Knowing and Growing - Ephesians 3:14-21

Now, as it turns out, body life is probably one of the doctrinal areas that I'm most passionate about. So, I had a hard time picking. But the answer is actually Ephesians, we're going to start in Ephesians 3, starting in verse 14, and this week we'll look all the way to the end of the chapter, and then next week we'll pick up in Ephesians 4 and go .7 verses in next week. So what we're going to do this week is we're going to talk about the body as a family, if we were to summarize it, and next week we'll talk about unity in the body and how those things are related. If I'm honest, the reason why I think body life is something that I'm most passionate about and why the doctrine of what we call ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church, why I'm so invested in it is because my family historically has done a few leavings of churches and church split things and not all of those were for reasons that we would do that now as we've grown and matured and the Lord has grown us. But as we wrestled through these things. We spent more time studying God's Word and realized that maybe sometimes decisions we've made in the past weren't rooted in scriptural ideas. I'm just going to come up front and say that that kind of motivated my own study.

So as we look at this and we see the body as a family, Take some of those ideas that you've had where you've wrestled. I mean, I'm assuming that even with a small group of folks this morning that we've all wrestled with stuff that's happened at church and maybe even left a church or two. Of course my All four of us are in here, my two girls and my wife. The girls have only known Holly Hills in their lives, but Jessica has been through a few church splitting things along with me and even before. you got married.

So let's take a look here. We'll start in Ephesians 3, starting in verse 14. I'm going to go ahead and read it out loud and you can follow along in your handout. For this reason, I bow my knee 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 through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

And that's a lot of verses. You probably picked up on that and so what we're going to do this morning is we're going to kind of take a big picture look at those verses and how they relate to the body and how they relate to our interactions together here. There's probably weeks worth of material here, if I'm honest, but given the fact that we're trying to cover some topical material, we'll move relatively briefly, but don't hesitate to ask questions. I like to think that I teach similar enough to my dad that it won't feel disconcerting, but interject, ask questions, disagree, all those things, and we'll talk about things. Alright, so this is a prayer, right? So verse 14 Paul says, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father.

So this is actually Paul praying, and he's writing out a prayer for the church in Ephesus. But is he writing about just the church in Ephesus? Or two, or four? He's writing to Ephesus, but actually in the context of this, verse 15 and verse 21 tells us that he's talking and he's praying for the whole church. 15, he says, from every family, we get our name, every family in heaven and on earth. And then in 21, he says, to all generations forever.

And so what we get here is that Paul is not just talking about Ephesus, he's talking about the broader church for as long as the church is on the earth until Christ returns. Okay, so that's a big deal. We're not going to spend too much time on the fact that Paul is on his knees. I'm not going to talk to you about the Greek of knees or things like that. Verse 14 we're going to take as a transition verse.

He leads into 15, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. So this comes with it, the idea that Paul is reminding us that God is the creator of all things. Every family on heaven and earth gets their name in God. Does that mean that everybody is saved?

Is that what Paul is saying? No. But he is saying that God is the creator of all things. And God is, as the creator, God is the Father. Like I said, this could be weeks of material, right? But let's talk briefly about God as the Father. God created all things. If we go back to Genesis chapter 1, God created all things. Now, what do we know about creators? What is your relationship to something if you create it?

We probably don't think about this a lot in Western culture, but let's ask this anyways. If I'm making a guitar, and I am actually, but if I'm making a guitar and I'm done with the guitar, whose is it? It's mine. If someone commissions me to make a guitar, which I'm not asking what he to do because I'm not that good yet. If somebody commissioned me to make a guitar, they would be buying the right to own that, right? But I would be the creator and by default the creator owns things.

What did God do with the dominion of the earth when he created Adam? Who was in charge of it? Adam was. God was, and then God gave Adam the dominion of the earth. And then Adam screwed up, sinned, and fell, and so Satan got dominion. And so the idea of God being the creator, when God says He's the Father, that's a different relationship to creation than we tend to think of as earthly fathers. No earthly father can say, oh, I made a world and all the people on it. That's not how that works.

So God, when he calls himself the father, or when Paul calls him the father here, we see there's a uniqueness to God being a father versus earthly fatherhood. But there are similarities. Remember, in the last year, my dad, as he's been teaching, has been emphasizing comparison and contrast. You've heard that vocabulary multiple times. What is the similarity between earthly fathers and our Heavenly Father? I've got two answers.

Made in His image. So that's definitely important. And then, Jim? Authority. Responsibility or authority are elements that are there. Hopefully we find caring. That should be a thing there. As we look at the rest of this prayer, we're going to see attributes of God defined. Whether it's the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, we're going to find attributes of God defined. Pay attention to what those are and see what parallels there are between Heavenly Father and Earthly Father.

I have a friend, Tony, whom I have his permission to use his name and to use him as an illustration. He didn't grow up with a father. His father was pretty absentee and made some very terrible life choices. And Tony got passed around from parent to parent and aunt and uncle and moved around. And he said to me, he's a believer, he said, Randy, the only father I know to look to is our Heavenly Father. But if you ever see me making bad parenting choices, will you please let me know? He's done a pretty decent job, so I haven't really talked to him about that in a negative sense.

But the thing is that our Heavenly Father is the ultimate example of fatherhood here. So when Paul says that God is the Father whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name, it's because the relationship that we have to Him is very specific and very intimate by His authorship of all life. So let's keep moving on in verse 16. "...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 God is not just the Father. God is also rich. But what is His richness in here? Is it just money? Is that what Paul says? What's the richness in? His glory. So what's God's glory?

The sum total of his essence. Okay, the sum total of his essence. That's better than the definition I've heard bandied about is usually the radiant essence of God's being. But the sum total of his essence, I think, is better. The personhood of God. The riches of his glory. Because God is infinite, right? And when we think about riches, what's our worldly definition of riches or wealth? money, possessions. But when you can speak all things into existence, like God can, that's a different kind of wealth, isn't it? God's wealth is infinite. God's provision is complete. It's perfect.

So what we see here is this idea that Paul is praying for that glory to be imparted in various ways to the benefit of the believer. And what's the benefit to the believer that Paul is praying for here? That we would be strengthened, right? He's praying for the strengthening of the church body. Is he praying for every single individual by themselves? Who's he praying for? He's praying for us. He's praying for the whole church, that every single believer throughout all of the time-space continuum, we're going to talk about the grand scheme of things here, every single believer would be strengthened.

And what's that strengthening that he's looking for? Is it so that we'll be super strong and we'll be able to lift up heavy objects? It's spiritual strengthening. What's the inner man? Is he talking about the flesh? He's talking about the Spirit. He's talking about us being sanctified, that we grow conditionally, right? Because our position is fixed. It's secure, it's perfect, right? But our condition is progressive, the sanctification, that growth. And so Paul is praying And he says that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through His Spirit. So, Paul is praying to the Father for the interaction in our lives with the Holy Spirit.

Now, in the Old Testament, was the Holy Spirit constantly indwelling every saint? I got head shakes, no. I have to say that out loud just because it doesn't show up on the recording. But as believers, as New Testament saints, the Holy Spirit indwells every single one of us. I want you to, this is abnormal, my dad doesn't normally do this, but take a moment and look around the room. To my knowledge, every single one of us that's in here is a saint. We're all saints. That means that the people that are sitting around you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit.

So that means that we're going to be challenged by the next set of verses here to grow together, because we're all indwelled by that same Holy Spirit. And we're all, hopefully, being strengthened with God's power through His Holy Spirit. And so Paul is working, or praying, I'm sorry, for the Holy Spirit to strengthen these people, why doesn't God just make us stronger in Adam? Why doesn't He just make Adam better?

There's lots of good answers to this, so pick one. The flesh is extremely limited, huh? It's been condemned. That's what I was hoping somebody would say. Thank you, Jessica. It's terminal. And it was crucified with Christ. And we have a new life in Christ, right? And so God didn't just try to make Adam better. God crucified the sin nature, or the flesh, with Christ. And so the sin nature no longer reigns in us. That's what Romans 5 and 6 and 7 talk about. The sin nature wants to try to motivate us, but it no longer has authority, right? And so in verse 17, what is it that Christ is?

It is that Christ indwells our hearts. So, we're moving really quick through the first three verses here, because we've got to get to some really important meat stuff that's body related, but I want to make sure we have context for this. The result of God's glorious generosity being poured out into our spirits through His Spirit is that Christ indwells us through faith at the point of salvation. As soon as you're saved, the Holy Spirit indwells you, and Christ indwells us.

That's where, if you've ever heard people say, oh, you've got to ask Jesus into your heart, it's a misapplication of this. That's not what Paul is saying. So the gospel is not that Jesus comes into our heart. But that's where people get it, is a misunderstanding of this verse right here.

But God's blessing is poured out at the point we believe, and Christ then indwells our hearts. So which part of the Godhead are involved in the individual believers? Which parts? All three. And we're going to see that again in chapter 4 next week when we move into this next passage. All three parts of the Godhead are involved. Do you feel like you have all three parts of the Godhead in you right now?

Feelings don't matter. Feelings don't matter. But what I think is interesting is that when I was growing up, my family went to a church for a while, where I went to Sunday school, and no one ever talked about the Holy Spirit. They talked about God the Father, and they talked about Jesus on the cross, and no one ever talked about the Holy Spirit. And so then our family went to a different church, where almost always everything was talking about the Holy Spirit and not much else.

So that pendulum swing didn't really get better for us because what we need to be thinking about as believers is that we have a relationship with all three parts of the Holy Spirit and all three parts, I'm sorry, not the Holy Spirit, of God or the Trinity.

All three parts are actively involved in the lives of the believer. All three persons, not parts, as though they're impersonal. And so we see here that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all involved in the growth and edification of the body. God didn't just save and work in the lives of one single individual who just has to be around other single individuals that are called the body. There's a togetherness that we have. Paul is speaking and praying for the plural of believers in the body. And so that leads us to this next section, which is about love in the body.

The second half of verse 17, what does it say that we're rooted in? Love. We're rooted in love. And where does love get its definition? The Webster's Dictionary? No. Your experience? God is love. And I think it's something that's worth noting that when we become believers and we start to study God's Word and we find out about the attributes of God, we discover that there are certain words, righteousness, love, truth, that's just a smattering of words, but there's a lot more, that their definition is actually rooted in God. And what is the Greek word that we use that is the love that God is? Anybody know the Greek word? This is not very geeky, so I'm hoping somebody does. Agape. Agape, right?

It's the benevolent, selfless, giving love of God. And so what we see here is that we are all collectively and individually rooted in love. And what kind of love is it? Is it the kind of love that is thinking about themselves? Right? No, it's benevolent love.

Which means that, again, when we look around to one another and we see one another, we're all rooted in that same love because of that same identification and that same relationship with God. And so God's love is the foundation. We're rooted in that love as a body.

And I know this isn't shocking. I haven't said anything that's shocking yet, I think, this morning. But I think the thing that I have to be reminded about is that sometimes we're surrounded by people in the church that we don't know yet. Right? How easy is it to love strangers? That can be a challenge. Or sometimes because of our life experiences, and because of the flesh, it can be difficult. Sometimes we have rough edges that rub against one another, right? But Paul isn't concerned about that, because he knows that the foundation is in Christ. The foundation is in love, rooted in Christ. And so, if we have that as a starting point, can that cover shortcomings? How do we know that? Where do we know that from? Any guesses?

1 Corinthians 13. How many of you have heard that as some kind of romantic passage? Right? You've heard 1 Corinthians 13, that's a romantic passage? It's not. This is Paul talking about the Corinthians. We taught it last year with Roger and Bob and I. And we got to that passage, and if you think about how dysfunctional the Corinthian church was, and they were pretty dysfunctional, that's Paul talking about body life. He's not talking about husbands and wives, although there's application there. He's talking about body life.

You guys are stinking it up, but love covers that stinkiness, right? And when we look at next week, When we look at chapter 4, Paul is going to use one of my least favorite words in the whole New Testament. He's going to say, tolerate one another in love. And I hate the word tolerance, because it gets used so poorly in our modern culture. I don't like it. But Paul uses it in the biblical sense, and I have to like it there, whether I don't like the word tolerance or not.

And so this principle of God's love and being rooted in that being a foundation, he's gonna talk about where we go from there with this rooting in love. Imagine that if he's using the word root, we're talking about love as a plant. It doesn't stay still, does it? It grows.

All right, so then Paul says something else here. He says in 18 here, that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth. All right, so how many of you picked up that this was a potential and not a guaranteed thing? Anybody pick that up in what he said there? That you may be able to comprehend.

And the reason why I want to highlight the potentiality of that is it's really easy to go into church, sit down, sit in the pew, listen to the lesson, participate in the standing up, sitting down, maybe even send your kids up to Shake Shakers, right?

And then walk right out the door and not participate in the love. Not interact with people. Not fellowship. not learn what God's doing in each other's lives, not see each other throughout the week, none of the things, none of the body-like things. You can come to church, you can sit in here, you can make sure that you've adjusted the thermal temperature in the building because of your body heat, and then walk out and that's as much warmth as anybody's ever going to know from you.

And I don't mean that to be callous or mean or anything like that, but I'm just saying it's a potentiality. So Paul is praying here, the Greek technical term is that it is subjunctive. There's a potential quality to this. So it's that you would be able to, you have the potential, what's the critical thing missing to make it go from potential to actuality?

It's ourselves allowing the Holy Spirit to work in us. That's right, whether we're abiding or not. And so, as we look at this, Paul is seeking out for the believer to have an awareness of walking in the Spirit or abiding, whatever vocabulary you prefer. I'll take either one.

And he wants that to be there. And then he says, so that you can comprehend it. Now, I want to be very careful when we see the word comprehend. There's another Greek geek thing here. The idea of comprehend is that it would be something that we not just understand, but that we take and make our own.

OK? So it's one thing. How many of you have taken math classes where your teacher puts the numbers together in with the formula, and you can run the formula, and you can get the answer, and you get it most of the time? I'm not getting a lot of hands raised or heads shaking. My daughters at least, one of them did.

So the thing is that when you get a story problem, it gets real, right? Then you get a story problem and suddenly you have to go beyond just being able to run a formula, but you need to be able to actually identify what's going on there and then take it and make it your own, figure out the formula, and then you can work it out. So what Paul is talking about is not just that you have the intellectual facts, not that you just know the technicality of love is benevolence from God, but that you take it and it's your own.

That's a big, big jump. We're at Holly Hills. Most people are here because they like the teaching. That's what I've heard over and over again from various people. When I first moved from Texas to Colorado, I had lots of people come up to me and say, the teaching here is great. I'm here for the teaching. I love the teaching. Teaching, teaching, teaching, teaching. That's really good. You can collect the whole set of doctrines. But if they don't have practical application, then that's not very useful, is it? Paul wants us to comprehend, to take and make our own. What? What are we making our own? Christ. No, no, you're wrong. But it's okay, you're close. You're this close.

His love for us and love for the body. It's knowing Him. It's not us as individuals alone, it's us as a we, as a body. Every one of you, together. And He wants us to comprehend it, to take it and make it our own. And then He uses another Greek geek word, He uses the word sin, which is kind of where we get the word symphony. It's the same Greek word. It's together sound. So soon, he wants us to comprehend it together.

So imagine, if you will, that it's a symphony of love. I'm going to stretch that. That's not the theological statement that Paul is literally saying, but I'm going to use that for analogy. It's a symphony of love. I need you. Because it can't be a symphony if I'm by myself, can it? I've heard beautiful solo music. I've heard it here. I've heard it in other places. And that's wonderful. But one of the things I cherish, if we're going to talk about music, is when I'm leading worship, and I can hear all of you singing. And it's beautiful. Even if anybody's off-key, I don't care. What I hear is you worshipping the Lord and praising Him together. and it's a sin thing. Sin is the Greek word that we interpret to be together.

So Paul in verse 18 says, "...for through him we both may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of God's love." of God's love of Christ. So why does he give us four dimensions? This really bothered me when I first studied this, because I thought there was some overlap here. Why is he giving us all four dimensions?

Well, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. It goes forever. It goes forever. Why not? It has more than four, I'm sure. How many? Well, technically, if we think about it spatially, There's 360 degrees plus all the minutes in between, right? So let's ask this important question. How much of that can you know by yourself? A little bit.

So one of the things that I observe when I read verse 18 is something very, very important. If I want to know God's love more deeply, I'm probably going to learn it to make it my own, to take it and make it my own, better if He uses you in a special way to love me. And maybe He'll use me in a special way to love you. And we'll learn about God's love soon, together. Right?

How much of God's love can you understand when you're alone? A very small part, as Carol pointed out. But together, we can start to see the dimensionality of God's love. How many of you, when you look around this church building, see God's love? And this is not a trick question. Does anybody see God's love in this church building?

Definitely, I'm getting yeses. Okay, there's lots of little things in this church that have been put together over time. In the building, I should be careful that I do the churches, the body of Christ, not the building, right? When I look around this building, I see that care has been given. I see that things have been added. I have been involved with more than one conversation where people said, how can we add an elevator into this church to make it more accessible to people in wheelchairs so they can participate in more things, for example. And we have the ramp out there that is to make sure that nobody is blocked from getting into the church. And it's hopefully safer, although I've seen a few kids take diggers on it, right?

But the idea of the church body exploring that, that's one. My children have been benefited greatly by this church body's generosity for summer camp, and Sunday school teaching, and nursery care, and people investing into them and spending time with them one-on-one and collectively, right? And so that's another dimension. What are some other dimensions that we see God's love expressed in this church body?

There's probably not a lot of wrong answers, so just let's volunteer some. The church body, not the building? Yeah, not the building. The church body. We're talking about a different dimension. The potluck. Okay. People bringing food. People bringing food. and spending time not just chewing, but actually talking, right? Hopefully. Having a chin wag.

So how many of you have ever seen somebody have their needs met by the church body? I can think of a few instances. And how did people know that there was a need? Do they see it on the person's face? Or in their body? Or they hear about it? Or they hear about it.

And one of the things that I think is most interesting is when we look at James, do you remember the part in James where he says it's not good enough if you just tell somebody, hey, may you be well and fed? If you have the stuff to feed them, feed them. Now that's not for legalism. I'm not encouraging legalism. But one of the things that James is talking about when he says that is it would be pretty silly for us to not be involved because of this love that comes from God. So we have all these dimensions because God's love is infinite and it goes in all the different directions.

And in our own lives, we're part of that. So we're part of that loving that is part of the body. And we're part of that love that can be comprehended. So the question I've got towards the top of page three is, if the body comprehends and manifests love, what does that look like? And I think we just talked about some of those things that that looks like.

What we find here in Paul's prayer is that for the church His prayer for the Church is one of supernatural life and supernatural love being worked out in ways that the world cannot help but be amazed by. Does the world know a love that's that rich and complex?

I would say not. I'm not making a political statement with the thing I'm about to say, but I'm going to preface it by saying it's not a political statement. Welfare, as our government knows it, is a duty that the government has for taking care of its citizens. But the Church, because of this love, and because of the Holy Spirit, and because of our intimacy, should, as a general principle, not be dependent on welfare. Okay, and I don't mean that politically.

I mean that if I see that Wayne has a need he's down the street by five houses Meaning that even if I had a broken leg, I could probably get down to Wayne's house. He's not very far, and the Volkers don't live that far from us as well. In fact, I went over to their house and fixed a computer recently. Or a printer. Uh-oh, he's saying there's more problems.

But the idea is that we can go and express love in some way, sometimes in physical ways. I actually, this summer, went over to Wayne's house and he expressed love through trains. which I didn't even know was a possibility. But my nephews were all super duper excited to go and get to see Wayne's trains that he's got in his backyard. And they just thought it was the coolest thing ever that they got to spend time looking at these things. And Wayne didn't set them up for my nephews, but he did.

That wasn't his motivation, except for that his motivation was he enjoyed this thing and he wants to share it. joy to these kids who've been through some, in the case of the adopted sons, some real complex life situations. And so here was an opportunity to express this love in a dimension that maybe we didn't expect, but God did. All right, so we're going to keep going here because otherwise we won't finish in time. Speaking of which, I should look at the time. There we go.

Alright, so in verse 19 he says, "...and to know the love of Christ." So the love of Christ is this multidimensional love, that we need to comprehend it, and take it and make it our own. And this love is the love of Christ. Now what did the love of Christ lead him to do? Hopefully everybody knows the answer to this, otherwise we should talk about the Gospel. He gave his life. He gave us life, right? And then, this is the part that I love, is that Paul tells us that we need to comprehend the love of Christ. And then, in the second half of this verse 19, he says, "...the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge."

Uh-oh. If we have to comprehend it, take it and make it our own, understand it, how does the love surpass our knowledge? Any guesses? There's a lot of things that we experience and understand without getting intellectual knowledge about them. Both of those answers combine to be the one that we want to meditate on as believers. So we have an infinite love And a love that is more than just understanding technically. It's not a technical knowledge of love.

It surpasses that. Like we said earlier, we all love teaching. We're all here because we love teaching. But if we all came here and we just got taught, and we never interacted tightly, that would be lacking love. It wouldn't be an expression of that love. It would just be merely an understanding. How many of you can recite the definition of grace that we normally use at Holly Hills? Raise a hand if you think you can. My daughters better be able to raise their hands. Nobody. All right. So that's not the answer I was expecting.

But the definition that we usually use unmerited, unlimited blessings of God due to the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. If I can recite that to you over and over and over again, but every time you interact with me, that definition is not reflected, and I come across as judgmental, and I come across as Randy the jerk, or Randy the highfalutin snotty guy, or Randy the carnal dude, Whatever of those things it is, you guys would probably scratch your head and think, man, he knows that definition backwards and forwards, but he doesn't live it.

And so this surpassing knowledge is the idea that it's that Greek word hyperbolo, which you've seen the illustration of the baseball flying out of the Earth's atmosphere. It's not just hitting it out of the ballpark, It's out of the atmosphere. It's surpassing knowledge. Not just a little bit, but it's supernatural, surpassing knowledge.

So this love is one that we can comprehend and it can be known in the body, but when we experience it, it's because it's beyond just comprehension of a knowledge sort. So the impact of godly agape love in the body is individual and corporate and evangelistic. And it's not evangelistic because now that you're a believer everybody is out sharing the gospel all the time because everybody's an evangelist. We know that that's a gifting that is specific to some people but that each believer is still called to be able to share their faith when the Holy Spirit prompts them to. But when the world sees love inside of the body that is this multifaceted or multidimensional and infinite, they're going to scratch their head and say, tell me more.

I don't understand this. I've never seen this in the welfare system. I've never seen this in my social groups. You guys are special and different. I need to know. Who is this? And then you can point to the one that the love is rooted in, Christ. Right? So this is a truly revolutionary love.

Okay, we're radical God's love is infinite in all The dimensions and so the last question For this section that I want to ask is how can we know God's love without each other? Through his word And that's the correct technical answer, but the rich answer is that we need each other, isn't it? Because He's going to teach us through His Word, and He's going to teach us through one another. And we're going to sharpen one another, and we're going to encourage one another, and we're going to come alongside and support one another. So this love is multidimensional, and we're all part of it. So Paul in 19 here is continuing, the consequence of us knowing the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, is that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now that's a really big statement, because how full is God? How big is God? He's infinite. Right? That's a really big fullness.

But how many of you have ever been so encouraged after church that you're just like, man, that was like the best Sunday ever. Anybody had one of those experiences? I'm grateful to say I've had that happen more than once. But it was because I got to see the manifestation and the fullness of God, I learned it in His Word, I participated in fellowship, and maybe I even participated in worship. And when I was done, I was invigorated because I had this fullness This completeness, the word that's translated fullness there could also be translated as complete or made perfect. So the goal of the believer as we're growing is this principle of completeness and we see that throughout Ephesians. That Paul is actually really focused on completeness and fullness. Not that we're perfect conditionally, right?

But that the Lord is maturing us and growing us and bringing us to that point of completion. Verse 20, he says, Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. This fatherhood leads to a sense of family. And that sense of family is practically applied in a manifestation of love that's multifaceted, right? And that leads us in Paul's prayer to one of his closing thoughts here, and I've put it under the section where we're calling it doxology, which is to glorify God. God moves beyond what we ask or think. God is able to do more than we ask or think. Now, when Paul is writing that, what's the context of Paul writing about God the Father doing more than Paul could ask or think? Is he speaking hypothetically? No, he's lived it. He's lived it. He's seen it. He's seen it. Paul understood the miraculous first hand.

How many times, and this is very convicting to me, okay, so maybe you guys are better off than I am in your prayer life, but how many times do you pray small tiny prayers hoping God will just keep your shoelaces tight so you don't trip versus the miraculous? The way sometimes I've tied my shoes, that is miraculous that they'd stay together. But the reality of the situation is that Paul says that we would be praying these prayers knowing that God is able to do beyond whatever our prayers are.

And I don't mean that in the name-it-and-acclaim-it, word-of-faith, garbagey sort of way that some of the televangelists use, where you're like, you just need to pray for a million bucks. That's not what God is interested in. He may give you a stewardship of a million dollars, or ten million dollars, or a hundred million dollars. I've known some very wealthy people in my life, and most of the time, what I found to be amazing is that their stewardship was often very private, because they didn't ever want to draw attention to the money, they wanted to draw attention to the Lord.

And I think that's pretty cool. But here, we see that God is praying, understanding that the One, the Father, to whom he's praying, is able to do beyond what we could think or ask. How many of you remember when Roger taught, I think it was late last year, where he taught about the Holy Spirit praying on our behalf. You remember, if you missed it, go back under the church archives. It's one of the special lessons and listen to it. One of the things that Roger drew out that I think is super critical is that it would be absurd for the Holy Spirit to pray on our behalf if God didn't intend to answer prayers.

So God wants to answer prayers, but he may do it beyond what we have imagined. And I think that's really cool. Then he says, he talks about God's power within us. He's able to do far beyond what we can ask or think according to the power that works within us. So the same power that can go beyond what we can ask or think is the power that works within us. And what is that power?

It's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit that's strengthening us. So he knows that he can. Right? Paul knows that the Holy Spirit can strengthen us because God's got that power and that power is working within us. I think it's the Holy Spirit that gives us the awareness of God's love around us and through If we're not abiding, we're less likely to be aware of any of that, right?

Because if we're not abiding, we're thinking about ourselves. Let's be honest, that's what the flesh does. So if we're not aware of God's love in the family, I like that. We'll use the word family instead of body in this context. If we're not aware of God's love in the family, maybe we need to make sure that we're abiding.

Or if we're abiding and someone else isn't, maybe that's a Galatians 6.1 opportunity to come alongside and encourage somebody to be abiding. Careful how you do that. I have found that if you walk up to somebody and say, you're not abiding, just like straight up blunt like that, it can turn around in a negative way. But you may want to come up and ask where people are at, and the Lord may use you to straighten that out.

So His power is within us. If you're empowered by the very God of the universe, what does that look like? For starters, it's going to look like love. And this last paragraph on page 4, God has created a system that Satan planned for separation, death, and destruction, and turned it to His glory, which Ephesians 1.6 tells us through grace. God wanted sin, or Satan wanted sin and separation and destruction for Adam, and God turned that system inside out and made it to his glory.

Ephesians 1.6 tells us that every time God's grace is poured out, God is glorified. Where in your life as a believer is God's grace not poured out? There's literally no time in your life once you're saved that God's grace is not poured out. That means that every second of your life brings glory to God even when you're screwing up.

It doesn't mean that we should encourage screwing up. It just means that even when we screw up, God took Satan's plan and thwarted it utterly. So it means you can stop beating yourself up and you can walk in grace and then live in righteousness. Alright, let's keep going.

Page 5, the last section. Paul says, To God be the glory. To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. To God be the glory. And if we said glory is the sum total of God's essence, is that the definition? If that's to His glory, that's a big thing. Does God need us for His glory? He doesn't need us. He's complete, right? But He chooses, because He loves us, to bring glory to Himself in our lives, and through Christ. So Paul opens his prayer in the richness of God's glory, and he closes it in the richness of God's glory.

And we get to be part of that. And I think that's really powerful. When we express love to one another as we're a family, God's glorified, even more than normal, which is still infinite. I don't know how you add to infinite, but we do. So in conclusion here, how can we be interacting with and praying for one another in light of this passage? The answer is more complicated and time-consuming than what's here. What does this look like if it's manifested in our own lives? And for you, the answer is individual. If you're abiding, as Carol pointed out, if you're abiding, the Holy Spirit's going to move in you in the way that you're gifted, in the way that He's planned for you to do.

Ephesians 2.10, those good works that He's planned for you. But it looks individually unique and collectively identifiable. We're going to know what that love looks like in the body, but for you it's going to be your kind of Holy Spirit-directed love. But we'll all know it when we see it.

Any questions, thoughts? I'm done. Just moments before Brian rings the bell again. When we get to Chapter 4 next week, because I've got a sub-book two weeks, you'll have to put up with me two times in a row. Wayne's rolling his eyes appropriately. When we get to the next chapter, we're going to see how that love and that focus on having the same Father leads to doctrinal unity and fellowship unity and an eternal focus that's unified. And that's a powerful, powerful concept. That changes the way we look at church.

Another way to say it is to work out your salvation, Philippians 2.12.

It's working it out in your life. When you make it your own, you're working it out, and you've comprehended it. And so when we say work there, again, we're not talking about workspace salvation or legalism, right? No, work for your salvation, work it out. Yeah, it's figuring it out and applying it and having traction. It's the kind of outworking of it.

Yeah, it's the outworking of, you've comprehended it mentally, but instead you're also working it out, and so it's important to take that and understand it. And that's more than just knowledge. Yeah, it's more than just knowledge. You know a lot but not do anything about it. You've got to work it out and experience it, live it. Yeah, it's the bearing out of the fruit and understanding and comprehending that fruit.

Alright, let's close in prayer and then we'll have our break before the main service at 1050. Heavenly Father, we come before you. We're super grateful for the chance to study your word together and look at the richness, the multidimensional facets of your love in Ephesians here. We just pray that you would help us to take these things and make them our own, that we would work them out as your scriptures say. We thank you for the opportunity that we have to study and pray for a deep sense of fellowship as we go forward from this and look at these things. And we thank you that all of these things are manifested in your glory. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.