Ephesians, 3:13-17
Bradley W. Maston · Apr 19, 2009
Ephesians (2009), No. 16
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926131221215

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We get Ephesians 3, 13 through 17, which kind of... No, no, thank you. I usually get so self-conscious, I want to, like, almost put it on my cuff, on my pants. And then we'll record it and put it on the internet. All my mistakes. Now we've got... documented proof. He did say that, and he's kicked out of the church, but it's not legalism. All right.

Cool. So who would like to read our verses today? We've got 13 through 17 in chapter 3 of Ephesians. Winnie, you feel the move of the spirit? Awesome. Thank you. Therefore I ask you not to lose heart of my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts with faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, It's okay, we'll finish it next week and it'll be really exciting. It'll be worth all the build-up.

Excellent, so now we're picking up where Paul, actually Paul's picking up, or the Holy Spirit's picking up, where he left off in verse 1. We talked about it three weeks ago, about Paul starting this parenthetical statement. He gets ready to pray and he says, I've got some more to tell you about this whole church thing, which is really cool stuff as we highlight it. Does anyone, as you've got your Bibles open, go ahead and look back at that section between verses 1 and 13.

Pull some highlights out of there. What is he casting back to you? What's he summing up? What did he talk about? You mean chapter 3? Yeah, chapter 3. Sorry. It's pretty exciting stuff. I mean, but y'all, for me it's been a really exciting few weeks to hear Jeremy and Randy. Did Bob get one of them too? Yeah.

So to have all three of those and look at what amazing stuff the Lord's done and to talk last week about Jeremy talked a lot about access and The Greek word there is the prosagoga, which is the fellow who'd sit outside of a king's court and say who could come in and who couldn't.

If you tried to come in without that guy's permission, you'd pretty much not be going out on your feet. Which is really cool to think that Christ is our prosagoga. He's our access. He's the one who's announcing our entrance before the Father, which is Really fantastic, James. So, sorry if I feel like I'm jumping out of my skin on top of the fact that I've had about eight cups of coffee. I think this is really good, exciting stuff.

So, you know, whichever one you can discern, whichever one's happening at any given time. So, on basis of that, Paul beseeches these people and that asker that I think the King James has, I pray you, is in the middle voice. So it's this idea of, I'm asking you for my own sake. It's kind of the sense of one of the things that the middle voice can carry.

I'm asking you for my own sake on the basis of all this great news. Because he's saying, remember he said back in 3 in verse 1 I believe, yeah, for this reason I'm the prisoner of Christ Jesus. This great message, this great news. He says, I'm asking you for my own sake not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you. So he made it clear to him, right, that, hey, I'm suffering because I want to bring the gospel to you because that's what the Lord's doing with me. That's why I'm in prison, right? And then he's saying, but don't feel bad about it. Don't feel guilty about it. I just know where I'd rather be.

I love that view of his sufferings. I don't know if we always take, actually, I know I don't always take that view of my sufferings. When bad stuff happens to me, I go, hey, don't mourn for me, usually it's come over here and feel sorry for me, right?

Well, you know, I struggle a little there, Brad, with that, which are your glory, and I'm trying to figure it out, but that's all well. Sure, the sufferings which are their glory. Why is his suffering kind of positive towards their glory? Christ is their glory.

And what is his suffering? I know he's going through a lot of tribulation getting the message out. And I don't think that's not even worth mentioning in his mind that he's suffering for it. He knows that he's totally opposed to the old Jewish way and that this new thing has come in. And I don't know, I have trouble comprehending how that fits in being their glory.

I think you're drawing to light the real perspective that Paul's asking him to have. I think he's saying, don't make such a huge concern or fuss about my sufferings for you, because they're just what the Lord's using to bring Christ to you. And that's for their glory, just like you said, right? But the suffering is just a vehicle for that.

I still have trouble seeing how that's... Look at this in the context of... Hold on, let me get the right address here. Forgive me, my brain always confers first and second Corinthians, so I always get it wrong here. Second Corinthians 3.18 where he says, but we all with unfailed faith Beholding is in a mirror of the glory of the Lord, or being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. Or just as from the Lord the Spirit, I better not cut that part off.

But I see when we see suffering in the context of growth, glorification is taking place. And this fits in that same context where Paul's suffering, but it's for the glory of God. And when we are edified by another saint, we are growing, and that growth brings glory, a reflection of God's truth in our lives. So it's not unreasonable for Paul's suffering... I mean, Paul's suffering brings glory to all believers because it becomes a ministry opportunity in which he writes a letter that we get to read. I mean, it's not a normal way to look at suffering, and it's not a normal way... We've been told in the Church forever that God's glory is His and that we should never have any concept of our own reception of His glory. And this is asking us to take them into consideration. How about that? Is that a long-winded answer for the question?

Yeah, it helps. Well, it seems like any time I see some beautiful Christian person Handling a disease. Well, or you know, we can put it into the present perspective And her beautiful attitude whenever she's ill It just it sort of glorifies the Lord does to me brings glory to the Lord. I think this is Just another way of doing that does that? We're a lot of I just that way I is all about?

I kind of go back to John chapter 17, when Christ prayed, this is really kind of an answer to that, because he says, and the glory which thou givest me, I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one. So the glory is part of the body. When one suffers, we all suffer. We all glory because we're all one in Christ. That was what he prayed there. We've all glory together. That's great. Yeah, that's pretty relaxing right there. He says that you think not of my tribulation. And as much as he's suffering, they are too. So consequently, that does work out to their glory.

I mean, whenever Paul talks about sufferings, also, you're combating, like Randy pointed out, it's not a normal view. There's no normal view of suffering in the Bible. Nothing that the world would understand when viewed suffering. I mean, there might be some people out there who kind of default to the, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. What if it kills us?

The point being that I think he's still combating in them the idea that, well, you know, if God was really behind Paul's message, Paul would be rich. Paul would be delivering this message on huge camels and caravans and never suffering. He's probably still combating, in the Jewish and in the Gentile context, the idea that suffering does not mean God hates you. Suffering does not mean God's angry at you. Suffering does not mean that you're outside of the will of God, in fact. Quite to the contrary, God has an amazing purpose for suffering. And if you suffer in the proper way, and you look to the Lord, I think that's when you know it.

Exactly. I think that suffering, if you take the words affliction, tribulation, persecution, trials, they're all different. They all have a different context. But when you look at the context in which they're used, it's always used in terms of a spiritual person. For instance, the fruit of the spirit is long-suffering. I mean, that's an aspect of the fruit of the spirit.

And so when you look at the purpose that God designed these things is to bring us to God. suffered, he suffered the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. Suffering is always an aspect, an avenue, or a vehicle by which God demonstrates character, his character in a believer. But unsaved people suffer. I mean everything that you suffer, an unsaved person suffers. Everything an unsaved person suffers, you suffer. I mean you got sickness, they got sickness.

But it's how you look at it, it's perspective, it's God's divine avenue by which He brings us to God. Christ, if He didn't suffer, He would never have died on the cross. And so Paul, I just want to read a verse where Paul in Colossians chapter 1 verse 24 says, Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up all that is behind of affliction. So he uses two words, suffering and affliction of Christ.

In my flesh, for His body's sake, Which is the church. Which I have made a minister. So Paul suffered. Tremendously. No question. And one of the things he suffered most for was the resurrection. When he preached the resurrection. He tells you in 2 Timothy. That when he looked back he was going to die. But when he looked back to his life. The thing that he suffered most for when he preached the resurrection. The Jews. That's what everyone was after. Brilliant. Cool. Well, let's move forward.

We've already spent far too much time on this one, which is exciting. Well, I don't know if you could spend too much time on a verse, but too much time in perspective of how much we have to cover. So, very good, so verses 14 and 15 read, For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. Okay, so for what reason? We're going, looking back again, right? Looking back to what we just talked about, the mystery, the access, the relationship that we now have in Christ, one to each other, and most importantly to God.

So the next thing he says is kneel, and this is Actually a translation, or would be better translated, I bow my knees or I bend my knees. So the typical Jewish method of prayer was not to kneel in prayer, but was to stand and pray with arms raised. That was kind of more the deal. So this is not a typical Jewish thing, to kneel before God. Actually, one commentator even suggested that this meant to be totally prostrate before the Lord, totally on your face before the Lord. And some commentators would just write it off and say, hey, it's the posture of prayer. He's just using it kind of an allusion to prayer.

But I think there's more to it. The Lord made us, as C.S. Lewis and others point out, both physical and spirits. And somehow what you do in one affects the other, right? Somehow there's a relationship there that we can't fully understand. And I think Paul wasn't being completely metaphorical.

I think he really did kneel before the Lord. as a posture of humility, as a posture for I think he actually physically not suggesting that we should put little pillows in front of all the pews at Holly Hills and we should start genuflecting three times a service but at the same time in our personal and private prayer life would it be, is it such a shocking thing to think that we would assume a posture that is akin to our spiritual relationship with God, of absolute humility and worship before the Lord. So, anyway, I just thought it was interesting that while being chained to a praetorian guard, Paul took the time to kneel in prayer.

This is meant to be interpreted literally. Jesus took the time to kneel in prayer. Seems to be something that people do. Exciting stuff. Like the Lord's Table, foot washing, or water baptism. These are physical things that we can do to help us understand the spiritual reality. Which is kind of exciting stuff.

Okay, Father, from whom is his whole family. This gets kind of wild and kind of greeky, but this is my Father's Day passage. I teach it to other little Korean youth groups, and every time Father's Day comes up, we talk about this passage. Fortunately, most 7th to 9th graders kind of have that goldfish concept, where by the time they get around to an entire year, they've forgotten what was said last year. So I can probably do this for another 10 years and get away with it, just because they won't have remembered it.

But anyway, Father, so this is a tough one, tough one to translate for certain. And when I was looking at it, my Greek is kind of a fledgling Greek studies and access to a lot of resources. So it's kind of It was really weird for me to look at it at first.

A lot of times you get these translations like, from whom the whole family, and what does the NASB have? Does anyone have the NASB open? NASB is, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name. Good, from whom every family and heaven are on earth. Awesome.

So some commentators will try to take this to be, once again, this idea of from whom every family. I think for translators it's just easier to say that. But the real thrust of the Greek, and like I say, some commentators caught it, some commentators didn't. I think it just depended on whether you used a strongs or used a deeper, a Greek resource that digs a little bit deeper.

But it presents the idea that God is the father of all fatherhood. I don't know if you're familiar with much psychological research, but a lot of psychologists will say that your image or picture of God is going to be built first and foremost on your image or picture of your father, your earthly dad. So if you have a distant or a disciplinarian father, a lot of times you'll default to seeing God as a distant disciplinarian. If you see God as this and that, and so we wind up, the psychologists take the human side and kind of walk forward and say, oh wow, you need to restore that. And that God uses the image of a father because that's a physical image that we have to understand, if you like. But I want to go a step further and say that God made fathers and children on earth because he is the father, because it flows out of who he is, because he's the first father. So you might say he's the father of all fatherhood or the father of fathers from whom all other fathers derive their name. So in other words, our human fathers are successful insofar as they are like God the Father, and their failures insofar as they're not like God the Father. Does that make sense? That's a fantastic description of things.

My friend Tony in Texas did not grow up with his dad around, and he became a believer in his teen years, and it wasn't until He got married, and he had a kid, and he was like, I don't know what it's like to be a godly dad. I don't know what a godly dad looks like. And so he said, I just went to the Bible. What does the Bible tell me the God the Father is like?

And it was so amazing to me that that was his natural reaction, because so many people just look for another good dad personality of earthly types, and that's where they go and move to. I know exactly where I need to go for this. And as a father myself, it's unlikely to go anywhere. My dad's a great dad, but I need to go higher than that.

Well, and I was thinking and praying about it this morning just as I was considering our time together. And I couldn't help but realize that I'm Cadence's and Finn are my children. And I'm their dad, I'm their father. And I derived that name, just the fact that I would say that I'm their father is derived from the fact that God is the father.

I mean, what a weighty stewardship that is. How seriously do I have to take that? The fact that their image of what fatherhood is, their first image, of course they'll revise it and hopefully, as they go to the Word, get the perfect picture. But their first image is, before they can speak, before they can act, all their image is of what fatherhood's all about. In other words, what their real relationship to God is, is going to come from my relationship, my interactions with them.

That's weighty. That's a serious stewardship. God's grace is bigger than, and I can't goof him up, and all those things absolutely being true, but that's an arm that I don't deserve. That none of us deserve. I mean, that's way beyond that God would share that part of his character with us. What's that? It's a gift, it's not deserved. Yeah, exactly. And it's the only way we can come by it. I mean, it's... So, it's... There are many things you can't deserve. It's so exciting.

And that's, in some sense, a common grace, right? Fathers who are fathers that are not believers and yet they have an image of what it's like They have a picture of what it's like God's shouting his his grace and his love out to them, too Which is is pretty wild So, a handful of commentators will try to tie in this passage, like the universal fatherhood of God, and oftentimes that can even slide towards universalism, that God is the father of all the saved and unsaved, and there is a sense in which that's true, that God is the creator and father of all. But this is, I think, more talking about God as the father in a... well, one, the father of fatherhood, but it is... Not to say that there's not a specialized sense. just to safeguard against that. There's a specialized sense in which God is our Father, in the church, as believers. There's a specialized and unique sense that we can cry out, or the Spirit cries out within us, Abba, Father, which the Jews would have been terrified to cry out to God, or would not even presume to cry out to God. So there's a special fatherhood of God over us as believers. There's a general fatherhood of God over all creation, and this is talking about something different, which is God is the Father of all fatherhood.

It's kind of cool. Very exciting stuff. All right. So, Heaven on Earth, this is a common Hebrew speech pattern. If you've been in the main services, Vern brings out more than a handful of these. So this is essentially It essentially means that God is the model of fatherhood, not just for things here on earth, but also for the angels and all in the heavens. So the Hebrew speech pattern here is to talk about both halves instead of just saying everything.

So heaven and earth, that pretty much encompasses everything. The heavens, the earth, God, all of it. So two halves of the whole. So he's saying that God isn't just the image of fatherhood for us, but for all of existence. That's part of his character that goes all the way.

So, any questions as we move on to verse 16? Of course, more could be said, but not in a half hour. Alright, so verse 16 says, I pray out of His glorious riches that He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being. So, here we see Paul going to prayer out of thankfulness and praise for what he's just said again.

That was just kind of a little side note application that came to me as I was studying. How often do things go really right, or do I think as I'm driving to church instead of, man, I wish I would have grabbed another cup of coffee, and golly, I'm late again, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

How often do I think, Lord, thank you so much that I'm going to meet with the saints. Thank you so much that I'm going to study your word. Thank you so much that I'm going to be conformed to your image and be a part of your plan. How often am I just moved to an absolute overflow of praise by the reality of what's going on, by the reality of what we're doing here? How often do I just run by it and forget about it?

It's like, oh, it's Sunday, it's church, then Monday is work. It's all pretty much the same, right? Just get up and go. It's not just get up and go. This really is, if we only knew, if we could only see the spiritual reality, how God sees it, if we only saw through the lens of the Word more perfectly, this would be the most exciting day of the week, in a sense. Not because it's Sunday, not because it's Sabbath, but it's because the day we come together and meet. If it's Tuesday night, great, it's Tuesday night. But it's outstanding stuff. So, cool.

So verse 16, we're talking about the glorious riches. Once again, I think the last time we hit this, we pulled up every time riches and all this came up. And I think what Paul is highlighting here, I'm not sure, is that the Lord is rich. He says about six times, I think is what it is, in the course of Ephesians. So when we think of riches, what is that communicating to us? just define the word in its simplest sense. Anybody? Abundance and like unending depth. Yeah. If we talk about someone as being incredibly... It's the end of it. Yeah, we talk about Bill Gates and his great wealth. We talk about... I wonder how many generations of Gates children will not have to work. Ever in their lives. Probably a handful, right? I mean, depending on how much Obama taxes him. All right, good.

So that's what we talk about when we talk about abundance, right? The fact that in three lifetimes, there's a certain number of people who in three lifetimes, in five lifetimes, couldn't spend everything that they have. And that's kind of what Paul keeps on hammering away here. In a million lifetimes, in a billion lifetimes, in the countless lifetimes of everyone created from Adam until the Lord consummates this whole thing, and anyone he chooses to create after that. if you choose to do so.

There's enough riches of His glory and riches of His grace. It's not ever going to be exhausted. Infinite is a big word and we throw it around a lot, but when we really start thinking about it, more and more and enough and enough. It's fantastic stuff. So, now we talk about strengthen you. This is kind of one of those crazy things.

I pray that of His glorious riches, He may strengthen you with power of His Holy Spirit in your inner being. So what is, feel free to look ahead, what is He strengthening them for? What is He praying that the Lord would strengthen them for? Their inner being. So Christ may dwell in your hearts in faith. Yeah! Isn't that wild? Paul is praying that they would be strengthened in their inner being so that something totally passive would happen, so that Christ can do something in them. Isn't that nuts?

Like, I think, I pray that the Lord would strengthen you so that you can go out and fight those pagans, right? So you can win that football game. I pray that you would be strengthened so that you can, like, isn't that why we usually pray for strength? Lord, give me strength, I'm going to do something difficult. Lord, give me strength. And here we're talking about something totally different. We need to be strengthened so that Christ can dwell in us richly.

The picture that came to mind, and I don't know why this struck me as so profound, the picture that came to mind as I was thinking in prayer about this was, I drink coffee. A lot. And not good coffee, any coffee. It doesn't matter what coffee it is, I drink coffee. And my need for coffee sometimes supersedes my common sense. One such case, I got a little... And there's a couple.

My first idea, I couldn't find a cup to put the coffee in. So my first thought was to drink directly out of the pitcher, but that was rejected because there were people around. And then my second was to pour it in my hands. That was rejected because that would hurt. Yeah.

The only other thing that I could do is I found a little paper cup that was covered in wax. And I thought, if I just get it down fast enough, we'll be just fine. So I throw the coffee in the wax cup, and the first thing that happens is the wax starts melting off onto your fingertips. But there's wax inside too, so I got like a wax coating all the way down my esophagus, which was phenomenal. That cup was not strong enough to hold the glory of coffee. It was the wrong cup. It was not strengthened. I mean, we would have had to coat it in plastic or something in order to make it strengthened. And even then, I mean, it may not happen. So that was the picture that came to me.

Hey, I'm praying that you and your inner being would be strengthened so that you can hold this. That Christ, the glory of Christ can dwell in you. Because you, if the unsaved, if the unregenerated person, if the person who's not a new creation in Christ had that put into them, they'd just blow apart.

They can't hold it. A new container needs to be made. You're a new creation. It needs to be done. And not just that, it needs to be strengthened, evidently. It needs to be fortified. Which is... It's the Holy Spirit in the inner man, and he's fully able to take care of all that. Isn't that phenomenal?

And that's the prayer, right? He doesn't say, I pray that you strengthen yourselves. And he doesn't say, I pray that you strengthen each other. And he doesn't say, I pray... None of that, right? He says, I pray that the Lord would strengthen you. He's the one who's going to do it. He'll strengthen you so Christ can move in. How cool is that? It's all dependent on the Lord. So what's our part? We've got to have a part, right? As far as I can see, we're back to abide and submit. Abide and submit. Abide and submit.

How cool is that? There we are. Rest in Christ. I think that's really good news for this morning, to understate it. Can I comment on one thing? I'm sorry to interrupt. Please. is humbling for me when I look at this passage is to see that this is the dunamis or the power of God actively in the life of the believer.

It's easy to think of the power of God externally, God being God, but it's hard to think about that in your own life if you're in control. If you're the one doing this. And that's what it calls me to say, wow, that's God's power, and wow, I need to stop trying. I need to stop striving to show people what God's power is. I need to rest so that people can see what God's power is.

Well, and even that word for power, dunamis, it focuses on ability. God has the ability to do this, which we couldn't even have conceived of. beforehand, and yet God has the ability, the power, the power that is able to do that. So, in your inner being, this is, Paul uses this phrase, I'll just read this off the deal.

Paul uses this phrase in 2 Corinthians 4.16 and in the book of Romans he uses it interchangeably with the word we often translate as mind. A simple explanation of inner being would be who we are spiritually.

If your body is your outer being, your inner being is whom God has made you to be as a new creation in 2 Corinthians 5.17. Notice also again that it is God who is to provide the strength for our inner being. Not our world, not ourselves, not our good deeds, not our accomplishments, but it's all counting on God. There's a whole huge movement in Christianity today surrounding the mystical ruins, surrounding others, and out in the world that's surrounding soul care.

Strengthen your soul. Just do these five things. Meditate, light a candle, whatever it is that's going to strengthen your soul. And it kind of winds up being a lot of time just patching up the old man, right? Just kind of putting bells and whistles on it.

Seeking after that peace that the world provides so that the world or that shadow of peace that we can achieve in our flesh Because it's not real peace It's not the Lord's peace Nevertheless, this is talking about the immaterial part of us, if you like.

So I don't really want to take a whole time to do a discussion about whether man is dichotomous or trichotomous and all that fun stuff, or hippopotamus. It doesn't really matter. The point is, or actually, it does matter. That's not true. But it's not where we're going today.

I'll refer you to Biblical Anthropology Collective, which is online. If you're curious about that, leave a comment. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I saw a hand go up out of the corner of my eye, but I was obviously hallucinating. Coffee-induced hallucinations. Awesome. All right.

Verse 17. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, It just hurts to say that. It just stops. OK. So that. The words here, so that, connect this sentence to the last one. Right? So we were just talking about God's power to... We're just talking about the start of this prayer and God's power to strengthen our inner being, or our inner person, as it were. So all that's based on that, and the point of the strengthening is that, as we said, Christ may dwell within us.

This word is kata oikeo. It's two words. Oikos means household or house, and kata can mean down or settle down, in other words, down upon. So he's not just saying, hey, that Christ could come in for the weekend, that Christ can have a crashing pad when he's on his way to someone else's place.

He's saying that he could move in permanently That the dwelling would be strong enough, once again, that it could contain the glory of God, but be a dwelling place for God's glory in Christ on a permanent basis. That's Christ's goal in us, that we would surrender our whole hearts and that the dwelling would be fully and completely His.

Heart, the Greek word here is Kardia. How do we define heart? Anybody have a... Well, maybe it's Hebrew. All that you are, think, everything that's important to you, your essence, and God wants it all. Your whole heart. The seat of everything about you.

There we go. So it's not just the beating organ in our chest, right? Obviously. What is it? My fear. Not in this case. Now, we've got, what is it, a little girl, I heard an anecdote, it was a little girl that said, if Jesus is living in my heart when I die, how is he going to get out? Not that hard, that's how. But I like that the whole seed of who you are, the seed of emotion, the seed of all these things that Christ wants to dwell in our whole spiritual being. Right?

Does anyone else have any thought on this heart thing? Because the heart thing can be a bit confusing and we can get heart confused because we get so lovey-dovey about, oh, I just want to follow my heart, I just want to da-da-da-da. We often mean just our affections, or we mean just our emotional state. And that's not the totality of what Paul's talking about here.

Christ doesn't just want to dwell in your affections. Right? He wants to be your life. Exactly. Way bigger than just this one thing or the other. You could die with him, and he is your life. Amen. Okay, so what's the vehicle? We know that Christ is strengthening, right? And He's strengthening our inner being so that Christ may dwell in our hearts, in our inner being. What's the vehicle of that? Faith. Faith. And what is faith? Belief. Faith is kind of one of those funny words that we have three nuances, three nuanced words to describe one Greek word.

Just like it goes the other way with love, right? We say love and we could mean any one of a dozen things, perhaps, and they had different words for all of it. and agape, and phileo, and all these other kinds of love. But we go the other way in the faith transaction. They have one word and we have three.

So our three words that we kind of associate with this word pistis, or this Greek word that we bring across faith, are belief, trust, and faith. And they all kind of have a different nuance. What are our nuances behind the word belief? If someone said, I believe that, belief I think has most things to do with logic, you know, does this make sense to me, kind of thing, it's analytical.

Knowing it's true. Intellectual stuff. Yeah, it's an understanding kind of thing. Yeah. We believe people, if someone puts down a big mathematical equation, we say, yeah, I believe you. Someone comes in late and they say, it was because of this, this, and this. You say, I believe you. Whatever it is. Right? That's because they don't want to think back. As often as not. You know me well. I've been there. So what about trust? Oh, Jackie, did you have a comment?

That word, that, from the house, means the purpose. Faith is the, oh, or the purpose of the faith. Yeah, the purpose of the faith. It says, you know, in 17th years, let Christ be dwelling in your hearts by faith, that ye may be rich in knowledge and love. Yep. I think, we'll definitely get there. And that's what he's praying about there. Your faith is the vehicle through which Christ, who is blessed with all spiritual blessings, which are ours since we were resurrected in him, we've been prepared to accept these things. It's the truth. Which is phenomenal, isn't it? I think that's kind of the point that I, akin to the point that I wanted to get to.

Faith is not a virtue, right? We know that faith is not meritorious. The world speaks as if faith is... You just gotta have faith, to quote just a wonderful song. You just gotta... Faith is something, right? Faith is something that the world kind of looks up to and goes, oh yeah, all faith, whatever it is, it's good. When you talk about the people of faith, and they mean anyone who believes anything, which, if they really thought about it, would be everyone. But oh well. So, faith, but faith isn't powerful in and of itself. Faith is only as good as what you put it in, right? I mean, if I have faith that, oh, sorry, go ahead. You have to have an object. It needs an object, just like love, right? It's got to be an object.

There's more to it than just the ethereal thing of belief, and it's only as good if I believe that that chair will hold up my portly self And it doesn't, it's not because I didn't have enough faith, right? And yet if it does, it didn't hold me up because I had enough faith, right? I'd say if it crumbles, you placed it in the wrong thing, the wrong object.

Exactly. So we know that the thing that we're putting, and we get back to the dunamis, the power, the ability of God, the God that we're putting our faith in has the ability to do this. That the Bible does not, here or anywhere else, exalt faith in and of itself. Right? Just, oh, just, you know, someone who believes in stuff. God likes that. Everyone believes in stuff, right? Everyone believes in something.

I'm doing a study in the other church, kind of a apologetic study with the Korean kids about the difference between science, faith, and scientism. And realizing that most things taught in schools today, in school science classes, are actually scientism. And there's more faith involved in accepting them if they only knew than there is anything you get out of the Word of God. As wild as it is, faith, once again, everyone has faith.

Everyone is going to put their faith in something. It's about the object. So, cool stuff. So it's by faith that this transaction is happening. So, because we have a little bit of time before we get to root and establish, which is also exciting, what would be the result of our faith being too small? Can you have faith that is too small? Great question. This is so we can start fighting. We got five minutes. Go.

The thing that I was just I was just looking at Romans chapter 12 and Romans 12 3 Paul says, for through grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measurement of faith.

God has been, is the one that gave us this measurement of faith, but it is, it's not like everybody's been given a 32 ounce container for faith. And that, you know, well, I have to have enough faith and I go through faith and it's like some volumetric liquid substance where, you know, okay, I'll just, oh, I drank six ounces of my 32 ounces of faith and now I need more because this trial has come and so I, my cup isn't full. That's, that's the problem, like a lot of the faith healers and whatever else they rather than faith.

I tend to think of faith as I'm either operating in faith or I am not. I'm either abiding or I am not. It's more binary. Pardon my geekiness. It's on or off. Is that where you were going with that or were you seeing something else? It's similar to where I was hoping to go.

I definitely... If you grow in faith it's you're just more on than you're off. but I don't see it as volumetric. I think volume is the, yeah, definitely volume is the wrong view, but I think it is, or I guess what I would kind of add to supplement the, not as a total binary thing, but if faith is the object, that Christ's dwelling within us will become more of a real and more of a conditionally experiential reality to us as our faith grows, as we continue to trust Him more and more, and believe and reckon what His Word says is true more and more, we'll have a greater experience of that. We'll grow and be sanctified, if you like. So yeah, that's kind of where I was trying to go, and we're just about out of time. But I was hoping to start a good fight, and we just didn't do it. So let's move on to being rooted and established in love. Rooted and established.

So rooted here is organic imagery, right? Paul is using the image of a tree. What do the roots do for a tree? Wooden water? Hold it up? So, I just love that the Lord gives us physical images. And I think I used to think that he gave us physical images like so that we could understand it like, oh, coincidentally, trees have roots, and you're rooted and established in love. Not kind of the opinion that God says, I made trees with roots so you would understand that you're rooted and established in love. God doesn't go, oh, what a coincidence. I accidentally made this to work out and be a good spiritual parallel. He's like, no. This is why trees have roots. The trees have roots, in some respect, so that we could know what it means to have our spiritual being being grown down into the soil of love, of his love, which is really phenomenal in its own sense.

So we're being rooted, he prays, Paul is praying, sorry, that we being rooted and established. Established is a building term, architectural term. She's talking about, you know, foundations and establishment and all that fun stuff. So, once this is done, this is perfect, or sorry, done, passive, meaning God did it, you are rooted and established in love, that is by the will of God, and the will of God cannot be thwarted. So, I think, I think Paul's saying we're pretty secure in this, which is kind of cool.

Any other questions or comments? We'll close her up and go to the main service. Because we've got real exciting, real exciting time next week, too. Well, that's the thing. This leads into pretty awesome theology. It's always frustrating when you find that the verse markers are straddling something. And they always are. Oh, man. Yeah, Bob's looking forward to getting this. I think he's on next week, isn't he? Actually, I'm teaching. Yeah, next week. And I'm thrilled to be teaching.

Eighteen is... The second half of this, well it's only a third of it because it's a run-on sentence. It's a run-on sentence. No, they aren't run-on. His language education was just fine. Hard to bring it across in English. Less than that. But surely, true, his Greek grammar was right on the money.

So, great stuff. Great, great. Can I ask a question? Sure. What does rooted in gratitude and love look like? Just like a tree. So we're all ants. Which would be really nice, right? No. Well, yeah, I guess. I could sleep like that. Do you want to say that louder? I'm sorry, I haven't picked it up. Well, you're resurrected in Christ, and He is your life, and that's what's showing forth there. It's your very nature.

The thing for me is often if you take this and you try to make a list out of it, it comes up either infinitely long or short and dumb. And it's impossible to operate in love off of a list. You simply cannot do it. If I just operate, if Jessica and I tried to operate our marriage and we were rooted in love and it was, you know, by love I meant a list, which often when you go through pre-marriage counseling we had one where it was basically look for a list of things that you're going to step on your spouse's toes and make sure you don't do those. Well that's not pre-marriage counseling. Now you've just given them a list but it's still going to be out of that list fast.

But if I'm rooted and grounded in love, and that's how I operate with Jessica, or I'm rooted and grounded in love and that's how I operate with you as my brothers and sisters in Christ, then you look at 1 Corinthians 13, or other passages where you start to describe love in this context that is rich, and you find love is defined in God, that's where it gets its definition is from God then suddenly you're talking about something that's cool.

And that's worth exploring. That's such a lead-in. In which case we should probably pray. Heavenly Father we praise you and thank you for your wonderful and exciting word and the wonderful news that's contained there and Lord It's just phenomenal that this is what you're in process of conforming us to. This is what you've already given us positionally. This is how you already see us, Lord. You've rooted and grounded us in your love, the love that you first loved us with, the love that brought Christ to the cross to save us and brought us in identification to the cross with him.

So Lord, I just pray that we could take these It's fun to cut these verses apart and dig deep into what they mean, but they're really not that complicated, Lord. You don't need a doctoral degree to apply it. We don't need a doctoral degree to understand this and apply it to our lives as much as it helps us to break it down and see the parts for the whole. Lord, as we consider these verses and the verses that follow in the next week leading up to getting to talk about them together, Lord, what a joy that will be. Let us trust in you. Let us have faith that you have the power and the ability. Lord, let us understand what you've already done. In Jesus' name, Amen.