For this reason, I bow my knees
before the Father. from whom every family in heaven
and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He
may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit
in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts
through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to
know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, and you
may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able
to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according
to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.
Amen. An amazing Greek word, our main,
it's one of the closest transliterations in the English. Amen means it
is so. Or let it be. So when we say amen, it is basically
sealing that what we have asked God shall be, that his will would
be done. Of course, last week we looked
at the essence of Paul's prayer. We saw his attitude of prayer
as he approached God. He bowed before the throne. He bowed his knees before God,
because God as the Creator overwhelmingly puts us in a position to where
we must Just be broken? Really? We must be broken before
God. We must fear in reverence, but
not fear in the sense that we shrink back and hide from God,
but we can't come bold before Him and make our petitions known
to Him. He desires to hear from His children. But the attitude of prayer must
be that of Paul's, an attitude of humility, an attitude of approaching
God not as this big buddy in the sky, like so many people
do, or this homeboy that we give high fives to, or this redneck
friend that we go and shoot skeet with. This is the Creator of
all that there is. And most specifically, the Creator
of those who are His, the church. that was possible and certain
through Jesus Christ and His suffering on the cross at Calvary.
We need to understand this attitude of prayer. We also saw last week
that Paul approached God with authority and that the authority
of prayer belongs to God. That God has named every family
in heaven and on earth. Not only has He named every individual,
He's created every person that is. Those who are His, the church,
those who are not His are still His. Remember when I said that?
It seems a little confusing. So what that means is that God
has created all people. He names each individual. Every
nation is named. Every individual is named. The
DNA. The nucleus of your construction
is named by God. The Scripture teaches that the
cosmos, that the heavens declare His glory and the work of His
hands, and that God has named, has hung every star in place
and has named it. He knows each one, where it is
and how long it's going to burn. He knows the degree and the temperature
by which it burns. He knows exactly what wind is
blowing in which direction. He is the Master of all things.
He is the Creator. And so with this, when we pray
that God do something, and in His will He does these things.
As a matter of fact, we ought to always pray His will be done.
And we ought to pray in His will, so that everything we pray for
is absolutely certain. We ought to understand the authority
of prayer. And then we see the action of
prayer, and that's where we'll begin to look here today. The action
of prayer is that Paul began to pray that God would strengthen
these Christians. He said that God has done all
of these things in your life. He's created you. He's adopted
you. He's saved you. He's redeemed you. He's elected
you. He's called you. All of these things are true. You have
all spiritual blessings in Christ. through the mighty working of
His power. And then he puts it personally. He said, not only
that, but I, prisoner of Jesus Christ on behalf of you Gentiles,
do not fear what I'm suffering, for it is for your sake which
is your glory. And so we realize that the suffering of Paul was
for the glory of the saints. As a matter of fact, all glory
comes through the road of suffering, even for the God-man Jesus who
suffered that He might be glorified. And so the question that needs
to be in your mind as we begin this little short journey, it's
not really short, but as we begin this little journey this afternoon,
the question in your mind is, where am I in understanding the
principles of what Paul is praying? How are they active in my life?
How is my attitude toward prayer and the authority that I realize
that God has? And how is the action of prayer?
worked out in my life. In the essence of it, our prayer
life will be indicative of our faith. We who believe that God
is sovereign, we who believe that Jesus Christ certainly died
to save Himself a people, then we should have all confidence
and boldness, as Paul says, to approach the same Father through
prayer, through the Word, through worship. Are we approaching the
Father of all things? the Creator God with confidence
and assurance. If not, our faith is waning.
And what should we do when our faith wanes, but put our trust
in the one who is faithful? Friends, believe it or not, we
as Christians deny Jesus Christ every day over and over and over
again. Maybe not by declaration. Certainly
not. For no one who denies that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. But all who believe that he is
the Christ have been born, according to 1 John 5, 1. But we deny Christ
in the sense that when we relent and we give in to temptation,
we are saying in that essence that Jesus is not sufficient
to satisfy my flesh, and thus I must give in to these things.
I must give in to this anger. I must give in to these thoughts.
I must give in to these passions. I must give in to these desires.
And so we fail to believe faithfully throughout all of our lives.
But as Paul tells young Timothy, But when we are faithless, He
remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. Friends, there's
hope in that. Do we pray to that end? Do we
pray from that perspective that the gospel of Jesus Christ is
indeed the power of God in our lives? Are we actively involved
in being used by God and being led by God? And even when we're
so far down in the depths of our depression and we know not
what to pray, do we hold fast to the confession of hope in
Christ Jesus through whom this Holy Spirit has made us alive
and also through the Holy Spirit? gives us the words to pray and
prays for us and our weaknesses as Paul teaches in Romans chapter
8. Do we hold fast to that understanding? Do we live our lives as a display
of the gospel? Is there power in our lives?
Friends, just because you have the knowledge of the working
of God's power doesn't mean that you will display it. For unless
we ask God to continually work on us and in us, we are not faithfully
trusting that He will. So many Christians through so
many years, including myself, sit on the edge of their bed
and wonder why they're so faithless, and wonder why they're so depressed,
and wonder why they're so hopeless, and wonder why the power of God
is so empty in their lives. Why is it that those Christians
have the joy that I've so longed to find? And friends, it has
to do with trusting in the Lord Jesus. not seeking after our
own ability. We fight and we rest and we race
in the grace of God through Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, for
Jesus Christ, that we might understand that it is His grace and the
gospel that empowers us to be able to even pray. So as we look
at this text today, ask yourself, how is your prayer life? And
all of us, prayerfully, we'll see that it is waning. For none
of us are praying without ceasing. None of us are believing without
failure. None of us are standing without
falling. But we ought to at least put
the effort in the hands of the one who can, and that is in God
alone. So here, I'm going to break this
down into a few sections, have a few thoughts to say as each
phrase. I want us to look at what James
Montgomery Boyce says is the ladder of prayer. I never thought
of it that way, but as I look at it this morning, I see exactly
what he means. And that this succession of requests
that Paul is about to deliver, not only is it modeled after
the prayer of Jesus Christ, the prayer of our Lord who said,
this is the way you should pray in this manner, not for these
things or not necessarily in these words, but in this way,
sort of like the sow before the love in John 3. This is the way
God loved. the manner in which God loved.
So as we look at this, consider the progression of this prayer
and then reflect on it in your own heart and mind and ask yourself
how you pray in this way. Let's look at the first thing.
For this reason, I bow my knees, verse 14, before the Father.
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named." Now,
let's stop there and let's look at this. Paul doesn't necessarily
specifically say, I am praying for every Christian in the world.
However, by way of this paragraph coming on the tail end of him
really just exhorting and encouraging the church, he indeed is praying
for the Christians. And he reminds them that every
family that is in the body of Christ has been named by God. Those who are in heaven, those
who are on earth. It's just an easy way of saying
in the entire universe. And so specifically, this is
a prayer for people. This isn't a prayer for God.
It's a prayer to God for people. Oftentimes we find ourselves
praying for people, don't we? We should be praying for people.
We ought to pray for people who are sick. We ought to pray for
people who are lost. We ought to pray for people who
are tired. We ought to pray for people who are depressed, angry,
addicted, frustrated, divorced, happily married, joyful, in perfect
health, growing in their faith. Why is it oftentimes that we
look at people in our lives and the world around us and we only
focus on those who are in dire need of prayer from the negative
perspective that God might just change that situation? And when
the situation changes, we go, I'm glad I don't have to pray
for them anymore. When the example of Paul throughout
the New Testament is that he prays for the saints who are
walking well with God more than he prays for those who are falling
in their faith. So the power of the gospel is
the active ingredient through which the church is sustained
in the joy and in the mission and in the purpose to give God
glory in our existence together in fellowship and in worship.
So he's praying for people. Which people? All people. But
specifically, he's praying for the church. The body of Christ.
Not just for the people of Ephesus. Not just for the church in Ephesus.
But for the church internationally. All over the world. And so this
prayer is for the church at large. I'll tell you, church... that
was very convicting for me to really ask myself how I even
pray for other churches, how I even pray for other pastors,
for other congregations. Most of them that we think about
praying for are what? apostate, troubled, hurt, divided,
splitting, failing, dead, dry, you name it. Do we pray for churches
to be made alive, to be strengthened? We pray for God to just get them
or repent them and see what comes after. I think we should really
take heart at how we pray for the church and that we should
be praying for the church. We should pray For the church,
for all who claim to be the church and all who proclaim the gospel
of Jesus Christ, no matter how wrong or egotistical or just
absolutely secularized their gospel might be, we ought to
pray for them. Because nothing's going to change
in their lives, nothing's going to change except that God changed
them. Do we believe that? It's funny
sometimes, especially as God brings us to new revelation,
not that it's new, but to actually see what has been there that
we've been blinded to for so long. First to the Gospel, to
understanding our need for a Savior, then to repentance and faith
in Jesus Christ. Then also to the deeper things, not the deeper
mysteries, not the academic, heady stuff that just bogs us
down with the books and the lexicons. But the reality of the weightiness
of God, His glory, His power, His love, His affection toward
His people, His love for all creation, how different that
is. His love for the Son and His love for Himself, which is
divinely superlative of all things. As we look at that, we need to
see if we are praying effectively for the church. We should pray
for God to do in them that which He has promised to do in us.
We as Grace Truth Church, we have a vision. We have a mission.
We have our beliefs, our belief statements. We have the solas
on the wall. We have a good idea of where
God wants us to be and where God wants us to go. But we can
very well get very prideful in the fact that we are right. And
friends, if God were to put His hand of grace apart from us,
we would be no different than anyone else. It is not because
we got it. It's because God gave it. And
we cannot say that we are the only ones, for there are many
brothers and sisters in this place and in these communities
that we live in that we call home who are struggling with
their congregation, who are struggling with their faith, but they do
know the truth and they are seeking to grow. We should pray for them. Let's be careful not to allow
pride to bring us into a self-glory, but allow the Lord through our
prayers and through his word to bring us to a divine humility.
As our church prays to be a church for God's glory, as we pray for
God to make us his people in the image of Jesus Christ, we
should pray all the more for the other churches in our areas.
We should pray for them to prosper, not in their numbers, not in
their finances, but to prosper in their proclamation of the
gospel of Jesus Christ. to prosper in their worship.
And we should pray for God to bring suffering to the churches
of America so that the church could be sanctified and purified,
that we might rejoice in our suffering for what we want for
ourselves and for our brothers and sisters is glory. And if
we're not praying for suffering, then we're not desiring glory. We must be very careful not to
become self-interested as though we are God's answer to the gospel
truth, but rather we should ask that we are used for his purpose
in the lives of those around us who are suffering sometimes
because of their lack of understanding. We ought to pray for the church.
We ought to pray for pastors who fled and run into man-centered
preaching. They've come out of fear of man
and out of fear of losing a check, out of fear of losing a job.
They've decided to water down what they believe. They do not
want to leave. They do not want to move. They
do not want to lose their livelihood. So they placate to the masses
and they fold to the deacons or they bow to the elders or
they bow to the congregation and they silence themselves and
they do the job of a corporate CEO rather than a shepherd with
patience and endurance and love. and affection and humility. We
ought to pray for the leaders of churches. We ought to pray
for deacons and for elders whose power has blinded them from seeing
God's glorious grace in the face of Jesus Christ. We ought to pray because some of them would
rather see the church fail than for them to let go of the reins
and let go of the power that they hold. We ought to pray for
the social gospel that is running rampant in America today across
all denominations. We ought to pray for those who
have decided to replace the reality of what the Scripture commands
us to preach with a helping hand or a hot meal, and not to worry
about trying to reach them for the gospel, for if we feed them,
they're comfortably going to hell. Let's not rock the boat.
We ought to feed people. A Christian who doesn't have
a heart for people who are hungry is no Christian at all. We ought
to love people. We ought to clothe people. We
ought to take care of those in need. But don't confuse that
for the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is an explicit message
that is particular and articulated precisely as the scripture has
written it. And if it is not given to those
people, they will labor for a food that perishes and find nothing
but rotted bread at the end of the day. And they'll be hungry
tomorrow. Be sure we pray for the social
gospel. I believe the social gospel,
it did, by the way, start in America. It is unique to America. We'll talk about that some Tuesday
if you'd like to come. But I believe it's spread like
a virus. And for the last 50 years, it has replaced God's
word and it has replaced God's word as the means to salvation.
We ought to pray for those who have put their faith in their
own faith. We should pray for those who claim to know Christ
and they trust in their own works and their own decisions and their
own mindsets and their own attitudes. They trust in their own righteousness
because they say, look, I know I'm saved because I've changed.
rather than in the work of Jesus Christ. But in reality, their
lives are empty and void of power and void of joy. Let us pray
for husbands who are unable to see the command of God on their
lives. They are unable to see God's command to lead their families
in the light of the gospel. First by example, being the first
to submit, the first to repent, the first to forgive, the first
to love, the first to cherish. The first to obey, the first
to study, the first to worship. That's what it means to be the
head of one's home. Then by instruction, we pray that husbands would teach
their wives and their children as they co-labor for the sake
of the gospel and for God's glory as a small, microscopic picture
of the macrocosmic reality of Christ in the church, according
to Ephesians 5. And we'll get to that soon. We
ought to pray for believers. who do not desire the riches
of God's grace. Believers who do not desire to
grow in the Word, but are content being a part of a party, an organization,
a denomination, rather than being a child of God or part of the
body of Christ. We ought to pray for children
and teenagers who are continually told to act like Jesus and obey
what Jesus says, rather than having their lives full and filled
with the knowledge of His grace, rather than being taught the
Scripture and commanded to repent and believe the Gospel. So many
young people leave the church today after they get out of their
youth ministries and out of their children's ministries because
they've never been to church. They've never heard the Word,
and they don't know how to deal with it. They have no palate
for it. Not only that, Good enough for they've obeyed what their
teachers have told them. They've obeyed what their pastors have
taught them. And they've followed lot stealth in the righteousness
and morality of Americanism. And therefore, they need no savior
because they are good enough. That's why eight out of 10 teenagers
leave the church never to return because they've never been saved
by the power of the gospel. They've been caged and their
behavior has been modified to look like Christians. But there's
no life in them. We should pray for those children.
We should pray. that they don't live their lives
as an act out of obligation or out of fear of loss or out of
fear of hell. We ought to pray for Christians
who make gods out of doctrine, make gods out of knowledge instead
of seeing the God to whom all truth points. We should pray
for the so-called church who rants and raves with hate and
wicked tongue as they spew specifically and presently anti-gay garbage,
as they talk about the wickedness of homosexuality, as they place
themselves on a pedestal above gays, above drunks, above those
who practice such things, and they say, let's round them up
and dispose of them. Where is that in the Scripture?
Jesus disposed, if you will, of the religious zealots of His
day. He rebuked them and mocked them and scorned them and publicly
humiliated them. He called them snakes and vipers.
He called them dogs. And He told them that they would
not believe, for He had sealed their hearts to destruction that
they could not believe. And he says Isaiah 6 and John
chapter 12 was fulfilled in His presence. And though they knew
He was God and He'd proven that He was God by raising Lazarus
from the dead, they knew He had to die, for they loved the glory
that came from men. Friends, the church cannot condemn
homosexuality. They need to embrace gay people
and love them. And they need to pray for them,
just like you pray for yourself. If it weren't for God's grace,
you'd be a liar and a thief and a coveter and an adulterer and
an idolater. The very first commandment no
man has ever kept, to love the Lord God with all your heart,
mind, soul and strength. So we need to be careful what
we amen in the name of hate. We need to pray that the church
of Jesus Christ would suffer. And we need to pray that the
church would suffer well with all the saints, unified in the gospel
of peace, so that the Word of God might be clearly seen and
known. So, friends, we ought to pray
for the church. As Paul says, he prays for the
church. How is it that these things will
take place? Let's look at the progression of this prayer. Paul
has prayed that these Christians will have the peace of Christ
in their inner beings and be strengthened by His power, which,
as we see in other parts of Scripture, is the grace of Jesus Christ.
This prayer for peace and this inner being. Look what Paul says
there. I bow my knees to the Father,
from whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according
to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in your inner being. And what
I see there is that Paul is praying for one's inner being to be strong.
Part of a foundation of strength in the Holy Spirit is an inner
peace. As we see that the peace of Christ surpasses all understanding,
we also see that the love of Christ surpasses all understanding.
But we see Paul saying, I want you to know it. I want you to
understand it. I want you to comprehend it. But it's not knowable.
Amazing stuff. Paul really confuses those who
sit there and see the grammar as that syntax comes off the
page. What are you saying to me? Well, here Paul is praying
for inner peace. The outcome of the purpose and
power of God is that to find strength internally, Through
God, it must come from the Holy Spirit. It must come from the
Word. When do we need strength? We
need strength every day. Not just in doubt, though we
need strength in doubt. We need strength when we sin.
We need strength in temptation. We need strength when we're on
mission for the Gospel. We need strength in our ethics,
in our jobs, in our home, at work, in school, in our community.
It's very easy for us to compartmentalize our faith and say, well, I'm
a Christian around my Christians, but I'm a businessman around
my businessmen. I'm a businessman around my partners.
I'm doing business. Friends, our light should shine
brighter around those who are not in the church. And our ethics
ought to be clean and pure. And we must pray that God would
strengthen us when we have to make tough decisions, when we
have to stand on not egotistically and self-righteously, but stand
on the gospel, sometimes quietly, and take what comes rather than
just giving up. When one is alone, he needs strength. When one is in fear, he needs
strength. When one is in death, he needs strength. In depression,
in the church, or in love, the power of God in us is our strength
and our hope. The strength is ultimate. Friends,
we see here in this text that this strength is ultimate, this
strength is powerful, it is full, and it demands a positive outcome. And what that means is that God
is doing these things, and all that He does surely comes to
reality. See, we're not hoping with our
fingers crossed. We're basically just affirming and agreeing with
what God said He will do in the life of His people. Do we know
that we are the children of God? As John says, we have love, we
walk in light, we walk in holiness. Do we know we are the children
of God because the Holy Spirit of God confirms that we are?
Romans 8, 16. See, God is working in His children,
and all that He has purposed surely will come to pass. For
He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete
it. in the day of Jesus. So this is a prayer for inner
peace, this power here inside the life of every Christian.
And look what Paul then prays. The prayer of presence. I pray
that Christ may dwell in your hearts richly. There's so much
here and I don't have the opportunity to effectively just walk over
it because it literally would take six, seven, eight weeks
to pull all of this out. I pray you would meditate on
this, that your life would be changed, that you'd be enriched,
that you'd be edified, and that you'd be empowered, and joy would
be the outcome here. So here we see that Christ should
dwell in our hearts, and Paul has asked God to do these things,
and what Paul has prayed surely will take place, for Paul prays
in the will of God. It is the will of God for Christ
to dwell richly in our hearts. Amazingly, this is one of the
only places in Scripture where we see the idea that Jesus dwells
in the hearts of men. But we have taken that and we've
talked about inviting Jesus into our hearts. There's no such place
of that in Scripture. That when we're rebirthed, we're
indwelt with the Holy Spirit. And then Jesus, according to
this text, rules our hearts. The very grammar teaches us that
He is the owner of our hearts. It makes very clear what Psalm
37, verse 4 teaches us. Delight yourself in the Lord,
and He will give you the desires of your heart. Which means if
God is the delight of your heart, the desires of your heart will
be from Him. They will be given by Him. So
many times we abuse this idea and think, I love the world and
everything in it, and if I delight in God, then He'll give me the
world. Well, you're not delighting in God if you're using God as
a genie, but you're delighting in the world. This affection,
our motives, our passion, the outcome of our lives, our humility,
this is sort of like Paul says in Philippians. He says, have
the mind of Christ among you, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
Have this mind among you. And he talks about the humility
of Christ, and the passion of Christ, and the obedience of
Christ. And we see that we ought to have this mind. Paul does
not command what God has not provided and made able in the
lives of His children. So here this Greek dictates an
interesting thought. It could better be understood
this way, that Jesus would settle down and make permanence in the
hearts of His people. This means that Christ will take
possession of His people and thus take possession of their
very minds, of their very hearts, of their very hands, of their
very wills, of their very desires. Is Christ in possession of your
heart today? Or do you love the world? Yes,
we all have loves that are of the world, but do we love the
world? John is very clear in 1 John chapter 2, verse 15 through
17, as he commands, Do not love the world or the things of the
world. For the things of the world,
the lust of the odds, the pride of life and the pride of possessions
are not from God, but are from the world. And if we love them,
he says, the love of the Father is not in us. If the love of
the Father is not in us, we're not a child. If we're not a child,
we're not a Christian. If we're not a Christian, we're
lost in our sin and our trespasses. We're lost and we're dead. Test
ourselves to see if we're in the faith. Do we love Christ
above all things? Is He the treasure that we find
in a field and we go and we sell with joy all that we own that
we might buy the field so that we could obtain the treasure?
Christ may dwell richly in your hearts. This term dwell, there's
two ways that it's been presented in the Greek. This is a very
uncommon term to dwell. It doesn't mean just to have
commonality with. It is the same word used only
at one other occasion. It's the word that's used for
God's dwelling within Christ in fullness in Colossians. that
the fullness of the deity was pleased to dwell in Christ. So
this dwelling of God in Christ is the fullness of deity dwelling
in Christ, and now the fullness of deity in Christ dwelling in
His church. It's the power of the fullness
of the Godhead as we see Paul clearly exposes that that's what
it is in his last few statements. So the fullness of God dwelling
in the hearts of His people. Therefore, this prayer is asking
God to continue to abide in fullness in the hearts of His children
and to make their lives fully His in shape, form, and fashion. This is only possible by the
rebirth. This is only possible if you are born again. By faith. This is only possible. An unbeliever
cannot experience this. An unbeliever cannot know this.
An unbeliever can only think about it and contemplate it and
meditate on it. But he cannot, she cannot experience
it. Only those who are born from
the Holy Spirit. Not born of the decision of man,
nor the decision of blood, nor the decision of anything else,
except for the will of the Father, 1 John 1. God owns His children. He has bought them through the
blood of Jesus Christ. He has ransomed them. He has
transferred them. He has saved them. He has redeemed
them. He has reconciled them. All of
the actions we see in redemption in the entire New Testament belong
to God. The responses are all outcomes
of worship. the expression of worship, the
expression of joy, the expression of faith, the expression of repentance,
the expression of obedience. All of these things are the outcomes
of the actions that God has done and fully done in the lives of
His children. That is a glorious salvation, church. This is a
salvation that is not dependent upon your obedience to the law.
For the law kills, but the Spirit gives life. No one can be right
with God except through His divine favor. He regenerates their hearts
that they might believe in the Son whom He has sent. Friends,
don't be deceived. God is fully alive and powerful
in His children. Test yourselves to see if you're
in the faith. Don't feel comfortable because
you might be at the right church or be at the right time or be
in the right place theologically. Don't be comfortable because
you do the right stuff or you love the right way. Be comfortable
in Christ with boldness and confidence because you know that He alone
has saved you. And He alone satisfies God not
only as a holy man, but as the Lamb, whom God put forth His
judgment, which should have been mine and should have been yours.
He forgave us on the back of Jesus Christ. Let's look at what
else he says. Paul begins to look at the love
of God, the love of Jesus Christ. He prays that we would be filled
with the fullness of Christ in our hearts, that we would be
controlled and owned by the Holy Spirit of God, that we would
be strengthened in our hearts, and that we would understand...
Look at these words. I pray that you be a being Rooted
and grounded in love. He says you are. You're being
rooted and grounded in love. That's the condition. Because
of that, you may have strength to comprehend. So we also need,
even in our minds, we need strength through the Holy Spirit, God's
grace, to give us the ability to understand what we're talking
about here today. to understand what the Scripture
is teaching. We need the ability to comprehend. What is it that
He wants us to comprehend? Here it is. Listen very carefully.
I pray that you may have the strength to comprehend with all
the saints, that means all the believers in the world, what
is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth,
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. So
he wants us to know and comprehend all the dimensions of Jesus'
love for his children, for his church. He's praying that they
would see and understand the full measure of the love of Christ.
He is praying that the power of God would enable them to see
the expression of such love. Love gets a bad play in today's
language. This morning at a church in Reidsville, I preached on
John 3.16, asking the question, how does God love? For that's
exactly what John 16-18 teaches us in this manner. God so loved
that little helper to the bird loved. This is how God loved
and that He gave His only Son. He loved all the peoples of the
world, not just Israel, not just the Jews, but every tribe, every
tongue, every nation. Thus, His love was shown and
demonstrated in this, that He gave His Son, that whoever is
a believing one will not perish, but has eternal life. And whoever
is not a believing one is condemned already, the Scripture teaches
us. Do you understand the love of
Christ given to you? That while you were an enemy,
Christ died for you. While you were a hostile, wicked,
thrasher, rebelling against God and His grace and His glory,
Christ died for you. He who knew no sin became sin
that we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus says that the Father
loves me because I lay my life down for the sheep. Jesus came
to seek and save that which was lost. He came to seek and save
you, church. He came and He found what He
seeks. Jesus is the Omnipotent God.
He does not lose any that the Father gives Him, and only those
that the Father gives Him come to Him by His own words in John
chapter 6. So now, in order to see this
love, one must have the strength of God. In other words, it must
be given by God's grace. Paul tells Timothy to be strengthened
by the grace that is in Jesus Christ. And 1 Timothy, this love
of Jesus, this gospel clear and explicitly displayed, Jesus laying
His life down for His sheep. So you might be sitting here
thinking now, I want some application. I want something to take home
with me. What else do you want? other than to worship God. That
is why we preach. That is why we study. That your
life may be a reflection of His glory and His power. That you
are transformed from one state of glory to another. That you
constantly live as though you have received grace upon grace.
And you live with the fullness of joy and the depths of sorrow
and despair with hope. Do you want an application? What
is it that you truly desire from the Word of God? A life to follow? A list to complete? God has given
us one single command as a list. Be holy. And thus we know that
we ought to do that. We ought to be holy, but we cannot
be holy. We cannot fulfill the command
of God to be holy, for we are born under sin. We are born under
the condition of our father Adam. And all who are conceived are
under judgment, except they be saved by the gospel of Jesus
Christ and through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do what we know
to do. However, knowing what we ought
to do and doing what we should do is two different things. We
can know what is right, but accomplishing that is impossible for man. But
what is impossible for man is not impossible with God, for
God is the only one who can save. No man can keep the law. So, some of them might think
they can. Scripture gives application.
The application here is to worship, knowing who God is, and understanding
the depth of His love and affection toward us ever so deeply, every
day, little by little by little. How can we see the measure of
Christ's love? He said, I want you to understand
the fullness, the breadth, the depth, the height, the length,
the full dimensions. We can see Christ. In order to
see Christ, He says, you must be born again. Redeemed. You must be regenerated. You
must become a child. How do we do that? Through the
Word, Romans 10, 17. We hear the Word. And through
the hearing of the Word, we're made alive to the Holy Spirit.
God uses His Word and a natural means of preaching and communicating
the Word as it is written and as it was intended to be taught
to bring people who are dead in their sins to life and make
them children. He uses natural means to a supernatural end.
For as Paul says, Apollo's planted and I watered, but God gives
the growth. We can see the measure of Christ's
love when we see Christ by being born again through the word,
an intimate reflection of what we learn and who we are and who
we love and worship and living in the word of God alone. And
we should do this daily over and over again. But what Paul
is saying here is that he wants us to understand this love, but
that it's not comprehensible. It's beyond comprehension. It
surpasses all knowledge. So what in the world should we
do? Well, he's praying for something that only God can do. But it
doesn't mean that we can't know the fullness of God's love, but
we can never exhaust God's love in full. We can never exhaust
the reality of who God is. This means that the fullness
of Christ's love can never be known. But His love can always
be known. And it can be known more and
more and more. And His grace is manifest daily.
His mercies are new every day. You see what that means? See,
church, we lose sight of it when we think we know something about
God. And then we move on to something else. And we eventually get tired
and bored with Scripture. And we start just to be very
apathetic and lethargic in our faith. We can never know the
fullness of everything there is to know. We can never contemplate
the depths of the glories and the riches of the mercy of God.
We can never comprehend the fullness, but as we are able to comprehend,
He gives us more and more and more. And so I envision it this
way, a bottomless cavern underneath a glass that is overflowing,
continually pouring, rolling over the edges with an endless
supply of living water in the person of Jesus Christ as it
drowns the glass, always overflowing but never filling up. That's
what Jesus says in John four, that it wells up into eternal
life. I'm the living water. All who drink will never thirst,
never hunger. Come to me, Jesus says. And look at what he says in closing. He says, and I pray that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God. Next week, we're going to talk
about that for an hour. This literally means that Christians,
you and I, and every other Christian in the world, whoever has lived,
whoever will live, can be filled with the fullness of God. That's
what it means. Proven by what He said, I pray
that Christ may dwell richly, and that dwell is the same dwelling
that God dwells in Christ, and then Christ dwells in His people.
And we'd be filled with the fullness of God. In John chapter 1, verse
14, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have
seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full
of grace and truth." Now listen, "...and from His fullness we
all received grace upon grace..." And we could continue to go,
"...upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace." From His fullness,
we all receive grace. You see why that glass makes
sense to me? I can see it that way in my mind's
eye. Grace upon grace upon grace. God is never-ending fullness
pouring out eternally into His people, starting at the time
of rebirth forever. How do we tap into the living
water? We abide in the words of Christ's church. That's going
to be the crux of next week's message. We abide in the Word.
We can be filled with the fullness of God. There is no second blessing.
There is no refilling. We are full. We have all spiritual
blessings according to Paul in Ephesians chapter 1 that are
in Christ and in the heavenly realm. We have everything and
we just continue to be filled. And I'll put it this way. I think
if you don't feel like you're being filled and overflowing
with Christ, one of two things has happened. You have become
sour in your discipline in the Word of God and your affection
for the people of God. Those are two things that will
put you on a hard, fast path of despair in your faith. You
can love Christ all you want to, but if you don't love His
church, you are very much in danger. What does His church
just look around? Look around those who claim to
be your brother and your sister. You got to love them. That means
you put yourself out for them with joy, not despair. We can be filled from His fullness,
receive grace upon grace. This request can be heard in
this way. This is the way I sort of just paraphrase it with three
thoughts and then I'm closing. Paul is sort of praying, I pray
that you be filled and filled and filled and filled and filled
and filled. Do you get the point? I pray
that you be filled and filled, just as John said, with grace
upon grace upon grace. And I pray you'll be full over
and over. And I think Paul should have
written it that way. A couple of pages of overs and fillings
and overs and just, you know, we truncate that. We put ETC
period at the end of that. I could see Greek scholars just
going, why did he write that same word like 15 times? That's
what He means. That's what He means that we're
filled. So what are you going to do with that church? What
are you going to do with it? You're going to worship God. You're going to
be rejoicing. You're going to be full with
power. You're not going to be stale in your faith. You're going
to stand up and boldly move and walk with glorious joy, being
fulfilled and satisfied with Christ beyond all things. For
those of you who are in our 101 Anchoring Faith, 101 Foundations
of Faith classes, those seven weeks we dealt with some things,
I talked one of those weeks about worship. And my parting shot,
if you will, for today, I think that this moves us to that place,
to where we worship. Now, why should we be? Some of
us will say, well, my glass is full and I'm not greedy. It can
just stay full and I don't need any more. Really? Well, let me let me give you
a couple of overviews over you for me. Let me give you an overview
of what God is showing me about worship in eternity. God, the scriptures teach that
we gain a reward. We see that in first Corinthians
chapter two, three. Their work is stacked up, it's
built, if we build on the foundation of the gospel with the gospel,
with that same material, then our work is not destroyed. And
we get a reward. Part of that is our worship,
our affection for Christ, our discipline in the things of God,
our holy affections for each other, our divine interests in
the church. So our reward is stacking. Now, as a test for your life
here, is the reward that you're hoping for worldly in nature? I pray not. I pray that the treasure
of the gospel is Jesus Himself, that He is the treasure in your
heart. For He is, according to the Scripture, interchanging,
saying that He is the kingdom, He is the joy, He is the eternal
life. You see John saying that. I don't
believe that's an accident to use improper common pronouns,
if you will, to talk about the God of the universe, because
we will use those words and we need to understand that our reward
is Jesus. See, for the children of God,
it is Jesus, the kingdom, the eternal life, the peace, the
joy, the treasure. Thus, because of that, therefore,
our passion should be to have more and more and more of the
fullness of God overflowing in our lives, so that we are more
intimate with Him. just a second later than we were
just a second before. That tomorrow, our intimacy with
Christ, we're never satisfied with our closeness. We're satisfied
with Him. And so our satisfaction provides
a hunger that makes us desire to be more in Him and filled
with Him and gloriously aligned with Him, to be like Him, to
be seen as Him, to just walk with Him. We want to move out
of our flesh into our intimacy with Christ in such a way that
there is no question that we hunger, we want to swim upstream
against the rapids of the grace of God's glory in the face of
Jesus. That's really what we want. And
we're willing to drown to try. Sometimes sermons will drown
you. The Word of God will drown you. It will go, I was not ready
for that. It will knock your belief system
off of its foundation and you have to climb up, holding on
to the only thing you know to hold, which is Christ and the
hem of His garment. Our passions ought to be growing
as we move in this life, preparing for the next life. So we realize
that God is preparing us for a greater intimacy. We will forever
be growing in grace, forever be understanding who God is and
how He loves. This is doctrine and theology
and worship. We'll forever be learning these things. So as
we leave this earth, we keep going. We keep going. But our joy is more and more
full as we face Jesus, depending on how full we have continued
to fight for that fullness in this life and by making sense
to you. I think I used the example of
a diamond, like a big hope diamond in an infant in a crib. And you give that diamond to
an infant in a crib and it will lick it and stick it in its nose. Throw it on the floor and play
with the box that it came in. But you find a man who has been
on the street eating out of trash cans with no water for years. He lost everything. And you walk
up and you give that to him. You will see a man that will
break dance on air. Because he understands the beauty
and the value of what was just given to him. And in no way would
I ever compare Jesus with a diamond, a piece of rock that He created
to display His glory. It's amazing how we make idols
out of what God has made. Romans 1, oh, don't think it's
for people who carve graven images. We wear them around our fingers
and necks. I'm not blaming you. I'm just making an awareness
for us. So as we see Christ. As we're intimate with him on
earth more and more than the greater the joy when we see him
face to face. I can love him more than you
can love him if I'm more intimate with him. That's your reward. What do you
really want? Are we preparing to get started
in eternity loving him or are we working and being close in
intimacy today? What is our desire? Do we desire
the fullness of God to be filled with the fullness of God? And
look what he says. So how am I going to do that?
How am I going to do that? And we'll talk more particularly
about that a week from today. But look what Paul says in verse
20. He starts to praise God again,
now to him. Guys, this is good stuff. If I were in a Kung Fu mood,
I'd kick something. Now to him who was able to do
far, I love this, far more abundantly. Look at those adjectives. Look
at that expression. He didn't say, Now to him who
is able to do more than all that we ask or think, he said, now
to him who is able to do far more, not just far more, far
more abundantly, fully, absolutely far more abundantly than all
we ask for. So everything Paul just asked,
he's praising God for God is able to affect that in our lives
far more abundantly than we've just asked for. I can't think
about that. I don't have time. This life
doesn't warrant me that type of time. I'd love to. But I wouldn't eat. I wouldn't
sleep. Not only that what we ask for,
but look, what we could even comprehend, what we think. There
is no vision of man's deepest, deepest, deepest imagination
that compares to what God will do and can do? None. How? According to the power at
work presently in us, within us, now to Him. Be the glory
in the church and in Christ throughout all generations, forever and
ever. Amen. It's done. So how's it done? I just told
you. He is able to do far more abundantly
anything that we ask or think. This is the same way our salvation
is done. This is the same way our faith is done. It's the same
way our future is promised. Through the immeasurable power
and provision of our God, all that we could imagine or pray
is nothing in comparison of what God is preparing and doing in
us and for us. And what is Paul as he starts out this letter?
It's continually to the praise of His glorious grace. I pray that you can see that.
I pray that you can embrace that and hold that. and cherish that,
and that you live for that, and that you're empowered by that.
And if you're not, I pray that God would bring you to life,
that you might see it and taste it and eat it forever. Let's
pray. God, wow, what a wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful, wonderful text, Father. We thank You for all that You've
done, all that You are doing, all that You will do. Lord, we
can't even contemplate it, but yet we can know You more in fullness
every moment of our lives. Bring us to this place individually
as Your children and corporately as the body of Your Son, Jesus
Christ. Let us give glory and honor to
Christ in the church throughout all generations, Father. Let
our legacy be given to our children. that there may be gospel martyrs. And Lord, that it might start
right here in this small rural area of South Georgia. And I pray, God, that You would
do what it is that You're going to do and reveal it to us that
we might worship You through it and in it. And we pray this
in the name of Christ our King. Amen.