Alright, brethren, let's turn
to Ephesians 3. Ephesians 3. Let's begin reading
in verse 14. Ephesians 3.14 Paul says, for this cause, I
bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of
whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. And now he's
about to come to the specific things that he is asking God
to give to the believers at Ephesus. Now, notice Paul doesn't speak
here things that he's asking for himself. He's not asking
God to deliver him from prison. He's not asking for their physical,
material, or financial well-being. He doesn't ask that they themselves
would be spared from persecution. His petition is entirely for
what is truly needful. What is truly needful. You know,
whatever God does in those other things I just mentioned, we could
do with it or do without it. But these things that we're going
to see here, these are the things that are needful. This is what's
needful. I've titled this, Four Great
Needs. Here's the first thing, verse
16, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory, To
be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That's the first thing. To be
strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Here's
the second thing, verse 17. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. That Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith. And here's the third thing. that
you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend
with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height,
and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. And
here's the fourth thing. This is the reason, and this
is the fourth thing needed, that you might be filled all the fullness
of God. Now, first of all, believers
need to be strengthened by God's Spirit in the inner man. He says
there in verse 16 that he would grant you, according to the riches
of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the
inner man. And if we're going to have any
blessing from God, it's going to be the gift of God. the gift
of God. He says that He would grant you. Now, Paul is speaking to believers.
And let me ask you, believer, what do you have that you did
not receive of God? What do you have that was not
freely given to you by the sovereign free grace of God? Every spiritual
blessing that believers have were granted to us from God. Every single one. It's a gift
of His free grace. Everything God has given us.
We're only sinners. We're sinners. We don't merit
anything. We don't deserve anything. We
lost any right and any privilege when we sinned in Adam. In the
first representative, he was in a holy environment, without
sin, made upright, free to do as he will. And he was our representative. And we died in him. And we come
forth with our will being in bondage to our nature, so that
we do what our nature dictates that we shall do. We're in bondage
to that nature. Well, I feel like I can get up
and do what I want to, just like a prisoner in a cell. You can
get up, you can move around within the confines of that cell, but
you can't break out of that prison. Christ is the one who comes and
says to the prisoners, go forth. He's the one who breaks the bars.
He's the one that breaks the chains. He's the one that sets
the shackled prisoner free. God's very glory is, I will be
gracious to whom I'll be gracious. He told Moses, when Moses asked
to see His glory, He said, I'll be gracious to whom I will be
gracious. God gave all to His people before
He even made this world. He granted to us, Ephesians 1,
3 says, He blessed us with all spiritual blessing. That means
He granted to us, He gave to us all spiritual blessing according
as He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
And everything that we've ever received from God has been His
gift. This inner man spoken of here,
this inner man is given by God. This inner man. It's not a mental,
fleshly man. We're not born with this man.
We don't come forth from our mother's womb with this man,
he's talking about. We're not born the first time
with this inner man. This is the man he's talking
about. Look at Ephesians 4.24. Here's the man he's talking about.
Ephesians 4.24, "...put on the new man, which after God is created."
in righteousness and true holiness. That's the man we're talking
about. Peter said in 1 Peter 3, 4, the inner man is the hidden
man of the heart in that part which is not corruptible. If
there's something in you and something in me that's not corruptible,
God put it there. It's the workmanship of God.
It's being born of His incorruptible seed. That's where that ornament
of a meek and quiet spirit is, which in the sight of God is
of great price. This inner man, this new creature,
this new creation, this new heart is created in us by God the Holy
Spirit in regeneration. In the inner man, we're given
a willing heart. We're given a willing heart.
You mean I have to be given a will to come to Christ? We have to
be given a will to come to Christ. Yes, sir. We have to be given
a will. If I could come to Him of my
own will, you know what I could boast in? My will. And God's
not going to share His glory with another. He has to make
us willing in the day of His power. That's a gift. That's
His gift. God gives us an understanding
of divine things in the inner man. The natural man receives
not the things of God. They're spiritually discerned.
He can't know them because they're spiritually discerned. But God
gives us spiritual discernment in the inner man. He gives us
a discernment of things freely given to us of God. You see,
everything is the gift of God. The affections that we have for
Christ, the new love that we have for the gospel and for Christ
and for the accomplished redemption that He worked out for His people.
This is given to us of God. The natural man, the carnal man,
is enmity against God. He's not just at enmity against
God, He is enmity against God. That's what He is, is enmity
against God. So we don't have anything to
boast of. All things are granted to us from God. And we must ask
God to continue, in His Spirit, to grant us, to give to us, to
continually give to us. We're dependent. We're dependent
upon God. And look at this, if Paul asks
that this strength be given to us, verse 16, according to the
riches of his glory. According to the riches of his
glory. According to God's spiritual wealth. You know, sometimes we,
in our unbelief, in our fleshly view of things, we get to acting
like God's too poor to give to us, or that He doesn't have the
riches to give to us, or like he's going to exhaust those riches.
God's all fullness. He's all fullness. For those
that God chose in Christ, redemption. Full, full, free, accomplished
redemption from the curse of the law. Complete and total forgiveness
of sins. You know how it came? Look at
Ephesians 1, 7. Ephesians 1, 7. In whom we have
redemption. through His blood, the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of His grace." Riches of His
grace. Look at Ephesians 1.18. The riches
of His glory is the inheritance of every believer. Ephesians
1.18, Paul prayed, "...the eyes of your understanding being enlightened,
that you may know what is the hope of His calling, and what
the riches, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the
saints." He tells us in Colossians 1.27, the riches of the glory
is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The very reason God calls
each of His elect is to show us these riches. Look at Ephesians
2.7. We were dead in trespasses and sin. walking under the power
of the Prince of the air. We were children of wrath even
as others. But God, but God in His mercy, He called us, He quickened
us when we were dead in our sins. Here's why, verse 7, that in
the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace
and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. Paul calls them
in Ephesians 3, in verse 8, he calls them the unsearchable riches
of Christ. the unsearchable riches of Christ. So brethren, don't ever imagine,
don't ever enter into any kind of doubt that God is somehow
unable to provide for His people exactly what we need. Paul said
in Philippians 4.19, My God shall supply all your need, all your
need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. And then look back in our text
at Ephesians 3, Paul asks that According to the riches of His
glory, we be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner
man. This word that's translated might
here is the word that we would, in our English language, would
say dynamite. That's the word, dynamite. With
His might, by His dynamite. It's the same word Paul used
when he said, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for
it is the power, it is the dynamite of God unto salvation to everyone
that believes it." Now, this might, this dynamite, this power
which strengthens the inner man, look at what it is. It is God's
Spirit in the inner man. Verse 16 says, "...strengthened
with might by His Spirit in the inner man." By His Spirit in
the inner man. We don't have any strength except
God's strength. We don't have any strength except
God's strength. Listen to these scriptures. You
can jot these down if you'd like and read them later. Psalm 28,
verse 8 says this, The Lord is their strength, and He is the
saving strength of His anointed. Psalm 138, verse 3 says, In the
day when I cried, Thou answeredest me and strengthenedest me with
strength in my soul. God did it. God did it. Isaiah
40, verse 29 says, He gives power to the faint. And to them that
have no might, He increases strength. You know what the problem is
most of the time, most of the time, when you and I don't have
any strength, when we are faint and we're wrestling and we're
struggling and we're trying and we're trying and we're trying
and we just can't make any headway. You know what the problem is?
We're not faint. We hadn't exhausted ourselves
yet. But our gracious God will graciously
wait until we exhaust ourselves. That's what he told the whole
nation of Israel. He said, your strength is to sit still. Your
strength is to stop trying to save yourself. And he said, but
no, we're going to go down to Egypt and we're going to make
a confederacy with Egypt and we're going to be wise and that's
how we're going to save ourselves. We got in this mess by trusting
a man. We got in this mess because we
looked to our flesh and our wisdom and our strength. Now here's
our solution. We're going to look to a man
and try to get out of this. What is that saying? They say
that, what's that saying about insanity is when you keep doing
the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
We keep looking to our flesh to deliver us from our flesh.
And the Lord said, I'm going away. I'm going to wait that
I might be gracious. I'm going to wait until you're
left like a tree with all its branches. You're broke off. I'm
going to let you run and run and run until you're so wore
out, your tongue's hanging out and you're dragging the ground
in the dust and can't lift your head up. Because then when I
come to your aid, it will be manifest in your heart, God did
it and you didn't do it. That's right now. The youth shall
faint, they'll be weary. The young men shall utterly fall.
But they that wait upon the Lord, they that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings
as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk
and shall not faint. Because their strength is God.
It's God. Do we have reason to fear that
God will somehow leave His child, the one He's everlastingly loved,
that He's going to somehow forsake us and leave us to ourselves
and leave us alone? He's going to forget about us.
Listen to what He said in Isaiah 41.10, Fear thou not, for I am
with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee. Yea,
I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with
the right hand of my righteousness. That's why the Lord told Paul
this. He said, My grace is sufficient for you. And He said, My strength
It's made perfect. It's made clear. It's manifest. It's shown to be all of His strength
in your weakness, in your utter weakness. That's when you see
God is all our strength. And Paul said, therefore, when
I'm in my infirmities, when I've been laid up with the flu all
week, and it's Saturday, and Sunday's pressing down hard,
and I don't still have a message yet, You know what I'm going
to do? I'm going to lean on the Lord.
I'm going to trust Him. I'm going to rejoice in my infirmity
because when I'm weak, when I have no strength, that's when God's
all my strength. That's when God's all my strength.
Why does the Holy Spirit move Paul to ask first for this strengthening
power? The inner man begins as a baby.
It just starts out as a baby. It has all the parts of a new
man. You know, a baby has got all the parts of a new man. Our
spiritual senses are in that inner man. We feel the weight
of our sin in that inner man. Paul described it as the real
meat carried around a dead body. But in this new man, we also
see the Son of God. We see Him who came down, who
came down and took flesh and joined His divinity with the likeness of
sinful flesh. And He went forth and forced
sin because we could not put away our sin. We could not fulfill
the law because of the weakness of our flesh, because we were
sinners, because we were dead and undone. And He came forth
and He went to the cross on our behalf and laid down His life
and bore our sins in His body on the tree. And when He bore
our sins in His body on the tree, He satisfied the justice of God
And now God's just and the justifier. Because that's God in human flesh. That's God in faith. That's who
we see. You see, we not only feel, we
see Him through faith in this inner man. And then we hear the
voice of Christ. We hear His voice in His Word
and we hear His voice and we discern it from the voice of
a stranger. Because He said, they're going
to hear my voice and follow me. They won't hear the voice of
a stranger. And we hear his voice. You know, we have, you come here. Most everybody that's here now
was a visitor at one time. You came here and you visited
at one time. We started out with, well with us here now, three
families I think. So everybody here was a visitor
at one time. And you come in, and you come
in and you sit down. And I think, You know, this is
foolish. I think we're in a firehouse.
You know, we got just a little bit of folks here and all this.
And I think, if they're going to hear Christ's voice, they're
going to hear Christ's voice. If they hear it, they're going
to hear His voice. It's not going to be my voice. It's not going
to be anything to attract them. We've got nothing to attract
you. I like it that way. He had no form of commonness
about Him that men would desire Him. We've got nothing to attract
Him. But I'll tell you what we do have. We've got Christ. We've got Him. We'll preach Him. We'll glory in Him. We'll rejoice
in Him. And they hear His voice. And
we smell the sweet savor of His person and His work and His accomplished
redemption. All these senses are in this
inner man. We taste that the Lord is gracious. And we handle
the Word of life. And we lay hold on Christ in
this inner man. Our new will and our affections
are all in this man. And then in this inner man, God
grows us in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. He keeps
growing us in this man. That's why he's asking for this
strength in this inner man. Our faith in Christ is strengthened
more and more. We're given fresh glimpses of
him. And as we see him and as we behold him, we're persuaded
more than more that he's able to keep that which we've committed
unto him against that day. We're made to know more and more
the love of Christ for us, that everlasting, unchangeable, sovereign
love of God which saves who He loves. It never changes. He doesn't
love somebody today and hate them tomorrow. Who He loves,
He saves. He saves. If that wasn't the
case, what would the love of God have to do with salvation? Our hope is in Christ, and it's
strengthened. and our joy is made more full.
And this strengthen of the Spirit is performed through the hearing
of the Gospel. It is through the hearing of
the Gospel which causes us to grow in all these spiritual senses
in the inward man. Peter said, as newborn babes,
desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. Look at Ephesians 4.15. He says, speaking the truth in love, that
we may grow up, and we may grow up into Him, into Christ in all
things, which is the Head, even Christ. We grow up, brethren, we grow
up. Paul said to the Thessalonians,
he said, We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren,
as it is meet, as it is fit, because that your faith groweth
exceedingly. and the charity of every one
of you all toward each other aboundeth. Do you want to start
out as a baby and stay a baby? Do you want to begin as a baby
and stay a baby? Don't you want to grow? Don't
you want to grow? Don't you want to speak more honorably of Christ
and walk more honorably before the Lord and before men in this
world. Don't you want to honor Him and
honor His name and not disgrace it and not be a byword because
of Him or against Him? We want to grow. We want to grow
in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
But it's only by His Spirit strengthening us in our inner man that we're
going to grow in this grace. It's only by him. You know, men
get this thing all backwards. And they get to looking, you
know, thinking, well, let's take men to the law. Let's take men
to the law and let's tell them they got to do this. And if they
don't do this, let's put the whip down on them. That's not
going to grow a man. You can get a child to do anything
you want that child to do by by being so harsh to that child
that they're scared to death to do anything except when you
speak. Or you can love them. Now, you
might have to correct them, but you love them. And that child
will do what they do for you because they love you and they
want to please you. There's a difference there. This
Spirit makes us put off the old man with his deeds because we
want to put him off. It makes us want to put on the
new man. It makes us want to put on, as
the elect of God, holy and beloved vows of mercies and kindness
and humbleness of mind and meekness and longsuffering, because we
want to. It makes us want to forbear one
another and forgive one another, if any man have a quarrel against
any, because Christ forgave us. And we are constrained by His
love toward us. And so that's why we're motivated.
And above all these things, it makes us want to put on charity,
love towards one another, which is the bond of perfectness. And
let the peace of God rule in our hearts, because we see what
manner of love God has bestowed upon us, that we should be called
the sons of God, that He gave His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins, and He got the job done. The strengthening of
our inner man by His Spirit is vital. We need His strength continually
all the time, every hour. Now, vain religion in a mere
form of godliness works on the outside. It works on the outside. It's superficial. It's shallow.
It's a vain show. The Lord said that. The Lord
said, you scribes and you Pharisees, and these were men who appeared
to be the most holy and the most righteous outwardly before men.
Everybody in the land thought, that's as good as it gets right
there. And he said to them, you're hypocrites. And he said, you're
whited sepulchers. You indeed appear beautiful outwardly,
but within you're full of dead men's bones. Within, he said
that. Within. This strengthening of
the inner man is more than a reading of a few theological books. It's more than learning a doctrine
and some key words. It's more than making a public
profession and joining a church and having a little fit of conviction
now and then. It's a lot more than that. God
works in the inner man so that there's a real communion between
the believer and the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a living, vital
union between the believer and the Lord Jesus Christ. So that
what is done outwardly by the believer He's done in sincerity
and truth, and it's not phony. It's not fake. That you might
walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful
in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened
with all might according to His glorious power, unto all patience
and longsuffering with joyfulness. So we need this strengthening
in the inner man. We need that. We need it. We
need it. For this second thing, Paul says
here in verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Paul's not praying
that they'd be saved. They were saved already. Those
he's writing to were saved already. When a sinner's regenerated,
given faith in Christ, Christ enters in. And the Lord takes
up residence in the inner man through faith. That's not what
he's asking for. Paul's praying here that Christ
may dwell. That he might dwell. Not that Christ might visit you
on Sunday and then during the midweek. But that he might dwell. That he might be at home. That
he might be one that's king of the castle in your heart. That
he might be one that's home in your heart. And he says here
that Christ might dwell in your heart. In our hearts. Not in
our head. In our hearts. We start out and
we're taught the doctrine of Christ and His grace. And doctrine
is teaching. Doctrine is good and doctrine
is vital. Doctrine is important. How are
you going to know, call on Him and who you've not heard? How
are you going to call somebody you don't know? You've got to know. You've got to be taught who He
is. We've preached the total depravity of man. We've preached
the unconditional election of God. We've preached the particular
redemption of His people. We've preached the irresistible
grace of the Holy Spirit. We preach the preservation and
perseverance of the saints. We preach the doctrine of grace. And it's all vital. It's all
one central, vital doctrine. It stands and falls together.
But to have Christ dwelling in the heart is the needful thing.
That's what's needful. To have Christ dwelling in the
heart. Paul's prayer here is that Christ
might dwell fully in our hearts continually. That's what he's
saying. That Christ might ravish our hearts with His love. And
our affections might be on Him alone all the time. Sarah. I'm going to use you as an illustration
here. Sarah, you know, she goes down
to Danville. And all of a sudden, she just
comes back and she's all excited. And she's all thrilled because
she met a boy in Danville. And she just... is getting all
the time. And He is too, I think. He is
too. That's first love. That's that
first love. Brethren, do you remember when
Christ first ravished your heart? Do you remember that? Do you
remember when you saw what you are, and you saw your sin, and
you saw you had no hope? And then Christ He turned to
you and you saw Him there whom you had pierced on that cross.
And you mourned for Him in bitterness. And one mourneth for his own
son. And then He spoke to you and drew you near to Him and
spoke to you and said, All your sin is gone. I've washed it away. I've redeemed you. I've covered
you in my righteousness. Oh boy, you could tippy-toe. You could walk around on a cloud.
Everything was good. There was nothing that could
be wrong. Your heart burned within you as you communed with Him. Paul's prayer here is that we
might have that intimate communion with Christ continually abiding
and dwelling in our hearts. Not just while we hear a sermon.
I love it when I hear a sermon and Christ just fills my heart. But we're talking about that
He might dwell in our hearts long after we leave here. We're
talking about that we might go home and our desire be to pick
up this Word of God and look at these things and say, but
for this reason, I want to keep that communion with Him. I want
to keep that fire hot. I want to keep that love glowing
in my heart. And I don't want to let any intruders
come in. I don't want to let I don't want
to let Satan come and sow his tares and just as quick as the
Word was sown, the Word disappear. I want to abide in him. The Lord
said, if a man loved me and he keep my words, my Father will
love him and we'll come unto him and we'll make our bode in
him, with him. Notice he says here, by faith.
by faith, that Christ may dwell in our hearts so much that we
truly see Christ seated there at the right hand of the Father
with our faith. And we see that we're seated
there in Him. We see that so much so that the
things of this earth just start fading into insignificance. We come into His presence and
all the waves were roaring and all the turmoil of this earth
and all the things that were so important to us in this life
and so vital and so necessary, we've got to do, we've got to
do because the world is saying you've got to do it. But those things by His sight
of Him, by faith, just become nothing to us. And those waves
just calm out. They just get calm and it becomes
like a glass and you can just rest and you have the peace of
God ruling in your heart. Because you know, you know this
truth. This is the truth. You're dead. You're dead. That's right. You're dead. Your
old man of sin is dead and buried and gone, and God remembers it
no more. And your life, your real life,
is not in this earth. It's not here. Your life is hid
with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you appear with him in glory. You
know that's what matters. You know that's the reality.
And when you know that's the reality, God, He reprioritizes
when we get all out of whack on our priorities. And he makes
it so we've got the priority strength. Christ is the one thing
needful. Well, let's look here now. What's
this next thing? Paul says that you be rooted
and grounded in love, that you may be able to comprehend with
all saints what's the breadth and length and depth and height,
and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. It's not
only that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith, But it's
also that we might be rooted and grounded in Christ, rooted
in love to Christ by His love for us. In Colossians 2.6, he
said this, You have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord,
so walk you in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established
in the faith as you've been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Here he says, rooted and grounded in love. There it says rooted
and grounded in Him. Well, which is it? It's both. It's both. They're one and the
same. If you're rooted and grounded in Christ, you'll be rooted and
grounded in His love. Because Christ and His great
love for every elect child of God, every believer in particular,
Christ is the root. He is the root that establishes
our hearts in faith and love to Him. A root. a tree that's
rooted, it can withstand mighty winds. Ain't it? Well, you know,
the Lord gave that parable of the four kinds of ground. And
He said, in some of those, He said they have no root in themselves.
And so then when persecution arises because of the Word, when
somebody says, you know, I don't like you talking about sovereign
will. I want to hear you talking about free will. Well, you say,
well, God says were saved by his sovereign will. But those
that don't have root in themselves will say, okay, we'll say it's
free will. And little by little, they're
pulled away right off into the worldly religion. Well, if a person is rooted in
the love of Christ, We may have inward storms of unbelief. We
may have doubt. We may have fear. We may have
outward storms of persecution and loss and reproach and shame
for Christ's sake. But in the same way that storms
come and they make those roots go deeper and deeper and deeper
into the ground, all these things make our root to go deeper and
deeper into Christ and Christ into us so that we are grafted. We are rooted in Him. Rooted
in Him. And that's the same way with
Christ being our foundation. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
God, I lay in Zion a foundation stone, a tribestone, a precious
cornerstone, a sure foundation, and he that believeth shall not
make haste. Christ is that stone. Now, you know, a house on a foundation,
it settles on that foundation. It settles down on that foundation. And that's what Paul is saying
here. That's what this Word grounded is. It's to settle down on this
foundation. It's not to get on Christ and
be standing up on Christ and to be thinking we're going to
be able to withstand the storms and the persecution. Standing up is to lay down flat
on Christ. It's to lay down on this stone.
It's to be as close to this stone as you can get. Settle down in
this stone. Grounded on this stone. Now that's
a sure foundation. Look at Luke chapter 6. Luke
6. This is what the Lord says. Luke
6, verse 47. Luke 6, verse 47. He says, Whosoever
cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will
show you to whom he is like. He is like a man which built
a house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock. And when the flood arose, the
stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it,
for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth and doeth
not is like a man without a foundation, that without a foundation built
a house upon the earth, against which the stream did beat vehemently,
and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great."
What are we saying? On Christ the solid rock I stand. All of the ground is shifting
sand. There's an old story. I can't remember it now. It just
came to me. I can't remember it now. About a fellow who said, y'all
sing On Christ the solid rock I stand. We laying down on him. I forget now what the story was
anyway. We'll go on. That which roots and grounds
us. This is it. Verse 18. Look at
our text. I'll be brief here. This is what's
going to root us. It's an apprehension of God's
love for us in Christ. Verse 18. That you may be able
to comprehend. And the right word here is apprehend. With all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ
which passes knowledge. That same word is translated
apprehend in Philippians. Not as though I had already attained,
neither were already perfect, but I follow after, if that I
may apprehend that for which I am also apprehended of Christ."
Apprehend means to lay hold of. We can apprehend what we can't
fully comprehend. We can lay hold of what we can't
fully get the fullness of. We can apprehend it. Because
this knowledge of Christ passes knowledge. It's beyond knowledge.
We can't comprehend the fullness, but we can apprehend. We can
lay hold of Christ. The breadth of Christ's love,
His righteousness covers every sin of every elect child, past,
present, and future. It covers everyone of us. The
length stretches from eternity to eternity over all time. The breadth, I mean the depth,
is to the uttermost pit of our depravity to the lowest low of
any sinner. That's how far His love reaches.
The height is to heaven, taking in the whole family in heaven
and earth. And these are the measurements of the whole temple
of God. That's what makes His people
make up the temple of God in whom He dwells. These are the
measurements of that new Jerusalem, of that temple of His people
and Him and His people. Well, here's why. Here's why
we need this. Here's why we need to apprehend this. Verse 19.
That you might be filled with all the fullness of God. How
is that possible? That you and me can be filled
with all the fullness of God? That's a lot of fullness. You
reckon we can hold all that? You think about this. I'm going
to borrow an illustration I found. You think how massive the sun
in the sky is. Think how large the sun in the
sky is. It's so large it illuminates the whole globe. It's so large
that there's not a space that light doesn't penetrate. Its
rays travel thousands of miles in an instant. And the radius
of that sun is just vast. It's huge. All right, now you
take a tiny little dew drop hanging on a blade of grass, tiny little
dew drop. We're looking at that dew drop
and the rays of the morning sun come up and they shine on that
dew drop. It doesn't contain any light
in itself. It has no light in itself. And
it can't contain the fullness of all those rays that's coming
from that sun. It can't contain the fullness
of the sun. But that little dew drop is filled. with all the fullness of sun
to the full extent of its limited capacity. Full. So that that little dewdrop shines
and looks like it's shining all by itself. That's what he's talking about.
That's what he's talking about. That's my prayer for us, brethren.
Isn't that a good prayer? Isn't that a good thing to ask?
Four needful things. And the more we know the love
of Christ by the Holy Spirit, you know the more precious His
love become, and the more precious our brethren become. And the
easier it gets, the easier it gets, We're young, you know.
We've got all these distractions going on. We're a young congregation,
really. Young in the faith, young in
age, young in a lot of ways. But we've got all these distractions
and things. And you see these older congregations,
faithful congregations, have been around for years and they've
grown together and they've been taught together and they've suffered
together and they've wept together. Rejoice together. All this. God's
showing them His love for them. Keeping them, holding them together.
And one of them will get sick. They'll pick up the phone to
call the sick one. And one of their brethren's already
over at their house visiting them. Here they are. They're old. They're broke down.
Their bodies are hurting. They're tired and all that. There
they are over there. What made it so easy to get up
and go see that breath? The love of Christ. The love
of Christ. Knowing He came from heaven here.
And what He did for me. And what He's continued to do
for me. And how He's kept me. And how He's not let me go when
I deserved in myself to be let go. That's what I pray for us. That's what I see Him doing for
us. We can't be critical of where
we are because we're right where we're supposed to be. And we'll
be where He'll have us to be tomorrow when He'll have us to
be there. Through trials and through rejoicing, through all
those things, teaching us more and more, He won't ever let us
go. Amen.