got off; you’ve got off; you have jumped out.” Because if you
remain in Christ you receive of his fullness constantly, and you move with his dignity, and you move

with his optimism.

But see, I think there’s a great tendency for you even, or me, as we hear that and say, “Oh yes, I
want to do that. I must start moving with his optimism. Yes I must, I must keep myself up. I must
avoid…” No, no, no you mustn’t do anything. You just receive of his fullness, just be what you
are. You’re part of the Savior. That to me is the exciting thing.

If you say, “Do you not think we’re a remarkable bunch?” Yes, I do think you’re a remarkable bunch,
but I don’t think you’re really a remarkable bunch. I think your remarkable bunch, because you do
see that this is what we’re meant to be, and you do want to be that. And I think you’re remarkable
in that Jesus, the Savior, has a life that he has planned to live through Greg Leitschuh, that he
has not planned to live through anybody else. And he has a life that he has planned to live through
Martha Nelson that he has not planned to live through anybody else. I think that’s what makes our
lives exciting. I think that’s what makes them exciting, that Jesus is creating something in each
one of us that he has not created in anybody else; that he is pouring his fullness into us so that
it will be expressed. And if it isn’t expressed through us that particular fullness will never be
expressed.

And I think there’s a strong voice inside you that says, “Well very nice pastor, that’s very —
that’s a very nice thought. I wish it were true. Of course I am just an ordinary little
character…” No, that is the truth. You and I were each one of us created in Jesus and we have
received of his fullness and he wants us to continue to receive it increasingly day by day.

Sometimes I’ll say to Martha Nelson, and I’ll say to myself, and sometimes my wife says to me,
“Don’t exhort, don’t exhort. You exhort! Exhort!” Where we’re always anxious for everybody to do
better, and we’re trying to encourage everybody to do better. And I think to myself, “Yeah that is
right. There’s something wrong with that. There’s something ‘full of self effort’ about that.
There’s something of ‘living for a cause’ in that, that is not right.” Yes, that’s right. And yet
somehow I think, “But the other isn’t right either: just, “Here I am a lump of lead. I am what I
am; take me as I am; I’m not going to change. This is it; I don’t have any yearning beyond; I’m
just satisfied with where I am.” There’s something not right about that.

You can see, you can see what is God’s way: “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after
righteousness for they shall be filled.” It’s wanting, yearning, receiving, increasingly the
fullness of Christ. That’s what it is: always wanting more of a fullness of Christ; and not wanting
necessarily to ‘be’ like Wigglesworth [Smith Wigglesworth, 1859 – 1947, British evangelist], but to
‘be’ like Wigglesworth [Pastor laughs at the paradox and thinking of Wigglesworth’s amazing
confidence in God]. To walk down the… filled with Jesus confidence that sickness has no place
here on God’s earth; filled with his [God’s] confidence in every situation, that God was at that
very moment solving that.

Receiving increasingly of the fullness of Jesus, walking more and more a supernatural life, being
perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Not hiding behind your little barricade and saying, “We
can’t be perfect, you know, we’re just poor old sinful human beings.” Yes we are [that], on our
own. But ‘inside Jesus’ we are filled with the fullness of God.

Let’s pray.

Blessed Lord, we thank you that your resolution is to walk this earth in each one of us, and to do

what you promised: that we would do more and greater works than those that were done in the first
century, because you will do them yourself, in us and through us. Oh Lord, we would look up to you
today and say, “Yes Lord, even so come Lord Jesus and fill me with the fullness of your Father with
which you have been filled, and walk fully and completely yourself, and do and say the things in me
and through me that you alone can do and say.”