WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:02.479 Well, thank you guys for letting me be here. 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:09.359 Um I am not capable of doing something and being convinced of it without knowing why. 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:31.120 So knowing that I was gonna have to be like, hey, this thing, this gathering together is important, I had to do a lot of time on figuring out why is something like this, the gathering of the church, important and what we do here in worship is actually really cool and really sacred because we all have thoughts about God, meaning we are all in some way theologians. 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:40.960 The question is if we have accurate thoughts about God, do we say about God what God would say about Himself? 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:46.560 And that is the huge part that this gathering together plays for a church family. 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:54.719 It creates a space where the whole church family can develop our biblical thoughts about God, or in other words, our biblical theology. 00:00:54.960 --> 00:01:04.400 And so I say that to express the honor I feel being invited here to help develop the biblical theology, the Bible-based thoughts about God for this church. 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:10.079 So thank you, church elders, for inviting me, and thank you, church family, for enduring me. 00:01:10.319 --> 00:01:17.200 Um you are currently in a series called Made for More, and maybe it you come up with questions like, Who am I? 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:18.879 Or does my life really matter? 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:36.239 And Ephesians offers a very powerful, hope-filled answer that you are made for more than just the mundane, for just more than the chasing of more other more and more things, more freedom, more purpose, more joy, so then let's live the life that God intended for you. 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:44.159 We should be built up, it says in Ephesians, in love, united with Christ as the head, growing in maturity, becoming more like Jesus. 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:52.959 And today, you'll notice that Paul's emphasis for both the Ephesians and for us is on unity as a church family. 00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:57.040 With that being said, I'm going to start by reading the passage that we're going to be in this afternoon. 00:01:57.200 --> 00:02:02.319 If you have a Bible, you can open it to Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14. 00:02:02.719 --> 00:02:06.560 If you don't have a Bible, it will be on the Sky Bible behind me. 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:08.080 Now brace yourself. 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:12.240 This is Paul's third longest run-on sentence in the entire book. 00:02:12.479 --> 00:02:18.319 I don't want to know the first two, because as I was saying this out loud, I was like, this is going along, this is going for a while. 00:02:18.560 --> 00:02:20.159 So, verse 14. 00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:50.800 For this reason I bow my knee before the Father, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he would grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that you, who have been rooted and grounded in love, may be strength 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 the fullness of God. 00:02:52.159 --> 00:03:04.080 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 the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:04.800 Amen. 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:07.360 Let's pray really fast. 00:03:07.599 --> 00:03:10.800 Jesus, help us to have ears to hear what is true. 00:03:11.039 --> 00:03:20.960 Help our hearts to be open to what you want us to hear and know, and help our minds to be dead set and our hearts to be dead set on being shaped in the ways you want us to be shaped today. 00:03:21.280 --> 00:03:22.319 In Jesus' name. 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:23.199 Amen. 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:31.199 So you can tell the priorities of a Christian by what they pray for and by how intently they pray for it. 00:03:31.439 --> 00:03:40.240 People can claim to prioritize something in words to others, but never pray those priorities in words to God, revealing them to never be priorities at all. 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:42.240 And even non-Christians can do this. 00:03:42.319 --> 00:03:54.879 For me, before meeting Jesus, a fight with a girlfriend in college would usually end up with me praying vehemently for the mending of our relationship as though my very life and future depended on it. 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:55.759 Why? 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:02.800 Because in my heart of hearts I believed that this was the absolute most important thing in my life. 00:04:03.039 --> 00:04:10.719 And when the ultimate thing to you is jeopardized, you can't help but pray and pray intently. 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:18.560 Often, the first time people pray passionately in a long time is when they're faced with the loss of someone they love. 00:04:18.879 --> 00:04:23.920 We pay pray passionately about our deepest priorities. 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:35.600 So here, Paul is likely pacing around speaking this out as someone writes it down, and he gets to this point in the letter, and he must stop to pray. 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:48.319 Something is deep in Paul's heart for every follower of Jesus then that is still true for every follower of Jesus now, and he had to fall to his knees just to get it out. 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:49.439 I had to pray. 00:04:49.519 --> 00:04:55.279 And he says in verse 14, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father. 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:56.720 So what reason? 00:04:56.959 --> 00:04:59.920 If you look back at chapter three, verse one, he says the same thing. 00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:04.879 For this reason, then he goes on a side tangent for just a minute and then comes back right now. 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:08.079 For this reason, what reason? 00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:15.040 God has done something positionally that is very difficult to live out practically. 00:05:15.439 --> 00:05:22.000 God has done something positionally for the world that is very difficult to live out practically. 00:05:22.160 --> 00:05:30.639 There was something true about the church then that is still true about the church now, but it is very difficult for each of us to live out individually. 00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:45.839 In chapter two, Paul is reminding everyone in the churches that Jewish and Gentile believers, we would be part of the Gentile believers, non-Jewish believers, that we have all been united into one new humanity, which is the church. 00:05:46.079 --> 00:05:52.000 So positionally, these two opposing groups have now become one humanity. 00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:56.399 And now he prays that that would be true of them experientially. 00:05:56.720 --> 00:06:07.759 So for this reason he prays not just that Jews and Gentiles would stop hating each other, but that they would actually start to love one another. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:12.480 And that idea is one so far outside of their realm of imagination. 00:06:12.639 --> 00:06:25.680 It would be like imagining the farthest right Americans and the farthest left Americans not only ceasing negative speech about each other, but actually speaking kindly and honoring about one another, which this would have been worse in their minds. 00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:28.879 The gap between the two would have been worse than that. 00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:34.720 So for Jews and Gentiles to be united as one would have been outlandish. 00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:45.360 But God has made it possible for the whole world to be reconciled into one humanity, one body, one bride to the one God. 00:06:45.519 --> 00:07:03.199 And it is this great reconciliation, this great bringing together, that when Paul started to think about it and retell them about it, it overwhelmed him and brought him to his knees in prayer because he wanted not it not to for it to just be a positional reality, but an experiential, lived out reality. 00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:19.600 Being in a made for more series, you can't help but notice this part that every single one of you and me are invited into this new humanity that God is trying to create, this new family of God. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:25.839 And you have to imagine that he was saying, when he was saying chapter two out loud, he could probably barely contain the excitement. 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:29.120 So I'm going to resay some of it because it applies to us. 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:32.800 And if you're not a follower of Jesus yet, this can apply to you. 00:07:33.120 --> 00:07:36.240 He said in chapter two, at that time you were without Christ. 00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:39.279 You were excluded from the citizenship of Israel. 00:07:39.519 --> 00:07:43.519 You were foreigners to this covenant and promise without hope, without God in the world. 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:59.279 But now, because of Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down this dividing wall of hostility. 00:07:59.759 --> 00:08:07.519 You and I were a part of the this group that could not pass this wall, literally in the temple, there was a wall, and non-Jews could not cross it. 00:08:07.600 --> 00:08:14.079 There was a point where only Jews could go in, and that's as close to the presence of God in the holies of holies that they could get. 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:17.360 And he's saying, I have torn this down. 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:28.000 And so he says in verse 19 in chapter two, so then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household. 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:34.480 So I'm saying it like this is normal for us, because this has been normal, a normal reality available to us since we've all been born. 00:08:34.639 --> 00:08:40.480 But this, he has been on both sides of this, seeing that when they were enemies and could not come together, and now they can. 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:42.639 He probably couldn't contain it. 00:08:42.879 --> 00:08:46.320 This new reality to him is incredible. 00:08:46.720 --> 00:08:59.279 Jesus made it possible for you and I to no longer be enemies of God, not just not enemies, but a friend of God, brought into his idea of this world-altering way of life. 00:08:59.519 --> 00:09:02.159 And so he bows his knees to pray. 00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:02.960 Why? 00:09:03.279 --> 00:09:11.759 Because while one new family and new humanity sounds great in rhetoric, it is very different to live out in reality. 00:09:12.240 --> 00:09:21.440 Having a happy, big, unified family sounds good in rhetoric till each child you have is uniquely gifted at provoking each and uh all the other ones. 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:27.200 There is a gap between the rhetoric of unity and the reality of it. 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:35.200 Meaning we can declare the unity of Table Bot Taylor Bible Church because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. 00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:41.039 But Paul's heart is gripped by the need for us to demonstrate that unity practically. 00:09:41.279 --> 00:09:46.799 And it is for that reason, this gap needing to be bridged, that he falls to his knees and prays. 00:09:46.879 --> 00:09:52.720 And he says in verse 15 to the Father, I pray to the Father from whom every family in heaven on earth is made. 00:09:52.879 --> 00:09:54.879 Now, this little section is just a play on words. 00:09:54.960 --> 00:10:00.639 It's likely coming out of his instinctual knowledge as a training rabbi from the Old Testament. 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:06.399 He's essentially saying that God is the Father, the one who creates and names every family in heaven on earth. 00:10:06.559 --> 00:10:10.320 He is the God who is alive and still acting today. 00:10:11.759 --> 00:10:15.360 He is not a God who has died and is no longer active in history. 00:10:15.679 --> 00:10:22.639 He is the only one capable of making this positional reality into an experiential reality for all of us. 00:10:22.879 --> 00:10:26.320 Which takes us to the substance of his prayer. 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:27.759 Verse 16. 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:31.039 This is where he starts getting into what he's praying for. 00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:40.080 I pray that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with the power through his spirit in your inner being. 00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:44.559 So, before me before making a request, he appeals to something. 00:10:44.639 --> 00:10:46.720 So if my kids did it, this is what it would sound like. 00:10:46.879 --> 00:10:53.679 It would sound something like, Dad, according to the vastness of your strength, may you open this apple juice for me. 00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:55.360 You see that? 00:10:55.840 --> 00:10:59.039 You have strength, Dad, that we cannot comprehend. 00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:03.519 So according to that strength, we request the opening of our juice. 00:11:04.639 --> 00:11:10.240 So Paul says, according to this one great wealth, he's saying, There is one great wealth. 00:11:10.320 --> 00:11:15.360 This was a singular word he's using, one great set of riches, and it is your glory. 00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:20.639 So glory is referring to the weight or impact that someone has because of who they are. 00:11:20.799 --> 00:11:26.080 So kind of like someone's reputation precedes themselves, they walk into the room, there's weight, there is glory to them. 00:11:26.320 --> 00:11:32.240 And so he's saying, the greatest wealth in the whole world is who you are and the weight that carries. 00:11:32.399 --> 00:11:44.960 So he's saying, God, the greatest wealth in the world is your character, your perfect, good, selfless character, who you are, the weight of who you are, your glory, and according to your character, I make this request. 00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:52.639 Your church, he's saying that you would grant them power, your church needs the strength to act. 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:57.600 We don't simply need motivation and inspiration, we need execution. 00:11:57.840 --> 00:12:03.360 There is something that you want for your church, God, but we need the strength to actually live this out. 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:10.559 So Paul knows that God positionally made these two groups one family, but practically living one family is difficult. 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:12.879 So God, you've made this new family. 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:23.759 According to this great wealth of who you are and what you're capable of, give each person in your church the ability to actually live this out. 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:29.919 And then he specifies that this isn't something to do with your physical or mental capabilities. 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:34.960 This is not an outer action problem, this is an inner person problem. 00:12:35.440 --> 00:12:46.159 So when he says in your inner person, in your inner being, this is referring to the core of who you are or elsewhere in Scripture, your heart, the seat of all of your decisions. 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:49.360 There is something that the core of you lives for. 00:12:49.519 --> 00:12:51.440 We are all living towards something. 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:59.919 And at our core, we are living either deeply and we are living either deeply and completely for God or for ourselves. 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:07.440 Paul passionately wants the thing we love most to be Jesus. 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:12.480 If we love us most, our wants matter most. 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:29.200 Wants like family or comfort or status or recognition or success, pleasures, experience, the avoidance of suffering, whatever it may be, by praying for this, Paul is trying to unearth this connection between this goal of unity and this ultimate goal in our hearts. 00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:32.960 Because if this goal isn't set right, this goal can't be accomplished. 00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:39.440 If I am the king of my life and my desires carry the most weight, then unity cannot work. 00:13:40.159 --> 00:13:42.080 Unity requires sacrifice. 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:47.200 And if I'm my greatest priority, then sacrificing for others will not work. 00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:50.960 Or a sacrifice that gives back to me in some way will work. 00:13:51.279 --> 00:13:57.679 Or the only sacrifice that feeds my ego or feeds my emptiness or feeds my sense of meaning will work. 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:03.919 The greatest barrier to unity in the church is usually always a focus on ourselves. 00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:08.000 It's not something outside coming in and hurting us. 00:14:08.080 --> 00:14:12.399 It's ourselves being focused on ourselves, hurting everyone else because of it. 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:18.720 When there is a disunity problem, there is always an inner person problem happening. 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:25.600 So we need to be strengthened by the Father through the Holy Spirit in our inner person for what? 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:27.360 Verse 17. 00:14:27.919 --> 00:14:32.559 So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love. 00:14:32.720 --> 00:14:41.600 Now, what the inner person needs, the core of each of us, is for Jesus to make a permanent home in your heart. 00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:47.519 Meaning, we need Jesus to take over authority of our home. 00:14:47.919 --> 00:14:54.559 Your heart, your inner person longs to be given back over to Jesus. 00:14:55.279 --> 00:15:01.440 For Jesus to settle in and to make your heart, your life, his home. 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:06.720 And when you entrust your life over to Jesus, you bring him into the throne of your heart. 00:15:06.799 --> 00:15:09.840 But often we don't want him to wander around too much. 00:15:10.080 --> 00:15:17.440 Jesus, you can save me from hell or sin or whatever is out there on the porch, but don't mess with what's inside the house. 00:15:17.759 --> 00:15:20.080 I have it the way I want it. 00:15:20.240 --> 00:15:22.080 I have my career where I would like it. 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:24.240 I have my schedule the way it pleases me. 00:15:24.320 --> 00:15:26.720 I have my ideals for life, the way I imagine them. 00:15:26.879 --> 00:15:30.720 Jesus, you can stay, but just don't change anything. 00:15:31.519 --> 00:15:42.720 Paul knows that either love for Jesus directs your life, or unity will fracture, because we have no real motive for sacrificing for it. 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:48.960 Jesus is meant to make his home, his dwelling place, his permanent home in our hearts. 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:49.440 Why? 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:50.639 Or how? 00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:52.480 Through faith. 00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:53.840 So through trust. 00:15:54.080 --> 00:16:04.799 What he's saying is that as you entrust more and more of your life over to him, the more your home, your heart, your life becomes fully his. 00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:07.679 The more he settles into it permanently. 00:16:08.080 --> 00:16:15.519 Yes, he indwells you because you gave your life to him, but the question is, does he have complete authority to change anything he would like in your home? 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:24.480 What Paul is praying for is that Jesus would become the controlling factor in your heart and in your inner person. 00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:30.559 That when something comes into your life, you look over at Jesus and say, Is this what you want in your home? 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:35.919 Not is this what I want in my home, but Jesus, do you want this thing in your home? 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:38.480 Is this the decision you want for your home? 00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:45.440 Out of all of the enormous wealth of who God is, this is what Paul wants to ask for you. 00:16:46.639 --> 00:16:52.320 In all of the problems and difficulties that you and I face, this is what he's saying we need. 00:16:52.960 --> 00:17:01.919 That Jesus would permanently make his home in us, that we would begin to entrust more and more of our life to him. 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:07.119 You are made to belong to him, to be his. 00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:17.039 And when only part of you belongs to God, there's going to be this inner tension going on with you because you can't truly be satisfied by the things of God, because pieces of you are withheld from God. 00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:23.920 But you can't just live into what the world says is good because this pull on your heart that you know Jesus is the only good thing. 00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:32.559 So instead, entrust yourself more and more over to Jesus, being unwilling to take any of it back. 00:17:32.720 --> 00:17:42.160 That's what he's saying for, that Christ would dwell in your hearts more through faith, that he would make his home more as you entrust more to him. 00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:47.680 So then he says that you being rooted and grounded in love, this is just an identity statement. 00:17:47.920 --> 00:17:57.359 So here, this love talked about earlier in the book, it simply means that it's the kind of love that seeks the highest good of the one being loved. 00:17:57.599 --> 00:18:02.640 So, love means seeking the highest good of the one being loved. 00:18:03.519 --> 00:18:10.799 For example, I know Jesus because of a man named Zack Hansen who was seeking the highest good for my life. 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:15.839 And everything Zach did was so that I could have this reality of knowing Jesus. 00:18:16.079 --> 00:18:20.160 The thing that was best for my life was for me to entrust it over to Jesus. 00:18:20.319 --> 00:18:26.880 So in college, when he met me, everything he invited me to, every time he wanted to hang out with me, it was for my good, not his. 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:33.920 It kept him away from home and his family to hang out with me, but it was for my good that he hung out with me and spent time with me and discipled me. 00:18:34.079 --> 00:18:38.559 And so that's what this is saying, that I have now been rooted and grounded in love. 00:18:38.799 --> 00:18:43.279 My life with Jesus started from unselfish love from another poured out from me. 00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:44.880 Make sense so far? 00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:45.279 Okay. 00:18:45.839 --> 00:18:51.839 So to summarize where we're at in this prayer and run on sentence so far, we'll say it this way. 00:18:52.160 --> 00:19:05.920 Paul is saying, I pray that God would give you the strength in your inner person to entrust more of your life over to Jesus, so that he lives in your heart in greater and greater ways. 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:17.839 So that verse 18, you 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. 00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:25.599 So Paul wants God to strengthen your inner person so Jesus can make his home more fully in your hearts for this. 00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:28.160 This is what he wants the result to be. 00:19:28.319 --> 00:19:38.400 This is the result he is praying for, that you and I can grasp, can comprehend, can begin to understand the vastness of the love of Jesus with all the saints. 00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:40.799 Now I'll get to all the saints in a second, it's important. 00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:44.960 When he says, What is the breadth and length and height and depth? 00:19:45.119 --> 00:19:49.920 He is trying to convey that there is this vast thing I want you to comprehend. 00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:55.519 This is, I'm just, I don't know how to convey the vastness of this thing. 00:19:55.599 --> 00:19:58.799 I need you must comprehend if you're going to live this out. 00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:05.440 He is saying, the love of Jesus is so dense, so vast, so solid. 00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:16.240 It is wide enough to reach every culture, deep enough to exhaust every intellect, and high enough to reach down into anyone's broken down place in life and bring them back up into this new humanity. 00:20:16.480 --> 00:20:25.920 Paul is digging deeper and deeper into the source of what can make this rhetoric of a new unity in humanity into a reality for them and for us. 00:20:26.319 --> 00:20:43.920 God must strengthen your inner person and mine so that we entrust ourselves more over to Jesus and more by surrendering to him, so that then you would be more capable of grasping and comprehending the vastness of the love of God expressed through Jesus. 00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:51.200 But I skipped something that is wildly important and emphasized throughout this whole book, and you'll see that next week as well. 00:20:51.759 --> 00:20:57.279 He says that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints. 00:20:58.079 --> 00:21:00.799 Now, this is super important, so please hear this. 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:05.039 Your growth cannot occur in isolation. 00:21:05.440 --> 00:21:12.799 And I say that with people I love deeply and dearly, who on the phone the other day were like, nope, all I need is uh my wife. 00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:14.640 All I that's the only community I need. 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:20.400 I'm like, I don't know if you read Ephesians, but you know we'll get there another time. 00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:23.359 Um I don't think they'll listen to this, but it's okay. 00:21:23.599 --> 00:21:25.519 They'll know you'll know who you are if you are. 00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:30.319 Um your growth cannot occur in isolation. 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:34.720 It must be done in the context with other believers. 00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:47.440 Even further, true growth cannot occur by selective association with certain believers, the ones that we prefer because they are of the same socioeconomic or intellectual or professional or EQ status as us. 00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:54.880 Paul prays that you would grasp the love of God in association with every and any follower of Jesus. 00:21:55.440 --> 00:22:11.519 Over the last few weeks, it dawned on me how ironic it is that the Self-proclaimed Christian nation not anymore, but self-proclaimed clear Christian nation of the world is the most individualistic when the Christian kingdom of the Bible is deeply others-oriented and one another focused. 00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:16.079 Our homes are designed with bigger rooms where only I am present. 00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:22.240 Our front yards where we interact with others are shrinking, and our backyards where we interact only with our families are growing. 00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:34.960 The busyness of our lifestyles means it's so difficult to live in community with anyone who is not on the same sports team, has the same personality type, has the same personal interest, or has the identical family rhythms as us. 00:22:35.119 --> 00:22:49.599 The fabric of the West is subtly trying to shrink you and your family into itself outside of maybe Sunday, so that it's impossible to grasp the love of Jesus with all the saints. 00:22:51.200 --> 00:22:59.599 We can't present a new humanity and a new unity if our lifestyle makes us solitary. 00:23:00.160 --> 00:23:01.039 Worse. 00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:18.720 Not only is our societal culture trying to pull you more into your own privacy, but sin in our hearts seeks to pull us and shrink us into more of ourselves, more of our wants, more of our preferences, and more of our plans. 00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:22.160 Always a me, me, me focus. 00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:29.200 And society has shifted in such a way over the centuries here that it only is making it worse and easier. 00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:42.079 But Paul wants so desperately for the church to grasp the love of Jesus because he's saying that when you know and can grasp the vastness of this love, you will be filled with the fullness of God. 00:23:42.720 --> 00:24:23.519 When we grasp the magnitude of the love of Jesus, we begin to experience the moral excess of God, the perfection of God, the power of God, the ability of God to completely satisfy the part of our spirit that can only be satisfied by God, Paul knew that if the church experienced this, this one thing, if you will just, if this vastness of the love of Jesus for you is the only real thing you know, that you will entrust yourself more and more over to him in greater ways, all of a sudden, when Jesus said this statement, that all people will know you belong to me by how you love one another, that will actually begin to be real here. 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:32.079 That people look at how you are together, how you serve the community together, and they will know you belong to Him. 00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:38.000 So, in summary, for this prayer, this is what Paul was praying. 00:24:38.319 --> 00:24:49.279 God, give the people in your church strength, so their inner person will entrust more of itself to you, so you they will entrust more of their inner person to you. 00:24:49.759 --> 00:25:04.960 May these people who are here because someone loved you enough to bring you, invite you, plant a church so you could be here, so on and so forth, may these people who are here because of love, together as a community, grasp the vastness of your love. 00:25:05.759 --> 00:25:14.079 And when they do, this will fill them so much that they cannot help but reflect that love to each other and to the world. 00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:18.559 And all of this leads to the doxology of his prayer. 00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:22.480 Now, a doxology is literally just a word that it's called a word of praise. 00:25:22.559 --> 00:25:24.880 So that's doxology is a word of praise. 00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:26.720 Slightly a run-on sentence. 00:25:26.799 --> 00:25:27.599 I'll do that one now. 00:25:27.839 --> 00:25:28.559 Verse 20. 00:25:29.119 --> 00:25:36.640 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work in us. 00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:42.960 To him be the glory in the church and in Christ throughout all generations, forever and ever. 00:25:43.279 --> 00:25:43.920 Amen. 00:25:45.279 --> 00:25:53.200 For the church is in Ephesus, and for us, Paul is calling the church right here to a magnified view of God. 00:25:53.359 --> 00:25:58.799 Oftentimes our view of God is very small, and it's hard to praise or worship something that to us is small. 00:25:59.039 --> 00:26:12.559 And here he is re-expanding the magnitude of Jesus and the magnitude of God in your minds, and in their minds, in my mind, because our only response when you see the magnitude of God is to worship. 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:20.960 He says, To the one who is able to do beyond everything, very far, in excess of anything that we ask or think. 00:26:21.039 --> 00:26:29.839 In other words, his ability far surpasses not only what you can verbalize in prayer, but also beyond our wildest imaginations. 00:26:30.319 --> 00:26:35.519 And anyone who's been a part of Taylor Bible Church since planting it at any point along the way has probably experienced this. 00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:37.759 I feel like just a year in, I've experienced this. 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:41.599 Things I wouldn't have even thought to ask for have happened. 00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:46.000 Being here and seeing this is more than I could have asked for. 00:26:46.240 --> 00:26:48.000 It's encouraging to me. 00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:56.960 That is the one who is inviting you to entrust yourself more and more to him to make your home his home. 00:26:57.920 --> 00:27:06.400 Earlier, Paul had prayed that they would be strengthened with power through the Spirit, and now Paul gives praise to God for that power. 00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:11.200 So as I close, Paul lived on both sides of this. 00:27:11.359 --> 00:27:15.680 I mentioned at the beginning, this is all we've ever known, is that this reality exists. 00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:22.319 But Paul saw both before the cross of Jesus and after the cross of Jesus. 00:27:22.559 --> 00:27:31.279 Before that, there was no human or angel that could probably ever imagine that Jews and Gentiles would ever function together in one body. 00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:41.759 However, when Paul imagines a church so consumed and filled up by the love of Jesus for you, he believes it's possible. 00:27:42.480 --> 00:27:47.680 And so this prayer for the churches in Ephesus is the same one for us. 00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:54.480 Before Jesus, there are people that we could never imagine being united with. 00:27:54.960 --> 00:28:04.400 That political party, that socioeconomic background, that personality, but the more we grasp the love of Jesus, the more we give up this dividing wall of hostility. 00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:12.880 They're not only just brought down, but we are actually growing genuine love in our hearts for people we never would have even fathomed I would be willing to be around. 00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:19.119 It doesn't matter what the wall is, but the more we grasp the love of Jesus for us, the more those walls come down. 00:28:19.279 --> 00:28:28.720 It can be as big as politics or race or hurt against you, or as small as that loud one over there, this annoying one over here, or that awkward one over there. 00:28:29.920 --> 00:28:33.839 If we ever look at someone else and think, I can never be like that. 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:36.000 I don't even I can't even be around them. 00:28:36.160 --> 00:28:37.839 I don't want to be around them. 00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:39.680 Or they are the problem. 00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:41.039 Those people are the problem. 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:42.160 There is a wall. 00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:49.599 And where that exists, you know the problem isn't actually them. 00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:51.200 Although there's things they're doing wrong. 00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:57.200 The problem is actually how little I have grasped the love of Jesus for me. 00:28:57.920 --> 00:28:59.839 Because I can't look at someone that way. 00:29:00.160 --> 00:29:00.720 No matter what. 00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:04.559 I'm not saying we allow someone that's hurt us to come back in and hurt us again. 00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:06.640 I'm not saying something unhealthy in those ways. 00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:13.279 I just mean even the ability to comprehend that we could be united with people that we can't stand for whatever reason. 00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:24.880 If I have grasped the love of Jesus, then I should be able to imagine and dream of being in rich friendship with almost anyone, pretty much anyone. 00:29:25.359 --> 00:29:32.880 I should be able to have a dream and vision for a wide and diverse church of people I wouldn't have been friends with before meeting Jesus. 00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:37.440 So this is what this text should lead us to ask ourselves. 00:29:37.839 --> 00:29:38.640 Verse 14. 00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:41.039 What do I pray for most? 00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:43.920 Because it does reveal my priorities. 00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:46.160 Verse 16 and 17. 00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:52.319 What in the home of your heart, in my heart, belongs to me and not to Jesus? 00:29:52.559 --> 00:30:03.039 Jesus, you can tell me anything except what to do with my job, except that my kids are not going to play sports, except that whatever, sorry, my kids are in sports. 00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:04.559 Nothing wrong with sports. 00:30:05.200 --> 00:30:08.960 But what can you entrust over to him more? 00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:14.640 What currently in your mind and heart is off limits to him saying it's his. 00:30:15.599 --> 00:30:16.640 Verse 18. 00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:20.079 Am I living disconnected from the family of God? 00:30:20.240 --> 00:30:29.200 And this is going to be huge, as you get into the rest of the book, where he is presenting this whole body that cannot pieces can't function alone. 00:30:29.519 --> 00:30:33.440 Am I living disconnected and what choices are causing this isolation? 00:30:33.599 --> 00:30:44.000 If it is extremely difficult for me to live in connection with other family, other people in the family of God, what choices am I making that's making this so difficult? 00:30:44.240 --> 00:30:46.400 And then I'll leave you with one practice. 00:30:46.640 --> 00:30:52.799 Because doing more and trying harder will not help us grasp the love of Jesus, but gratitude will. 00:30:53.680 --> 00:31:00.799 So I suggest to buy a notebook, and every morning, day and night, every morning and every night, you write five things you're grateful for. 00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:12.480 Because as you write and notice the things you're grateful for, your mind is expanded and your eyes are reopened to see these are the ways the vast love of God is being poured out on me regularly. 00:31:13.279 --> 00:31:18.880 Because usually you're moving so fast, so focused on things, things are going wrong in so many directions. 00:31:19.119 --> 00:31:23.279 These things that God is doing to pour out love on us, we don't even notice it. 00:31:23.440 --> 00:31:30.640 And so by saying, I will do this, I'm saying I want to notice the ways you're pouring out love on me that I just don't. 00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:42.000 And then all of a sudden, I'm comprehending more and more this vast, selfless love of God for an ungrateful, busy child like me who keeps going and going, Thanks, Dad, sweet, more money, where's the card? 00:31:42.079 --> 00:31:43.680 I need gas, keep going, gotta go. 00:31:43.920 --> 00:31:49.359 And all of a sudden I'm like, I didn't realize he was doing so much for me and in me. 00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:56.640 Because we are made to be a living expression to the world of the love of God for us. 00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:06.240 So Taylor Bible Church and mine as well, one day, we were made for a lot more than just a 501 C three and a few food drives or backpack drives. 00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:13.759 We were made to be a living expression of this unfathomable vast love of God for us to the world. 00:32:14.480 --> 00:32:21.680 We are meant to be a picture when people look at you together of this new humanity God is creating in the future.