"Prayer to the Glory of God" Ephesians 3:14-21

Pastor Brian leads us through the end of Ephesians 3.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the text that will be preached this morning. If you would turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 3, it's going to be on the screen behind me as well for you to follow. Would you please stand with me if you are able in honor and reverence for the Word of God? And I will read this, and it is important that you see that this is the Word of God, that you follow along, that you see the words that have lasted throughout time that are applicable for us today and for believers forever. Hear the Word of God this morning, Ephesians 3, verses 14 through 21. 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 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 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. You may be seated. Brian, would you please come and lead us in the Word of God?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Love to dig into the Word, especially when it's on something like prayer yet again. I want to make a quick note before we dive into this. So next Sunday, we're actually going to spend a handful of Sundays diving into the Psalms of Ascent. We're going to look at a handful of the Psalms of Ascent for encouragement. There's many things going on in the life of this body right now and in all of our lives, and this is a good time to break from Ephesians. Go over there for four weeks or so, and just to be thrilled and encouraged in no matter what is going on in your life. And then we're going to come back. So what we saw in the first three chapters after today, as we conclude the first three chapters, what we see are the what we call the indicatives or what God has done. And then from here, primarily what we see in the last three chapters of the book of Ephesians is the imperatives or what we are to do in light of what God has done. And so it's a good breaking point to be encouraged, to be strengthened, to remind ourselves who God is, as he cares for us in all things, in the Psalms of Ascent, that are beautiful Psalms. Come and be thrilled in that way. Not because of me, but because of the word. And then we'll come back to, okay, here's what we're to do as followers of Christ. Okay? So that's what's coming. Let's go to the Lord. Father, we thank you again for this passage. We thank you for the truth of your word. We ask you that you would lead and guide us as Joe has prayed. Father, I ask you to protect my heart, my mind, my mouth, that I would only speak that which is edifying and encouraging and strengthening and challenging that which you would have me say. And that you would be glorified in and through that. And that we would all receive the truth of the word in this way. And that we would apply this wisdom, this knowledge. And that you would be exalted, that you would lead and guide in every way. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, once again, as we come before the Lord in his word, we see Paul here in this passage telling his audience that he's praying. How about you? But I said this before, when people pray for me, I'm thrilled. But I say right now, as we see this, the easiest thing that we could do if we wanted to, the easiest thing, I don't think it'd be faithful, but is we could simply speak of this for just a few moments and then move on. Seeing, we've already had sermons on prayer recently, Ephesians 1 and some before that. You know, so we we've got it already. We could say, okay, okay, prayer is good, it's needed, sure, okay, whatever. Got it. Now we could do that. Or we could approach the scriptures with immense reverence and remind ourselves that if something is a very prevalent theme in the scriptures, then it must be for our good. And it must be really important, and I'll identify three reasons, this is the very least, three reasons. One, uh, it must be very important for me to be instructed in regularly if it's repeated in the word. Pretty simple. Two, I must end up being like the rest of humanity, who obviously have an issue conforming my life to what it's supposed to look like as a follower of Christ. Therefore, I really need to heed to pay attention to these passages that speak of prayer since there's so many of them. And then three, the overarching theme that defines why this is such a prevalent subject, and that is that my ability to enact a faithful or a word-centered prayer life, that must bring God glory. It must. Another thing, I'm gonna pull this in just a little bit. Well no, I've done it. Another thing that uh something I mentioned last time we studied for uh prayer from Ephesians chapter 1, just a handful of weeks ago. I mentioned something, and I said, if you don't pray, you die. Obviously, I'm not speaking of physical death there. What I'm speaking of in this context is spiritual malnourishment. Okay? There's so many passages in the Bible that command us to pray, and they give us not only what to pray for, but also what we gain in prayer. So if we're not praying according to God's will for us, then I guess I would call it spiritual atrophy would occur. Colossians 1, 9 to 15 indicates to us, similarly with our passage today, if we don't pray, we're not gonna grow very far in wisdom and strength in the Lord. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 and 18, if we don't pray, we're not gonna have near the ability to rejoice. Matthew 7, 7 and 8, what does it say? If we don't ask, we don't what? Receive. And so we we miss out on what God has promised, and even receiving the desires of our hearts that are in line with His will. Therefore, we need to pray both on our own and together as a church. They're both important for the life of the believer. I would say this, if we're not praying in this life, and I'm not saying every day, all day, you know, Paul says to pray without ceasing, yes. But I'm not categorizing that in a certain amount of time. Here's the amount of minutes you have to have. That's not what I'm saying. But if we're not praying at all in this life, if we're not dependent at all upon the Lord, we may be existing in this life, but it's not living. It's not living. Not like what our Lord has for us in his grace. And he's so good. He's so good that prayer ends up being the lifeblood, the lifeline, it's the life preserver for the Christian. It's our connection in one side to a holy God. We also have through his word. But what a kind God he is, as Joe mentioned, he inclines his ear to us. I mean, it's God does this when we pray, when Christians pray. Isn't that fantastic? How merciful is he. And so as we start, I just want us to be thrilled with that knowledge that God is hearing our prayers and that we need to do this. Uh and I want us to remember real briefly also what we saw last time and how it directly relates to what we're looking at today. Paul starts out in verse 1 of the third chapter, and remember last time he says, for this reason, okay? For this reason. And he's talking about what happened next, but he's talking about what's coming forward more, and that's prayer. But but after that, Paul can't contain himself, and he finds himself yet again just teaching and speaking of the beauty of this unified church, and that's what he does from 2 to 13. This, or 2 to 12, really, but this this the these two groups, the Jews and Gentiles, now they're one. There's only one people of God, one church, if you will. And then here in verse 14, he returns to what he initially began to say in verse 1. He says it again in 14, for this reason. For this reason. So he goes on to tell him he's he's basically essentially saying to them, I'm praying for you, and here's why. And here's what. He knew that it wasn't going to be easy to live the Christian life out in light of this newly formed people of uh of two becoming one in that way, of just one people for God's glory. And so he just, I'm praying for you. He just leads himself into prayer as he talks about the dividing wall being gone. So let's dive into this and see these things. Look at your first point, uh, and that is what our countenance before the Lord should look like or be like in prayer. Look again at verse 14. This is this is very challenging. I love it. Right off the bat, verse 14, right off the bat, after giving him the reason for his countenance of continual prayer, right off the bat he says, he says, I bow my knees. I bow my knees. He bends the knee. Now, if you know anything about Paul, he's not a man who would quickly bow before anybody. Quite the contrary, in fact, and yet he proudly is almost boasting here, and he's proclaiming happily and that he is quick to bow the knee before this great and mighty God. He's on his knees before God. You see that action, that attitude, that's really the backdrop for your loved one or your neighbors or your coworkers' refusal to be receptive to the gospel witness. It's really a refusal to bow the knee before the Lord. Because what that means is that when we bow the knee before God, we're we're saying, I'm needy. I'm sinful, I'm sick. Proud humans don't want to admit that, do they? I know I didn't for a while. When we reject the gospel, it's pride that comes in and it plants the seeds of rebellion or arrogance. It says, I don't need Jesus. I don't need what he offers. I got this. I don't need mercy. I'm doing fine. That's pride. And pride, as Luther said, is really the root of all sin. I would say wherever sinful rebellion manifests its ugly head, you will find pride lurking somewhere in the convoluted mix. And it is pride and pride alone that causes us to come before the very God of the universe flippantly. Or with a commanding attitude. How many of you have heard those kinds of prayers? Hey, big guy upstairs. I could use some help in this foxhole, you know? Treating God as he's kind of a genie, the grandfather genie guy. How about the the the best friend prayer? Hey bud, what's going on with you? Anyway, just checking in and see if I can do anything for you. I almost feel like I need a southern accent to say that. Now this sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? It really does. But is that really that far from what we hear on occasion? How about the commanding prayer? God, I know you hear me. I know you can help me. Why aren't you doing it? It's not there. If you loved me, you would. Can't you see what I've done for you, God? You owe me. Again, maybe not with those words, but is that really that far off from the prayers that so many? That we just shout with maybe gritted teeth when things aren't going our way? God, what are you doing? Don't you get it? Okay, go to verse 14. I bow my knees. I bend the knee. I cannot imagine standing pridefully with an attitude of privilege or arrogance before the mighty God and King who is so gracious, so powerful. And so I submit and I come before you with humility. You are so magnificent, and I am so, so very small. We say it all the time. Maybe you've heard this before. Maybe you've said it before. I bow the knee for no man. Amen. That's right. I bow the knee before no man. Why? Because those knees, those callous knees, are reserved for the God man, Jesus Christ. No man's gonna cause me to bow before him, but I gladly fall on my face, nose in the dirt, as if I can't get low enough before this great God with immense joy. There's a difference. Now, maybe some of you are saying right now, I I can't get down like that. And if I did, I'm really gonna need the church to help me up. I hear that. That's okay. Because what Paul is speaking of here is a heart disposition toward the Lord. It's a heart, it's not about the knees, it's about the heart. What is your countenance in coming before this the God of all the galaxies? If you can get on your knees or even on your face, then do it. Regularly. It helps keep the heart on track. But either way, it's all about what's in the soul of the man or woman as we come before this great creator, the sustainer, the savior. And as we do this, we do this in part because of what Paul says next. Look at 14, the first part again. So much in this. When we pray, we are praying to the Father in heaven. Isn't that good to know? Paul knows he's doing this before his heavenly father. His audience in prayer is not some guy in a booth. It's not just words into the air. It is specifically to the Father in heaven, just as Jesus teaches us in the Lord's Prayer. So what we find is that we are eternally privileged to have the gift of being able to pray to and before the Father. Now, I want this to impact us this morning and teach us. Please, as you think of whether or not it's worth it to spend a few minutes in prayer, whether or not you should get down on your knees, or whether or not you want to look like the weirdo in the restaurant when you pray with your family for food, because God provided it. Either way, remember who you're speaking to. As Jesus teaches us, and as Paul continually shows us as well, we are addressing the heavenly Father in our prayer. This is no small thing. We get to cry, Abba, Father. This is enormous. And so we come humbly bowing the knee and bending our hearts and souls in dependent prayer. Because here's the thing: in reality, prayer is Godward, and therefore it brings him glory when done according to his will and word. Yet what we find is that prayer, practically speaking, is for who? It's for us, isn't it? Therefore, as we pray to the Father, as we pray with humility and bow down low, what we find is ultimately the prayer of the Christian ought first and foremost to be, we could call it doxological, or what that means is Godward praise. That's where we begin, isn't it? Why? Who's our audience? And this is really indicative of the whole Christian life: prayer, scripture reading, singing, walking in holiness, all of it should lead us to make statements like what we see in verses 20 and 21. That should be the amen and the confidence stamp on the prayer life and really the life of the Christian in general. Now to him. More on that in a few moments, but for now, I want us to look at who needs to pray and who they are in the grand scheme of things for just a moment. And so we come before him, bowing our knees for this father, and Paul says in 15, he says, every family in heaven and earth. And Paul's not speaking of every human that's ever existed, okay? You see, Paul didn't speak about the church for the last two and a half chapters, and I'm saying this because I've heard this before. He didn't speak about the church for this whole book so far, and then in a brief, perplexing moment of universalism, decide to speak of the world at large. No. That'd be way, way out of context. In fact, I would say if we try to make this passage about the fatherhood of God over the human race instead of the race of Christians, we're stepping way outside of what the Bible teaches. God is not a father to the non-believing world, just as I am not a father to the kids in my neighborhood. Praise the Lord. He is the creator of all, but he's not the father of all by his sovereign decree. So when Paul says this year, he is steeped in the context of the saints of the Most High God, the children of God, the church. So when he says he bows his knee before this great father from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name, he is saying that all the people of the church, all Christians, all those who look to God, all of us can fall on our faces before God the Father and cry out to him and his children. And so, the point I'm trying to make here is that right off the bat, in this recorded prayer for us, Paul's teaching. And he's teaching us our countenance in prayer, our attitude in prayer, in light of who we are praying to, and he's shown us this confidence that we're to have in prayer, since we get to call out to the Father who calls us his own. Isn't that beautiful? If you're in Christ, then you are God's precious child, and he loves to hear from you at any and all times. Isn't that amazing? It kind of reminds me of a song we sung last week, And Can It Be? How can this be? The God, the one who spoke everything into existence, desires that we come to him in prayer. Amazing love. How can it be? Thou, my God, shouldst die for me. So, what does he pray for in this prayer? Let's look at the content of how he prays. So that's kind of the backdrop, and now let's look at our second point, what this prayer consists of. As he teaches us how to pray. As was mentioned when we went through chapter 1, prayer begins with seeking to glorify and honor the Lord. And so, if that's true, then it must naturally lead us to understand that all things are granted through him. Look at verses 16 to 19 again. What did Paul pray would be granted to them? To be strengthened with power through his spirit and the inner man according to the riches of his glory. Isn't that just beautiful language? Again, as we looked at in the first chapter, this power that Paul is praying for comes according to the riches of God's glory, not merely out of. So we see here is that Paul is praying that not that these riches would be granted to them, not merely that, but that according to them they would be granted the strength they need to live the Christian life. And there are numerous reasons for this. You and I need strength spiritually. We need his power to thrive in us. Without God's strength, you and I cannot live the Christian life. That's why Paul prays this way. And we need this strength in large part. I have to say this, because the enemy is cunning. Isn't he? The enemy is shrewd. And he's crafty. And he's deceptive. So we need to be strengthened. And without the strength and knowledge of Christ, we're never going to be able to withstand the onslaughts of the enemy. Or the world. Or the flesh. I recently came across something in my reading that's kind of interesting that reminded me very much of our enemy and why we need to be strengthened, why we're so needy for the strength of Christ in us. Why we got to be praying for one another to be strengthened in Christ according to the riches of his glory. In the South American Amazon forest, there's this little tiny spider called the crab spider. Yeah, we have crab spiders here. These ones are a little different. They're deceptive little creatures. Honestly, I would like to have a whole bunch of these around my house, much to the chagrin of numerous females that live there. Because this little spider feeds on carpenter ants. The spider is much smaller in size than the carpenter ant, but the South American crab spider is a predator. And when this spider gets a hold of one of these carpenter ants and he does what spiders do, they kill the victim, drink the insides after liquefying them. If you didn't know that, there you go. I know that part's exciting, right? But here's the thing: this spider is very careful as he does this to make sure that none of the exoskeleton of the ant is harmed in the process, because after this spider is done eating the ant from the inside out, he covers himself with the ant and he uses it as camouflage to easily approach other carpenter ants, and the process starts all over again. Ants are highly communal, they communicate by touch mostly. So this is a very deceptive tactic, isn't it? Why do I tell you that, other than to creep some of you out? Because that's how our enemy operates. That's why we've got to be strengthened. He kills spiritually. He kills people who claim Christ, yet aren't Christians. And he uses them as cover to infiltrate the church and to spread deadly and dangerous doctrines that have the mask and camouflage of being Christian. But what's really happening when we're in a weak state when we listen to those doctrines is that we're unknowingly allowing ourselves to be killed slowly. Therefore, we need God's strength in us. We need his strength in us to withstand all the onslaughts of the evil one and our own natural propensities to sin. Sometimes we take the skeleton and throw it on ourselves, don't we? In moments of sinful weakness. Without his strength and power in us, we will fall. That's why Paul is praying this way for this church. Remember, they're in Ephesus under the heavy hand of Roman rule and with the gigantic, one of the seven wonders of the world, right outside a town where everybody went to worship. The statue to Diana. So Paul's, I'm praying for your strength. Here's the thing. If we are bowing our knees before him, if we are calling out to our Father, if we are studying his word in faithful obedience, we will be strengthened according to his glory and his riches. And no fake thing is going to infiltrate the ranks easily, because we're going to spot the counterfeit. We're strengthening him, we're going to seek obedience to him, and we're going to worship him alone. We need the Spirit of God and his power in our inner parts of who we are to stand firm on the truth. You see, the outer man, our bodies, are decaying, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians. But the inner man's being renewed. Strengthened, same thing. Same idea. Strengthened according to his glory if we're in Christ and His truth and with his people. It is a work of God alone to change the inner man into a saint. And it is God's truth alone that would cause us all to spot the skeleton of what is dangerous that comes our way at seeking to harm us. And so we need his working, his strength in the inner man through the power of the Spirit to cause us to live faithfully. That's why Paul prays that way, and that's why Paul prays what he says in Acts in verse 17. Paul prays that God would grant them strength and then goes on to say, so that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith. So that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith. At first glance we may say, now wait a minute. I thought at the moment of conversion the Spirit of God enters a man and therefore resides within him. Isn't Paul speaking of Christians here? As you said? He is. And so what we find is something awesome. And that's this: that Paul is not speaking of Christ dwelling in their hearts here in the salvific or saving sense. He is speaking of this in an intimate and growing sense. Paul is praying next that Christ would be more a part of their lives. To summarize that, simply. No, he's not going to be more of your savior, but he can be more of your Lord. Not that he's not your Lord if you're a Christian, but that he has a greater hold on your life as you grow in your faith in him. It's as if Paul is praying here, I'm praying that Christ would consume more of who you are. Your thoughts, your actions, your desires, your abilities, I'm praying that Christ would be so at home in your heart that you cannot help but magnify his name in all you do. That's what we call sanctification or growing in Christ-likeness. Because the greater Christ is to you, the more your life conforms to his truth, and the more you adore him for who he is, therefore, the more intimate with Christ you will become. That's why he prays that way. Do you pray for your church this way? When the surgery comes, we pray for one another, but do we pray this way? As Paul does. Challenge us in that. Next, Paul prays in verse 17 they would be rooted and grounded in love. That's a great phrase. First and foremost to God and then to each other. One of the beautiful things about this kind of prayer is Paul is essentially, I would say, praying through the Ten Commandments here when speaking of being rooted and grounded in love. You know, in the Kalahari Desert, there's a tree called the Shepherd's Tree. It's called this for a variety of reasons. It provides much for the humans and animals that benefit from it. And one of the reasons it's so helpful is that it is really resilient. With low amounts of rainfall, it's in a desert region. What we find is that this tree has some of, if not the deepest roots of all trees in the world. That's how we're supposed to be. That's why Paul prays this way. That we as a church, individually and together, that we would be deeply rooted in Christ and his word, therefore grounded in love. Real love, not fleeting temporary or circumstantial love. But as I mentioned, love like what the Ten Commandments give us. Loving God first and foremost as the first portion details out for us, and loving others is the second. Paul's praying that their roots in the grace of God would be so deep, that their love would be so vast, that they would be able to look like what Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 13. Remember the love chapter? That's the kind of selfless love that Paul is saying that they need to be rooted in, like a shepherd tree, deeply rooted so as to be able to weather whatever comes our way or whatever doesn't come our way. Paul even prays in Philippians 1 that this kind of love would abound among the people, overflowing verses 9 to 11 in Philippians 1. And that that would lead to approving only excellent and praiseworthy things. Rooted in God and his truth. God, I pray that for my church. That thought leads us to worship over what comes next. May be able to understand. Comprehend what? Does he go on to say the immensity of the cosmos? The sun in all its power and brilliance. The gravitational pull of the moon, the height of the redwoods, the sheer girth of the cascade range, algebraic equations, right? Young ones, you can't wait for school again to do that again, right? How about sports trivia that you would comprehend who played in that one game? Is that what Paul's doing? No. So that we might be able to comprehend with each other the vast, immense, and absolute boundless love of God. Do you want to comprehend that? I'll say this, Christians, by and large. Many, not all of course, but many do not not only end up not grasping the immense nature of his love toward us, but sometimes we don't even really try to. We just simply kind of stop at, you know, a John 3.16 moment and say, yeah, he loves me a lot. He loves me more than anybody on the earth. As if that's even a comparison. He loves me more than any person I know. Great. Why is that the standard? God loves us, as Paul tries to explain here, greater than anything you and I could ever conceive of in our finite minds. We will never come to find out how much that is, even in eternity. This is why we shouldn't merely compare his love with other humans' love. And so I say all that because I think it has a tendency, if we do, to stop us from growing in our knowledge of his love and our ability to rejoice over it. If we settle on the fact that he just loves me a whole lot and even more than my nearest favorite people, then we're falling short of truly daily mining the riches and glory of his love toward us. Therefore, we are inhibiting our ability to worship him all the more. And we can say that he loves us more than anybody else. We're absolutely right, praise God, but we don't stop there. We have to say and pray that since we know he loves us this deeply, we must, we must continue to search the word to find out more of the, what does he say here? More of the depth of it. Is there an end point to the depth of God's love? Did we reach bottom at some point? Like I got it. More of the length of it, same thing. The height of it, the breadth of that kind of love. It's immeasurable. That's the point. And so we've got to daily search the scriptures to find out more of this kind of love in the gospel and really of Christ Himself. I love what this man from all the way back in the fourth century, Ambrose of Milan, what he said commenting on this verse, is so good. He says this. He says, You can see the measurements of God's love in this way. His love is wide enough to embrace the world, as John 3.16 speaks of. His love is long enough or has the breadth to stretch all the way into eternity. It's high enough to provide a path to take sinners to heaven. And of course, it's deep enough to send Christ all the way down to the vilest sinner, a wretch like me. That's love without measure, isn't it? You see, it's not that we should just simply equate each measurement with one of those things, but to say that his love just covers it all. That's the point. But we can't comprehend this unless we're rooted and grounded in it. And so Paul prays that God would grant to us these kinds of riches, it's according to his glory, that we'd be strengthened by it and against that which attacks it. That together, as we're rooted and grounded in the truth and in love and in Christ who dwells in us, that we would know, continue to grow in seeking to know the absolute magnitude, the stupendous nature of his love toward lowly sinners. And we would just sit back in our chairs and just throw our arms up and say, oh, what mercy! What love does he have for us? What grace. Because in reality, you and I, in ourselves, we should only be able to grasp a smidge, a small taste of his love as we view it from afar toward his only son. That should be us. But no. Instead, he invites us in, desires to call us his own, and pours out his love before us in us and all around us as we sit back and take in what the cross of Christ provides. It's amazing. Given all that truth, how can we not pray daily for ourselves and for others that we would grow in this kind of knowledge of his infinite love toward us? It's a love that surpasses knowledge. So Paul is telling us that he's praying that they, that we would be filled to overflowing with that kind of knowledge. Of God's love toward his bride, his one collected people. To be filled like this by him is to be so overwhelmed by his love that we are truly living out a passage like Galatians 2.20. What does that say? That it is Christ who lives in us, not me. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. All my hopes and dreams are for him. As they're for me. To be filled up, to grasp all the fullness of God does not mean that we are like God in our knowledge or even our love or even that we have grasped all the love he has to give, but that we've tasted it. And that we know it in such a way that we are now overflowing with it. I know in our minds that might not make sense. Think of it this way: it's like filling your car at the gas station. You didn't single-handedly empty the underground tank that is there, even if the receipt today says otherwise. But let alone you didn't empty out the refinery, did you? Did you empty out the crude oil that came from the ground to begin with? Yet your car's filled with gas. You can even overflow it, doesn't that? This gas isn't lacking anything. You have all the elements of fuel you need and desire, and yet you are full with just a small portion of what is available. That's a finite analogy that falls apart because our tank should be ever expanding in Christ. Thankfully, that doesn't happen in our vehicles. But the point is to think of that in the infinite. Think of it in the terms of the God of the universe. Of the love that he has for us. Oh, how he loves his people. The storehouse of his love for his people is so vast that even a speck of it toward the believer is overwhelming. And yet he holds nothing back from us in it. Let us always be praying for each other that we would come to know more of this love on a daily basis. Isn't it amazing to think that the love that you and I can grasp that is from God to us is just a scratching of the surface. For eternity, we're gonna know it more fully, yet we will never exhaust it. We will never exhaust his love. I want to finish by briefly looking at verses 20 and 21. Again, in the context of prayer, as we pray as we come before him in humble dependence and confident assurance at his power and might, as we come to him in worship and love, because of the love which he has for us. Remember, he loved us first. As we come and we we ask for greater depth of insight, or even if we come with trivial things that don't have a lot of eternal value, what we need to understand is what we see in verses 20 and 21. And that is this that our God is so wonderful that we can't even come up with things to ask for in prayer that can surpass nor attain the level of blessing that He is more than willing to bestow upon us. Do you understand that? Think of these descriptions. We ask for breadcrumbs and he gives us steak and lobster. We ask for gravel and he gives us sapphire. We ask for mud and he gives us gold. We ask for a toy and he gives us eternal privileges. We ask for a good life and he gives us his only son. May not seem like it in the moment when we're asking for things. But the way in which our Lord answers prayer far exceeds our capacity to even ask or dream of. That same glory that is already at work within us, namely the Holy Spirit. This is not some weird Star Wars force thing, but a real and personal God working with supernatural power in us who believe. And praise be to God, we can never exhaust that. So Paul prays, Oh, may your people know this love daily. You see, the well of God's love is never going to come up with a bucket devoid of life-giving substance. It will always come up full to overflowing with refreshing and life-giving water that satisfies. Remember what Jesus says, you need life-giving water. That satisfies and nourishes the very soul of the believer through the love of him who died for us. That's God and his love toward us. Do you pray this way for your church? As I close, I want you to just for a moment. This might be one of the only times I ever do this. I want you to think of your week upcoming. Normally, don't do that. This time I want you to. I want you to think of what this week is gonna look like. I want you to think of your work. Maybe close your eyes if you want. You don't have to. I'm not gonna throw anything at you. Think of what the work week is gonna look like. Think of the recreation. Think of your meetings. Think of the family times. Think of the difficult things that may be coming. Think of the quiet times you're gonna have with your Lord. And think of the times when you gather with your church. Okay. And look at the screen behind me. I want you this week to pray this over your life. Pray this over your family, and especially as the context fits here. Think of your church as you think of verse 21. What I want us to do now is I want us to conclude this time of sermon loudly with one voice, proclaiming this portion, this concluding portion of Paul's prayer together. I want us to resound with one voice about the glory of God. So let's do that now. Say this with me. This is God's word to us. Ready? To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Let us pray now. Father, would you be glorified in your people here? Would you be exalted in our lives, in our prayer lives, in our walk of holiness? Would you allow us to day by day mind the truth of your word, to draw out the immeasurable riches of your love toward us? Would you help us to crowd out the tyranny of what may be coming this week and look to Christ? That you would be honored by Prairie Baptist Church. We live in this world for your glory, no matter what comes our way. I pray this over all of us. I pray this that we would have a fire in our belly for your glory. Be exalted in your people. In Christ's name. Amen.