Alright brethren, let's turn
to Ephesians chapter 3. Ephesians chapter 3. We'll begin reading in verse
14. 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. 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 Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that ye, 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, that you might be filled with all
the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to
do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according
to the power that worketh in us. Unto him be glory in the
church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Now Paul begins this letter
here, telling the church what he prays for, what he's praying
for for them. And he begins it this way, he
says, for this cause, For this cause, I bow my knees unto the
Father." For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, of whom the whole
family, the whole family in heaven and in earth is named. Now, one
cause is this. Look back at Ephesians 2.19.
He ended the second chapter telling us this good news. Now therefore,
he's speaking to those who've been born again, who've been
called by God and who have faith in Christ. He says, now therefore
you're no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
with the saints and of the household of God. You're of the household
of God. And he began chapter 3 saying,
for this cause I Paul. And he He digressed or he went
off on speaking about him being called of God. And then he comes
back around to this thought again, having this thought of us being
of the household of God. And he says in verse 14, for
this cause, because you're of the household of God, for this
cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our
elder brother, of whom this whole family in heaven and earth is
named. I want to talk about the whole
family. One of my favorite descriptions
the Holy Spirit gives of the Church of God is as a family. It's so prevalent throughout
the Scriptures you would think it would be impossible to miss.
But folks miss this. But the Church of God is a family.
It's one family. We know that family here refers
to the Church of God because down in verse 21 it says, "...unto
Him be glory in the church." by Christ Jesus throughout all
ages. So it's the church he's speaking
about here. It's very comforting. It's very
reassuring for us, brethren, to know that every saint chosen,
redeemed, called of God in this earth right now is in the very
same family of God with every saint that's already in glory
with Him. We're in the family of God. We're
one family in God. Now, let's look at some things
about this family. First of all, let's talk about
our common union in this family. What gives us unity in this family? What do we have in common in
this family? Well, first of all, we all have one Heavenly Father. Every faithful family has one
Father. And that's the case with our
family. Verse 14, he says, I bow my knees unto the Father. Unto
the Father. Whenever the Lord walked this
earth, He said, don't call any man on this earth your father.
Don't call any man on this earth your father. That doesn't mean
that us children can't refer to our earthly fathers as our
father. He's talking about, call no man
in religion your father. Because you have one father.
Just one. And that's God in heaven. We
have one father in heaven. God our father. It was unlike
fathers in the earth. We don't know our children beforehand. We don't know how our children,
what's going to transpire with our children. But God our Father,
He wrote all the names of His children down in the Lamb's Book
of Life before the world was ever made. He wrote all our names
down. Every saint that's in heaven
now, Every saint that's on earth now, everyone that shall be called
out of darkness into light. God our Father wrote all our
names down in His book, in the Lamb's book of life before the
world began. My earthly family, they have
a book of genealogy and it goes way back, way, way back and it
talks about everybody that's in my family on the Kurdish side.
And it goes, it's impressive how far back it goes. But it
stops. At some point it stops. But God's... Everybody in this family, every
brother and sister in this family, we have a genealogy, a book of
genealogy that goes all the way back to eternity. All the way
back to eternity, before there was ever time. And you think
of that, brethren, that means that every believer, every faithful,
faithful child of God in this earth right now, we had our names
written in the same book with those faithful saints that are
in glory right now. The strongest had their names
written down with the weakest. Those that are the most known
had their names written down with those that are unknown.
You sitting here today who believe God, been called by His grace,
your names were written down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob
and Peter and John and Paul right there beside Him, because God
saves by grace. Now, another thing we have in
common in this family is we all have one elder brother. We all
have one elder brother. Verse 14, it says, I bow my knees
unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Romans chapter
8 just a moment. Romans chapter 8. You see, Christ
was made flesh. God's Son was made flesh. and
He dwelt among us, He was made flesh like unto His brethren."
So He is God. He is our God and our Savior.
And He is also our elder brother. Look here, Romans 8, 29, "...whom
He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among
many brethren." that he might be the elder brother, the firstborn,
the firstborn brother among many brethren. That means that saints
in heaven and saints on earth are one family in our Lord Jesus
Christ. Hebrews 3 says, he's a son, he's
God's own son, but he's a son over his own house. whose house
we are. There's actually two words in
the scripture. This word family refers to a
father and then all his sons and daughters and all their husbands
and wives and all their children. It's a little broader sense of
the term family. Household means your immediate
family, and your wife, and your children. So this word family
here, it goes very well when we consider Christ being our
elder brother, because he's also in scripture called our everlasting
father. So you have this extended family,
you got God our father, and there's his son Christ Jesus. And then
Christ Jesus has all these sons and daughters, all these sisters
and brothers, and so you have the whole family of God, the
family of God. It's because Christ became our
covenant before the world began. He entered into covenant churdiship
with God to save His people in eternity. That means, brethren,
that since eternity, when time started, there was never a moment
in time that His people were not represented in Christ Jesus. There's never a moment in time
that God our Father was not looking to His Son instead of looking
to His people. Whenever we fell in the garden
in Adam, God was looking at His Son to be our surety. Whenever,
all through the Old Covenant, all through those times before
we were even born, we were represented already by Christ. When Christ
walked this earth, everything He did, we were represented in
Him. And everything He did, we did in Him. And then now, as
He intercedes with the Father on our behalf, all the days of
our rebellion, after we were born the first time, He was representing
us, interceding for us. And then when He called us, ever
since He's called us, He's been representing us and interceding
with us for the Father and our advocate with the Father. And
there'll never be a time, there'll never be a time that He will
not represent us and be our advocate with the Father. That's so. And
that's a great comfort. That's a great, great comfort.
Now, through faith in Christ, Christ is our righteousness.
His righteousness is our righteousness. His resurrection has become our
resurrection. It's a guarantee we will be resurrected
one day. His glory is a guarantee we will
be glorified with Him. So, we're one family under one
father, we're one family with one elder brother, and then we're
one family in this regard too. We all have the same name. Look
at verse 15. He says, "...of whom the whole
family in heaven and earth is named." Look over at Jeremiah
23, 6. I know we all take the name Christian. We're called Christians, Christians. That was a name that was somewhat
of a slanderous name given to us at first, but we take that
name proudly. We wear his name gladly, Christ's
name. But look here in Jeremiah 23.
Because of what Christ accomplished on the cross for His people,
in putting away our sin and making us righteous, look here now in
Jeremiah 23 verse 6. In His days, talk about Christ
now, in His days, in Christ's days, Judah shall be saved, and
Israel shall dwell safely. And this is His name whereby
He shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. That's His
name. Look at Jeremiah 33. Jeremiah
33 and verse 16. That was the name wherewith Christ
would be called. That's the name wherewith He
would be called, the Lord our righteousness. Look at Jeremiah
33, 16. In those days shall Judah be
saved. Now we're talking about Judah.
Now we're talking about the bride. And Jerusalem shall dwell safely.
Now we're talking about Christ's bride. Now watch this. And this
is the name wherewith she shall be called. Before it said, His
name is the Lord our righteousness. Now it says here, this is the
name wherewith she shall be called the Lord our righteousness. And
it tells us in our text, this whole family in heaven and earth
is named after the Lord our righteousness. We have that name, the Lord our
righteousness. Look over Colossians 1, Colossians
chapter 1. By His blood, Christ not only
broke down the middle wall of partition between His elect Gentiles
and His elect Jews, He broke down the middle wall of partition
between the saints on earth and the saints in glory. Look here,
Colossians 1 verse 20. Between God, us and God, between
us and all the holy angels, between us and all the holy saints, He
broke down that wall. Look at Colossians 1 verse 20.
having made peace through the blood of His cross by Him to
reconcile all things unto Himself. By Him, I say, whether they be
things in earth or things in heaven. He's reconciled us with
all the holy host of heaven, angels and God and men. He's
reconciled His saints on earth with all holy things in heaven
so that we're one. We're not separated. And here's
another thing we have in common in this family. We all are born
of the same Holy Spirit and adopted by God. The way we entered our
first family, everybody sitting here, you either entered your
first family by being born into that family or by being adopted
into that family. Well, in God's family, the only
way you can enter in God's family is by both. It's by both. The
Scriptures tell us that He predestinated those He chose in Christ. Ephesians 1 says He predestinated
each one to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. And
then Galatians tells us, and because your sons, because you
were children already predestinated to this adoption, He sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into your hearts so that you were born
again, so that now you could cry out, Father, Father, Father. And so, we're born again. And when we're born again, we're
made to see God predestinated us to adopt us. And He has adopted
us. Our union in this family, here's
the point of that. Our union in this family is all
of God. It's all of God. What do you
have to do with entering into your first family? What did you
honestly have to do with entering into your first family? Nothing. Nothing. Whether you're born
into it or adopted into it. He had nothing to do. Will every
believer, adopted and born again, have nothing to do with our entrance
into this family? It's all of God. Scripture says,
as many as He received, to them gave He power, privilege, to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name,
which were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh,
That's me or other groups of men willing, wanting me to be
saved. Not by the will of man, not by my will, but of God. But of God. So He gets all the
glory for this. This is the point. This is the
difference between a believer and an unbeliever. The believer
wants God to have all the glory. We want Him to have all the glory. The unbeliever wants to have
a part in it. He wants to have part of that glory. We want him
to have that glory. And then here's another thing
we have in common. You know, a child in a family,
he's going to look like his father and his mother. They're going
to bear an image of their father. Well, every child born of God,
we bear the image of our Heavenly Father. We bear His image. The
new man, this born-again child within us, is created. It's not there when we come forth
the first time. It's created of God. And it's
created of God in righteousness, true righteousness, not fake
righteousness, in the righteousness of Christ by what He's accomplished
for us and what He accomplishes in us. This new man is created
in perfect righteousness and created in true holiness, true
holiness, made holy when we're born of God, born again, born
of Him. And so we're renewed in the knowledge
of Him. And we're created after the image
of Him. We had that image in the garden,
remember? God created Adam after His image. But we lost it in
the fall. But when we're born again, God
recreates us, His child, in the image of God. Now you get this. This is something you just want
to think about this. The same Spirit, the very same
Spirit, that is in the saints already perfected in glory is
the same spirit that's in you and me right here now. That same
image they bear, we bear right now. Now, they've dropped this
body of death and they've been perfected. They're the spirits
of just men made perfect. but it's still the same spirit
that's in them is in you and I right here, right now, if we're
born of God. That's true. We've been made
partakers of the same divine nature. We have both been made
to escape the corruptions which are in this world through lust.
You say, well, I don't feel like I've escaped them fully. Well,
we haven't in the sense they have, but this is true. God won't
let us go. And we've escaped in that regard.
He's going to keep his people. We've escaped the corruptions
that are in this world through lust, because he won't let our
lust reign over us anymore. That new man in us, he's going
to feed that new man, and that new man's going to have the reign.
Christ in us will have the reign. Christ is our new master. So
believer, you're a member of God's family. God is our Father.
Christ is our elder brother. We're born of His Spirit, of
His image. We're made one in Him. You are His brothers and
sisters, daughters, fathers, mothers, all in this family,
the whole family of God. As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the sons of God. The sons of God. Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us. Behold
what great, great love the Father has bestowed upon us. We're called
sons of God. In this family, in the family
of God, we call our president and his family the first family.
Oh, no, no, no. God's family is the first family.
We're in the first family, brethren. We're nearer to the saints in
heaven. He says this whole family in
heaven and earth, we're nearer to the saints in heaven than
we are to our own unbelieving mothers and fathers, sons and
daughters, sisters and brothers in this earth. We're one with
them. We're nearer to them than we
are to those that we can see and touch and talk to in this
earth. That's so. We're fellow citizens glorified
together. We're as much as sons and daughters
right now as we will be when we get there. We won't be more
sons and daughters than we are right now. Right now. Behold,
now are we the sons of God. It doesn't yet appear what we
shall be. We know when He appears we'll be like Him. We'll see
Him as He is. But right now we are His sons and daughters. We
are. The text doesn't say here that there's two families. It
doesn't say there's a family in heaven and there's a family
in the earth. It says this is the whole family. It's not divided. It's not split. It's not in half.
This is one whole family. We're a whole family. Turn over
to Romans chapter 8 just a moment. Whenever we have somebody die
in our family, we mourn because it's sad. We don't want to see
them go. But if they're a believer, if
they believe the Lord by His grace, It's a precious time. The scripture says, precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Because
Christ conquered sin, and conquering sin, Christ conquered death.
So that whenever a child of God closes our eyes in this world
in death, that's the first day, brethren. That's our birthday.
That's when we leave this body of death and we enter into God's
presence. There's nothing that's ever going to separate The saints
in the family in heaven and the saints in the family on earth.
Nothing is going to separate us ever. Death does not separate
us. Look here. Nothing is going to
separate us from the love of God in Christ or from one another.
Romans 8.35, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness,
or peril, or sore? As it is written, indeed this
is true, for Christ's sake we're killed all the day long, we're
counted as sheep for the slaughter, but no, in all these things We're
more than conquerors through Him that loved us. If it was
up to us, yeah, we'd be separated from it. If it was up to our
power and our will and our wisdom, we'd be separated from it. But
it's not. Aren't you glad? It's of Him.
And we're more than conquerors through Him. I'm persuaded that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, depth,
or any other creature should be able to separate us from the
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Did you see he
said death won't separate us? Death won't separate us. So Paul
prays here that the brethren might know that. This is what
we pray for one another. I want you to know this. I want
you to know this. Now, why has God brought us into
this family? I'm going to have to be very,
very brief on this. Why has God brought us into this
family? First of all, the primary reason
that a church exists in this earth is for the calling out
of God's sheep through the preaching of the gospel. That's the number
one reason. That Christ might be glorified, that His sheep
might be called out. Now to do that, there's going
to have to be brethren gathered, assembled together. And there's
going to have to be raised up among us somebody to preach the
gospel to us. And the way that God's going
to make us see how important this work is, is He calls us
through this gospel. And He keeps teaching us through
this gospel. And He keeps making us see how
we need this gospel. And so, that's how He joins us
all together. I had somebody that said to me
one time that, you know, they were leaving here and they said,
well, I'm not leaving anything. I don't really see what I'm leaving.
Well, without faith you can't see it. No, we don't have the
creeds and confessions of men. No, we don't make you sign a
waiver saying, you know, this is what you believe and this
is what you're going to do and this is what you're not going
to do. We don't go around chasing after one another and trying
to put the whip on one another's back and all of that. We're led
of the Holy Spirit of God. We're taught of Christ our Head. We're taught of God our Father. And as children, when we're sitting
down together and we're looking and we're all listening to God
our Father, and one of our brethren starts acting up or he starts
trying to leave the family or anything like that, we say, hey,
hey, listen, the Father is speaking. Christ is speaking. Come and
hear Him speak. And we try to keep everybody's
attention just pointed at Him. That's it. And we don't want
to be the ones getting up and causing the fuss and being the
distraction. And we don't want our brethren
to be distracted. So everything we do in this family, we're doing
it so that every brother and sister will have their eyes on
our Father and say, this is what our Father is saying. This is
what our Father would have us to do. Wouldn't it be great if
we did that in our earthly families? Wouldn't it? That's what God
does in His church. That's what He does in His church.
Another need for this church family is to teach us in a practical
way what we hear preached in the gospel. We hear it preached,
but then used by assembling us, the Lord's teaching us every
day in our lives. He's putting it in shoe leather
for us to show us these things that He's been teaching us are
real. He's really doing these things. The church family on
earth has the same difficulties that every secular family has.
We're all sinners. Everybody in this family is a
sinner. And we like to talk about ourselves too much, and we like
to neglect others too much, and we like to say things we shouldn't
say, and we do things we shouldn't do. But by putting us together in
His family, our Father teaches us to love one another in spite
of our faults. In spite of us, we're constantly
taught by our Savior to love one another. He said, a new commandment
I give you, that you love one another. How? As I've loved you. The same way Christ loved us,
He said, you love your brethren that way. By this shall all men
know you're My disciples, you're in My family, if you love one
another. That's what He said. For love's
of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knows God.
Our belief is to love one another. He said, not that we love God,
but that He loved us. And sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins. Brethren, if God so loved us
in this manner, that's what so means. If God so loved us, if
He loved us after this manner, we ought to love one another
after this manner. That means that That means that God's love
wasn't conditioned on me. If God's love would have been
conditioned on any of us, brethren, there wouldn't be a single sinner
saved. There's nothing about us to base any salvation on. God chose whom He would in Christ
by His free and sovereign grace, just because He would. And God
loved His own in Christ for the sake of Christ, even when we
didn't love God. You see, if I have to be given
a reason to do for my brethren, that's going to cause a legal
spirit in my heart. That's walking in the flesh,
not in the spirit. If I got to be given a legal,
conditional reason to love you, then that's not loving by grace. For the sake of Christ, that's
a legal spirit. And there's a lot about us that's
not lovable. But we don't wait for something
in the other one. We love regardless and do for
one another regardless. God loved by giving His best.
He gave His only begotten Son. We give our best to one another.
That's how we ought to love one another. Gracious love is loving
one another for the sake of Christ. And also we learn to forgive
one another. Who's our motive for forgiving
one another our faults? Be kind one to another, tender
hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake
has forgiven you. as God, for the sake of Christ,
has forgiven you. You know, in a secular family,
in our earthly families, the youngest in the family, you tell
me if you find this to be true, the youngest in the family is
always messing up, and he's always causing the others in the family
to get a little bit kind of frustrated at times, because he's just always
messing up. The father might have to correct
that one. God, our Father, corrects us.
He chastens His children. He does it through this gospel,
through His dealings with us in Providence, sometimes through
our brethren. Well, and that little one, he
might have to be, he might have to be, we might get frustrated
with him. But we don't ever think about
kicking him out of the family. Carol, you ever thought about
kicking Joshua out? I mean, I know you get frustrated enough to
do it, but you ultimately think, I wouldn't kick him out of the
family. And that's how it is in God's family. We're not striving
to kick one another out of the family, because the fact of the
matter is, at our best, every one of us in this family are
babies. We just see through a glass darkly.
We just see a little bit, and we all mess up. So rather than
do that, rather than exalt ourselves over one another, we bear one
another's burden. We speak of Christ to one another.
We pray for one another. We wait on Christ to teach our
brethren as we need to be taught. That's not easy to do sometimes,
but we try. By His grace, that's our desire,
our heart's desire. And in addition, we're in this
family to help one another get through our mutual troubles in
this life. Look at 1 Corinthians 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 12. We rejoice
with one another when we rejoice, and we help one another when
we need help. Now look at this, 1 Corinthians
12, 24. Those members of the body which we think to be less honorable,
upon those we bestow more abundant honor, and then our uncomely
parts have more abundant comeliness. Now isn't that so with our body?
If you have a part of your finger, say your finger gets hurt, you're
going to nurse that finger. That's an uncomely part. You're
going to nurse that finger till that finger gets well again,
right? You're going to provide for that.
That's what we do for one another. One is sick, we try to provide
for them. If they're hurting financially
or whatever, we provide for them. And here's why. Look at this,
1 Corinthians 12, 24. For our comely parts have no
need. When God strengthened you and
provided for you and got your good health spiritually and your
good health physically and everything's going good, you don't have a
need. But why do you have all that
abundance? But God hath tempered the body together, having given
more abundant honor to that part which is lacked, that part which
is the least, that one which is in need. So He's given you
abundance for that one that's in need for this reason. Look
at verse 25. That there should be no schism
in the body. No schism in the body. But that
the members should have the same care one of another, just like
you'd have for yourself, for your father, for your mother,
for your sister, for your brother. The same care one of another.
And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it.
We ought to really consider if one of our brethren We hear one
of our brethren is suffering in any way, physically, sickly,
financially, however, we ought to be as hurt and concerned for
them as we would be if it was our own selves that it was happening
to. And he says, if one member be honored, all the members rejoice
with it. It's the same if one member is
rejoicing. Everybody is rejoicing with it. Now you are the body
of Christ. You are the body of Christ and
members in particular. And we're not alone in any of
this. Paul told the Philippians, work out your own salvation.
That doesn't mean your salvation as it has to do with you being
saved from your sins. That's not what that means. One
translation says this, the business of your lives. If you look in
the first chapter, he uses the word salvation again. When he's
talking about being in prison, he says, I know that this is
going to turn to my salvation. He's not talking about his eternal
salvation. He means as far as it concerns him being in prison,
he knows this is going to work out for his good. So in this
word, salvation is talking about your business right here in your
generation, in your family, in your church family. Work it out
with fear and trembling because God's right there working in
you. He is working in your brothers and sisters individually and
He is working in your midst collectively. He is right there in you both
to will and to do of His good pleasure. So these are just a
few examples. You think about an orphan. He
is in an orphanage and he has got a book and this book is all
about a family. It tells all about what a faithful
father is. It tells all about what a loving
mother is. Tells all about what sisters
and brothers are like. Everything about it. And he reads
this book, and he learns it inside and out. But as long as he's
in that orphanage, he's just got it up here, doesn't he? It's
just in his head. He understands it, but he's never
been in a family. So we don't know what it's like.
We don't know what it's like, brethren. We could take this
book and read and learn all about God our Father and about His
church, His bride, His sisters and brothers, the things that
a church family goes through. But until we're in a church family,
it's all in our head. We don't have no experience of
it. But when He brings us in His family, He gives us an experience
of it. He shows us now, not just in
our head, but in our heart, in our experience that we know what
it's like to be in a family. Now do you see just in these
things I've showed you, do you see the wisdom of God in assembling
a church in this earth, to go through this earth, to preach
His gospel, to teach us practically about Him and these things that
He's teaching us to provide for one another, to help one another.
It's just wisdom. It's just the most amazing wisdom
to me. Let me give you one last reason.
God puts us in a church family because continually hearing the
gospel of Christ, our need of continually hearing
the gospel is to humble us and keep us ever mindful of our need
of Christ. People don't eat at the table
like they used to. Satan tries to destroy any semblance
of God and his family if he can. And folks don't eat, sit and
stop and eat at a table like they used to. But we do sometimes
and some of you do. So with this illustration you'll
get the point. Whenever the children are doing something in the house
and the father says, come to the table. Those children have
to drop all their toys, whatever it is they're doing, And they
have to humble themselves and do what another's telling them
to do. They have to come to that table
and sit down and eat at that table. Well, two times a week,
we're like those children. Everything we're doing in this
world, everything we're going after, everything that we think
is so important is just toys. That is as vain as a toy. And
when God our Father calls us two times a week to come to the
table, we're forced to drop those toys. And we're forced to do
what another's telling us to do. And we come to that table
and through this gospel, He reminds us again the one thing that's
needful. And strengthen us in our heart
just like food at your table does. Strengthen us in our inner
man so that we go back out into this world for a little while
and He calls us back to the table. And we keep having to come back
to the table, back to the table, back to the table. Isn't that
wise of Him? That's wise of Him. That's wise
of our God. Alright, let me end with this. Remember, follow Paul's example
here. Paul was praying for his brethren.
Because God's our Father, because Christ is our elder brother,
our Redeemer, our High Priest, He hears us. And He hears what
we pray. And He will receive His children.
So when God the Father hears His Son, He hears us. He's able
to save to the uttermost them that come to God by Him because
He ever lives to make intercession. And God our Father gives us what
we need. Paul said, if you fathers had a son come to you, you wouldn't
give him something that's going to poison him or kill him. And
even so, God our Father give us the Holy Spirit. Well, so
ask him. Here's what Paul prayed for.
He prayed that his brethren would be strengthened inwardly. He
prayed that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith. He
prayed that they might be rooted and grounded in the love of God.
He prayed that they might be able to comprehend both the love
of Christ and the massive size of this family in heaven and
on earth, of this temple that God's built. So that they might
be brought to this, to rest right here. Look at verse 20. Ephesians
3, 20. That they be brought to rest right here. Saying, now
unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think according to the power that works in us. Unto
him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages,
world without end. Amen. Pray for these things for
our family. for our brothers and our sisters,
and God's able to do exceeding abundantly whatever we ask or
think. Amen.