SPEAKER_00: I uh brought up one of the rings that we have here with all of our missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: We gave these out in February.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have yours, you can well, they'd probably not like me to say you can get another one because I think that we're limited.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're visiting as well, a regular tender, so it has all our missionaries and it tells who they are, uh, where they are, what they're doing, and then there's prayer requests on the back.
SPEAKER_00: There's a picture of most of them.
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a QR code.
SPEAKER_00: You want more information?
SPEAKER_00: So I have started um just I put it in my car, and each day I'll just flip over to the next one, and they'll just be on my mind during the day.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's been amazing getting to know the missionaries better.
SPEAKER_00: Um so I would encourage you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we also pray for a missionary each week.
SPEAKER_00: Each Monday, there's a different missionary.
SPEAKER_00: So tomorrow, June 8th, is uh Jim Hatch.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why we were praying for him this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And that uh prayer guide can be found on the website or the newsletter when it came out as well.
SPEAKER_00: We have physical copies out here too.
SPEAKER_00: I want to um, yeah, those who are visiting, um we, my wife and I, Betsy and I have been here for uh going up up getting close to three years.
SPEAKER_00: We started to process actually three years ago this month.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to take the opportunity to tell you how um just how thankful we are to be here.
SPEAKER_00: And I told the session that, and I was on this in January, that I just feel really happier than I've probably been in three or four years, and there's a certain peace.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I want to bring that up because the fact that um I'm very thankful, and I know Betsy is too.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's also uh an air, a tone, I'm not sure what the word is, um, around our church where the very things that we aspire to be as a congregation, the things that we want to take seriously, like the preaching of the word and prayer, worship, the sacraments, uh, community is really a big deal here.
SPEAKER_00: We really do love one another.
SPEAKER_00: If you are visiting, um it's not nothing's being put on, um, it's not a facade.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we really, really do care.
SPEAKER_00: But that has also come after some um, you know, troubling waters, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of churches after COVID, you know, it was it is it was tough.
SPEAKER_00: So there's been some transition in this church.
SPEAKER_00: Um at times there's been some uncertainty.
SPEAKER_00: But the encouragement is we're at yet another crossroads or have been, I'm not saying four, because that's that's different.
SPEAKER_00: A crossroads where you have a time of discernment and there's a certain um uh there's certain uh what am I trying to say?
SPEAKER_00: There um there are certain, not means, certain directions that the church could go, multiple directions a lot of times.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is, the long and the short of it is we're at a very good crossroads right now, where there is uh a lot of joy, where there is a lot of community, there is a lot of anticipation, uh exciting.
SPEAKER_00: All that to say, I want to take that as just an opportunity, but this is the same thing that's happening in Ephesians chapter 3, because Paul has reached the crossroads in his letter to Ephesus, but he's also uh reaching out and writing a letter to the church at Ephesus that would find itself at a crossroads uh constantly.
SPEAKER_00: When we find ourselves, when Paul found himself at a crossroad, he prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when we have found ourselves at a crossroads, then um then we pray as well.
SPEAKER_00: I know firsthand and I have uh seen it, so I've seen it, I've also heard tell, as they say.
SPEAKER_00: Um, our session at crossroads has been extremely prayerful.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, spending time fasting, tears have been shed in the session room, uh seeking God and his direction for the church.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna look at Paul's prayer here.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a direct, like you might find in Daniel and other places, um, a prayer, but it but is it it is as if Paul is saying to the church at Ephesus, this is these are the things I pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And it is um it's awe-inspiring.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And as we read it, let's remember that the Word of God is the very mind of God in print.
SPEAKER_00: So we give it our greatest, utmost attention.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, we'll just start right there in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: When Paul is telling them about his prayer life and what he prays for them, he makes it clear to them that he prays on his knees.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would Paul direct our attention to his posture, other than the fact that he believed that posture conveys posture among other ways?
SPEAKER_00: Fasting's another way.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of different ways you can pray without words.
SPEAKER_00: Posture is one of those things.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm sitting, I'm saying something.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm prostrate before God, I'm saying something.
SPEAKER_00: When I'm on my knees, I'm saying something.
SPEAKER_00: And um, I'll give you an example here if you want to look at me.
SPEAKER_00: The slightest movement of a hand is a prayer in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: This says in prayer to God, I praise you, I adore you.
SPEAKER_00: It's more of a reaching toward God.
SPEAKER_00: It's a dependence upon God.
SPEAKER_00: Um I it's like a child running after their parent.
SPEAKER_00: That is uh that's that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: If all I do is then turn like this, I turn my palms up, that says something else, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It says, I'm ready to receive.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here, I have nothing in my hands to bring simply to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: I cling, you know, or it could be in the same way, I bring my uh my five fish and two loaves of bread.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I have.
SPEAKER_00: I bring everything I have, and I'm I'm ready, I'm open, I'm available.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, think about posture.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've heard me talk about that really over these last three years.
SPEAKER_00: Some um, for this reason, I bow my knees before the father.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the the humility there, the respect, it's almost a tenor of how could I not?
SPEAKER_00: How could I not bow my knees before the father?
SPEAKER_00: This there's different examples of this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, in the psalmist in Psalm 95, verse 6, oh come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
SPEAKER_00: Solomon actually built a certain kind of platform that was made out of bronze, and then he got up on the platform.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just read it to you out of 2 Corinthians 6, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Then he knelt on his knees in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Unless posture and the way we do it, with our hands and all, unless it meant something.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he stands before the nation and before God.
SPEAKER_00: The sons of Korah, they're like choir leaders in Psalm 44.
SPEAKER_00: For our soul is bowed down to the dust, our belly clings to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: And then Daniel, you may remember what he did when he would have the windows open, pointed toward Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: In Daniel 6, verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows, in his upper chamber, open toward Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously.
SPEAKER_00: When you're at a crossroads, you want to be found on your knees.
SPEAKER_00: And speaking of our elders here praying in the church I've previously served in Montgomery over in the church before that, too.
SPEAKER_00: It was important for us as a session, at the end of the meeting.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, as a moderator, I may say something as simple as, well, that concludes our business.
SPEAKER_00: You know, something like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's like Pavlov's dog to the elders, because they knew, everybody knew they were going to put their stuff up, and everybody knew to push away from the table and get on their knees.
SPEAKER_00: I have pictures, yes, I took the pictures during the prayer time.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but we had a bunch of them, and it was great.
SPEAKER_00: I have pictures of elders, and sometimes when we had all the officers together, and some are sitting in chairs, others are standing, some are leaning against the the chair in front of them, like they're planking or something.
SPEAKER_00: Some are on their face, on their knees.
SPEAKER_00: And so when that happens, it's like a session is saying, I'm gonna push away now from the world.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the biz, I'm gonna push away, and I'm gonna give all my attention.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going into the spiritual realm here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna pray now where where there are angels, where there's principalities and bowers, but where the angels are, where Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And also it's a sense of humility for an elder because I'm pushing away and I'm realizing my place as an under-shepherd of God's people, and he's sovereign, and I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, before the Father.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word is pater.
SPEAKER_00: There are other words.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit told us we could pray Abba, Father, Daddy, Father.
SPEAKER_00: This is like a it's just a male parent here, the pateer.
SPEAKER_00: And in and it's not mother, okay?
SPEAKER_00: It's not the motherhood of God, it's the fatherhood of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not teach us to say, our mother who art in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Say, well, why would you make a big deal of that?
SPEAKER_00: Because that's important today.
SPEAKER_00: In our country, in our world, in our uh the culture in which we live.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a guy out in Texas who's running for some public office and he claims to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: He is not, and because he's heretical.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the things he talks about is God being binary.
SPEAKER_00: And he also will say that Jesus is not the only way to heaven, just to give you a point about that.
SPEAKER_00: But that's that's his view.
SPEAKER_00: So we must, we that's the whole point.
SPEAKER_00: We look at the world, we look at politics, we look at everything through the lens of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: What does God say about that?
SPEAKER_00: What does God's word say?
SPEAKER_00: And here he's saying, the Father, and here's how you describe God, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
SPEAKER_00: That's a prayer, we call that a prayer from above.
SPEAKER_00: We pray from above when we start there.
SPEAKER_00: We might pray from above may start like this or like this.
SPEAKER_00: It's a um, we also talk about a theology from above.
SPEAKER_00: A theology, that's Presbyterianism, is a theology from above because it starts with God and who God is and what his word is, and then works our way down.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not a prayer from below is okay.
SPEAKER_00: We find ourselves a lot of the Psalms will be a prayer from below, crying out to God.
SPEAKER_00: This is a prayer from above, my creator, my creator from whom all creation derives this name.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'm praying to the only one who can answer this kind of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a bold prayer.
SPEAKER_00: This is a real um, it's a powerful prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get to that actually.
SPEAKER_00: This is a prayer that teaches us that we can bring to God anything we think of.
SPEAKER_00: We can bring any and all things before him, and it teaches us that he is a God, he's the God, he's our God who can answer and do something about it.
SPEAKER_00: So in verse 16, in the ESV, as we have written there and we we we preach from, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with what?
SPEAKER_00: With power through his spirit in your inner being.
SPEAKER_00: So that Christ may dwell in your hearts, that's the inner being, through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength.
SPEAKER_00: It's just mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just you can just meditate on that.
SPEAKER_00: Those three, the two and a half verses right there.
SPEAKER_00: But here's how the NIV says that the NIV was written at a third or fourth grade level.
SPEAKER_00: So the the NIV was actually a translation for missionaries so they could take it on the field and it was easier to understand.
SPEAKER_00: It reads, I pray that out of the out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that you, being rooted, and he uses the word, and established in love, may have power.
SPEAKER_00: Use that's in verse 18 rather than strength.
SPEAKER_00: Now, just a portion of Eugene Peterson's The Message, which is a paraphrase, somewhat of a translation, but it's a paraphrase.
SPEAKER_00: I ask him, this is great in verse 16, I ask him to strengthen you by his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Not a brute strength, but a glorious inner strength.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's going to pray powerful petitions, okay?
SPEAKER_00: First, A, in the outline of believe, um, is deep spiritual strength.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18 again, that you may have strength to do what?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, to comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: It's to comprehend, and then verse 19 is to know.
SPEAKER_00: It's the strength to comprehend and the strength to know.
SPEAKER_00: With whom?
SPEAKER_00: With all the saints.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let that get past you, or at least keep that in the back of your mind.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to come back to it a little bit in the sermon, but we're really going to come back to it when we go to the table.
SPEAKER_00: To comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth, and to know, this is what it's all about, the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: To what end?
SPEAKER_00: In verse 19, that you may be filled with what?
SPEAKER_00: All the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: You could do that.
SPEAKER_00: You can do that on your own.
SPEAKER_00: When we meditate on God's word, we take time, when we slow down and just take a verse and then pray it back to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And read it, if you read it over and over and over again, it's amazing how each time you see more in the verse.
SPEAKER_00: And that, but I mentioned that because, I mean, this is this is almost incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're reading something, the strength to know how big the love of Jesus Christ is, that I might be filled with the fullness of God, filled with the Trinity, filled with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's almost, well, it's not, it is, it's otherworldly.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's something by the whole, something the Holy Spirit has to do in the ear, in the heart.
SPEAKER_00: There has to be a transformation within my inner being to actually even begin to comprehend it.
SPEAKER_00: Again, something only the Holy Spirit can do.
SPEAKER_00: One who is void of the Spirit is void of the power.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have the Spirit, then you don't have the strength.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have the strength, you don't have the power, you don't have the understanding of the love of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: His breadth, length, height, and depth.
SPEAKER_00: So what he's praying for is this Holy Ghost, this Holy Spirit, inner peace, this inner comprehension, the strength of the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, actually, I have it in the outline.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, at the top of the outline there.
SPEAKER_00: John Stott.
SPEAKER_00: The love of Christ is broad enough to encompass all mankind, long enough to last for eternity, deep enough to reach the most degraded sinner, and high enough to exalt him to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You can know that.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can by this by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I can experience something that's inexplicable.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you can.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are a Christian and you the Holy Spirit obviously then is living in you, and I'm preaching, and the Holy Spirit is using his word, then his spirit is ministering to your spirit right now and telling you you can know the unknowable.
SPEAKER_00: You can know something of this length and height, the depth, and width of the love of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Will you ever plunge the depth?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Are you ever going to reach the height?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's always something more.
SPEAKER_00: And it's something, though, that you can know when you go to bed at night and when you wake up in the morning, and when you have these, as John mentioned, it was a great Sunday school class.
SPEAKER_00: Uh make a point to come in the summer.
SPEAKER_00: That's a really good book.
SPEAKER_00: John's a great teacher, and it's um this idea of being in such a hurry.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what did I why did I get off on that?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, because we can slow down.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible for us by the by the Holy Spirit to slow down and think about how much Jesus loves me.
SPEAKER_00: When you wake up, when you're going to work, when you're at work, let's say when you are in the strictest routine of your life, and you stay minute by minute on your to-do list, and when you are free as a bird, you know, you're just as happy as you can be, nothing, you have to feel like you have no responsibility, that's when always you can know and comprehend this kind of love.
SPEAKER_00: Here are two examples who get it.
SPEAKER_00: One was a hymn that we sang earlier, Samuel Traver Francis.
SPEAKER_00: He writes this the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free, rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me, underneath me, all around me is the current of his love leading onward, leading homeward to thy glorious rest above.
SPEAKER_00: John Wesley, and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood?
SPEAKER_00: Died he for me who caused his pain?
SPEAKER_00: For me, whom to for me who him to death pursued?
SPEAKER_00: Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
SPEAKER_00: They get it.
SPEAKER_00: They understand that the love of Jesus is not just some intellectual knowledge, it's an experience.
SPEAKER_00: When you talk about the love of Jesus, you can't have a phobia about feelings or experiences because this is an experience that someone has in comprehending what is incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_00: And it's here, it's deep, it's within the inner man, the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Peter refers to this part of us.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1 Peter 3, which in between which, by the way, is actually in the context of words, instruction to women, that it's not about braided hair, it's not about gold jury, it's not about fine apparel, but it's what?
SPEAKER_00: It's what's deep, it's what's in here.
SPEAKER_00: The words he uses, the hidden man of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of girls and ladies, fathers, daddy, daddy, daddy, you, you, the buck stops with you to be teaching these daughters early, as early as you can, that this is what matters.
SPEAKER_00: The inward man, the inward person, who they, who they really are and how beautiful they are in here.
SPEAKER_00: To teach the little girls that they become teenagers and realize, yeah, yeah, yeah, man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And then one day they're gonna stand with a man.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna stand between that daughter and that man, and you're gonna give her away to a man who, let's say it this way, what pleases God is what pleases that man who loves your daughter.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he really love?
SPEAKER_00: What's deep, what's inside, what's gonna last 30, 40, 50, and 60 years.
SPEAKER_00: You will free your daughters.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's it's a struggle.
SPEAKER_00: It's who they are, it's their adolescence.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's growing, it's maturing, but it's still there.
SPEAKER_00: And daddy has this um, daddy earns the trust when they're young.
SPEAKER_00: So that then daddy can say at 12 and 13 and 14, you're not wearing that because let me tell you, he's earned the trust with his daughter to say, let me tell you what goes through a boy's mind.
SPEAKER_00: And this is why you're not gonna wear that.
SPEAKER_00: The mother sets the example, but the father is going to the inner man.
SPEAKER_00: Did I just digress?
SPEAKER_00: I did.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Satisfying.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that may be the most important part of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, satisfying fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is the ultimate goal in verse 19, the second part, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_00: John says it this way in John 1, verse 16, for from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
SPEAKER_00: To be full of God, to be full of God, you can only be full of one thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're full with God.
SPEAKER_00: You're either full of God or you're full of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't think that come out that way, but you're either full of God or you're self-centered.
SPEAKER_00: Again, go back to COVID.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's we learned a lot about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We learned a lot about our friends too.
SPEAKER_00: Because we saw the true self.
SPEAKER_00: We saw people say things they would never have said before, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And then we also realized about ourselves that we love our comforts.
SPEAKER_00: We like, we like to find out we like to be alone when we we need to be with people, we need to get out.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, again, that's a whole nother sermon, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: But it we we like our comforts.
SPEAKER_00: We we don't want to be rattled, we don't want to be inconvenienced.
SPEAKER_00: And so things like that can produce anxiety within us.
SPEAKER_00: You know, speaking of our daughters uh or our sons can cause uh phobia in here.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually a Greek word, phobos, fear, anxiety in here, singleness, our children, our marriages, our finances, our health crisis in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you an example of what Spurgeon did.
SPEAKER_00: The way he handled these things in his life.
SPEAKER_00: He was talking about Psalm 34, verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 34, verse 19 says, Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
SPEAKER_00: And Spurgeon commenting on that, said, Many, talking about himself, many bruises through sickness, bereavement, depression, slander, opposition.
SPEAKER_00: He got it, didn't he, too?
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say, his love, his faith, his hope, his his um his peace did not lessen during those times, this barrage of things coming at him.
SPEAKER_00: But rather he says, all these things, faith, hope, and love, all of this gained in strength and energy.
SPEAKER_00: Even my joy has not been destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: It's a calling by God to you and me.
SPEAKER_00: Is it like Isaiah 18?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I no, I know it's Isaiah 30, verses 15 and 18.
SPEAKER_00: Jot that down if you're taking notes or anything.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 30, 15 and 18.
SPEAKER_00: There's this there's this returning to God, there's this quietness before God, there is this um resting in him and trusting in him.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is you get more of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To get more of Christ means I get more of understanding, I get more comprehension.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want.
SPEAKER_00: I want more comprehension day by day of what is incomprehensible.
SPEAKER_00: Just give me more of it.
SPEAKER_00: Give me more of Jesus, give me more grace.
SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah 30, read it because it does tell you that he actually exalts himself by showing you mercy.
SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily the epitome, is the fullness of God and all this is saying, but it's part of the comprehension of understanding the love of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what, you know, talking about this crossroads.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to speak for Olin.
SPEAKER_00: I think we on staff would say um we've been so impressed with his commitment to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He is a man of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And these are the things he wants for the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: He's a discipler as well, he's a mentor.
SPEAKER_00: And so I know that, again, I don't want to speak for him as much as say about him.
SPEAKER_00: What I've learned is that this is what he wants.
SPEAKER_00: For us to turn away from the world, turn away from the way the world acts.
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe it's a hurriness, again, like John's Sunday school, but um, turn away from the slander and the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Don't, you know, don't return slander with slander, all that, but rather be filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That the Holy Spirit would come down on this place and be walking with Jesus in victory.
SPEAKER_00: Um, David Strang gave this great illustration about um, you know, Jim, Jim Cantori, the the weather man, you know, that this goes back.
SPEAKER_00: I know he's probably, I guess he's still around, but there are, he's kind of the godfather, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_00: But there are so many others now that are doing it.
SPEAKER_00: But you see these weather channel people that get out there and the hurricane is coming in and it's beating against them.
SPEAKER_00: They're screaming into the microphone, the rain's coming in horizontally, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's horrible.
SPEAKER_00: And but and then in the frame of the picture, you'll see these palm trees, and they're bending almost totally over.
SPEAKER_00: But then when the storm's gone and they go back and they show the destruction, you see broken windows, cars that are turning their boats on the boats in the middle of the road, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But there's the palm tree still standing.
SPEAKER_00: That's a that's an example, it's an illustration of the Christian who's grounded in the love of Jesus, who is established in this incomprehensible love, the height and the depth, the width, all of all of the love of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And those torrents come, the hurricane winds come, storms of suffering, storms of sickness, storms of disease, storms of loneliness, storms of loss, storms, did I say grief, storms of grief?
SPEAKER_00: But we're held secure in the love of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you, he loves you, he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: Then this last two verses, which is um it's a powerful, from powerful petition to powerful benediction, it's really a doxology, it's a breathtaking doxology.
SPEAKER_00: Um to him, just think about that.
SPEAKER_00: One thing this encourages us is that Paul didn't know it either.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's grabbing for it, he's he's got his hands up like this, reaching out toward God, because he wants to have some comprehension of the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: And he knows that God is, he that God does love him despite him.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that there's this love of Jesus, despite who I am and what I have done, he loves me.
SPEAKER_00: So he starts with the three words, now to him.
SPEAKER_00: How could he not?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't don't aren't you glad as you see a passage like this and a prayer that that that as he's beginning to conclude, he three words, now to him, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.
SPEAKER_00: Each and every petition that led up to this doxology, to each and every petition that you have asked him, that you have you have brought before him this very day, when you were waking up, when you, it might have been a groan, it might have been, you know, to get in the car and come to church, and here we go again, and I don't, I don't have my husband with me anymore, I don't have my wife with me anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've got nothing on my mind except my my children and my finance, all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And it ends, though, in doxology to him who's able to do far more abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: It reminded me when he says, Ask whatever you want in my name, and it shall be done for you.
SPEAKER_00: When you're praying according to the will of the Father, it will be done to his glory and his praise according to the power at work within us.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever suffocate the power in you.
SPEAKER_00: The power is the Spirit of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The physical Jesus who ascended into heaven sends his spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It says, His Holy Spirit, it is a power within you and me.
SPEAKER_00: It's called resurrection power for a reason.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: To him who's able, to him who's at work, it just has at work in you.
SPEAKER_00: So that reminds us that he who began the good work in us will complete it on the day of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To what end?
SPEAKER_00: This is it.
SPEAKER_00: The culmination, verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, generation after generation after generation.
SPEAKER_00: When you pray and you pray for your children, when you get to be a grandparent, obviously you're praying for your children and your children's children.
SPEAKER_00: But as you pray that, pray children to the children to the children to the children to the children.
SPEAKER_00: And then it's just ended by saying, Till Jesus comes again.
SPEAKER_00: But they would know your children's children till Jesus comes again, would know the love of Jesus for them.
SPEAKER_00: Bach used to put at the end of his compositions of his work, he put SDG, and it meant Sola Deo Gloria, the Latin, one of the tenets of the reformed faith.
SPEAKER_00: To God alone the glory.
SPEAKER_00: At the top of the page, he put JJ.
SPEAKER_00: At the top.
SPEAKER_00: Help me, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I told Adam yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we were texting back and forth about this kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: And um, so I don't know when I learned it, but um, so my sermons for probably a thousand or more of my sermons, I have at the top, um, Yesu Yava, you know, and it says, Help me, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody saw that reason.
SPEAKER_00: When I first moved here, somebody saw that, and they thought it was kind of depressing.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's like maybe this, oh, help me, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But it's you know, it's you know, help me, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So Bach said the aim and final reason of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of our souls.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing to do with the sermon, but Adam and I were texting that yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: How do you conclude a sermon like this?
SPEAKER_00: How do you close it?
SPEAKER_00: I tell you how you, I mean, the the best way to conclude it is right here at the table.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is it.
SPEAKER_00: This is our closing right here.
SPEAKER_00: Here's something that you can do to be a part of that's actually tangible and spiritual, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here at the table, and our words spirit and truth, right here at the table, spirit and truth.
SPEAKER_00: It is experiential, but we can't, we really can't dive any deeper than this.
SPEAKER_00: And we can't get higher in the love of Jesus than we do right here.
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage us, it's great.
SPEAKER_00: I love that we do it every week.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful of really to finally be in a church, because I asked for it over many, many years.
SPEAKER_00: Now, now is this opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let it just pass by.
SPEAKER_00: Don't, don't just start thinking about getting out.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's good to, as you've heard me say a lot of times at the table, to linger there.
SPEAKER_00: But just to realize my quiet time when I have a quiet time with Jesus by myself, and I really feel the love of Jesus, and it's a great experience to be like that, it's still not the same love that we have here.
SPEAKER_00: Your own personal quiet time is not the same as coming with the congregation to this table and eating the body and the blood of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And with whom do we do it?
SPEAKER_00: It says the communion.
SPEAKER_00: We we've talked about in the apostles' creed, we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of the saints.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's verse 18 in our passage, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: With all the saints, we're gonna come down.
SPEAKER_00: We do take the cup, we eat the bread together, we take the cup together.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we may all experience together this love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I read this, I'll close with this.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the love of Christ can be tasted individually, like a dish eaten alone.
SPEAKER_00: But when the church gathers and the love of Christ to each is shared with the others, it becomes a spiritual feast.
SPEAKER_00: And one day we will feast.
SPEAKER_00: We'll sing this in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: We will feast in the house of Zion, we will sing with our hearts restored.
SPEAKER_00: He has done great things we will say together.
SPEAKER_00: We will feast and weep no more.
SPEAKER_00: This is a taste of that.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: Then that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_00: When we hadn't a clue what Christianity was about, Jesus went to the cross for us.
SPEAKER_00: Enemies.
SPEAKER_00: We were rebellious, rebel rebellious enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And you loved us, the love extended, the love extended to us eternally, already loved in the Godhead, and then came to accomplish our redemption at the cross, and the Spirit applied it.
SPEAKER_00: And now we get to taste it.
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you so much for the word read, the word preached, and now the word tasted.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.