SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Church of the Lookout is in bold of Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love.
SPEAKER_01: Visit us online at the lookout.church.
SPEAKER_02: Good morning.
SPEAKER_02: You made it with time change and all.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for the riches of your word.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Lord, for your deep, deep love for us.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your Son and his sacrifice, his life, his death, his resurrection, and his reign on the throne at your right hand.
SPEAKER_02: Even now.
SPEAKER_02: God, I ask your favor on the scripture today.
SPEAKER_02: I ask your anointing on my words.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, may we all hear what you have to say for us.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone who's here today who's weary, I ask that they are strengthened.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone who's strong, I pray that they have endurance.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, for every situation here, you know every person, all the hairs on each head in this room.
SPEAKER_02: And you know us intimately, and you know what we need to hear.
SPEAKER_02: We are open, we're ready.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Father.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: The first week of September 2013 brought intense heat to Colorado.
SPEAKER_02: Any of you remember?
SPEAKER_02: Temperatures soaring above 90 degrees in September, mind you.
SPEAKER_02: For several days, a couple of those days set records.
SPEAKER_02: Boulder residents eagerly awaited a reprieve.
SPEAKER_02: And the forecast called for an arrival of a cold front on September 9th.
SPEAKER_02: At first the rain was welcome.
SPEAKER_02: Nice reprieve.
SPEAKER_02: But then it didn't stop.
SPEAKER_02: For five straight days, a low pressure system hung out over our foothills.
SPEAKER_02: And it just stayed there and it rained and rained and rained.
SPEAKER_02: By the time it was over, nine people had died.
SPEAKER_02: More than 1,900 square miles were flooded across 18 Colorado counties.
SPEAKER_02: More than 2,000 homes were destroyed and about 10 times as many damaged.
SPEAKER_02: And in today's economy, the damage was around$4 billion.
SPEAKER_02: $4 billion.
SPEAKER_02: On the banks of Left Hand Creek, which experienced 100-year flood levels, the home of Bob and Betty Young remained standing.
SPEAKER_02: The bridge they used to get to their house and away from the house did not remain standing.
SPEAKER_02: But the house stood firm.
SPEAKER_02: Rocks, debris, and sediment came to the level of the roof.
SPEAKER_02: You could walk afterwards from the ground onto the roof.
SPEAKER_02: Water went around both sides of the house.
SPEAKER_02: It went through the house, through the garage, up to the doorknobs, but the house remained solid.
SPEAKER_02: No structural damage, no movement.
SPEAKER_02: The foundation was the key.
SPEAKER_02: That upstream foundation was the very first thing they built.
SPEAKER_02: Starting from an existing rock formation.
SPEAKER_02: Bob recounted to me as I made sure I got my facts straight on this story.
SPEAKER_02: He remembered as a boy from seven to nine years old for two summers, every Friday afternoon through Sunday afternoon, they would collect rocks from around the property and were piling them on top of this existing rock formation.
SPEAKER_02: And after two years of adding rock to the to the rock outcropping, they then poured concrete to fill in all the gaps between the rocks, establishing a firm foundation that, while only a few feet above the ground, went maybe 40, 50, 60 feet below ground to solid granite, bedrock.
SPEAKER_02: I start with this story about Bob's house because it's an example of what it's like to be grounded.
SPEAKER_02: And today we're in Ephesians 3.
SPEAKER_02: We're covering the whole chapter, but there's a key phrase at the end that says, being rooted and grounded in love.
SPEAKER_02: This is a truth that exists for all believers.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone who has trusted Christ as their salvation or for their salvation, uh, this is true about you.
SPEAKER_02: And uh Paul praised this prayer based on that truth.
SPEAKER_02: So we're going to uh unpack that a little bit, find out how far back our roots go and how deep our foundation and what that means for us.
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna read the whole chapter.
SPEAKER_02: Don't worry, it's only a couple minutes long.
SPEAKER_02: It's a long text, but in time it only takes a couple minutes.
SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna read the whole thing.
SPEAKER_02: I won't make you stand for it like I did last time.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I want to summarize it real quick because you know, Peter said this about Paul.
SPEAKER_02: His words are his words are difficult and hard to understand.
SPEAKER_02: So even Peter knew that Paul had this way of making these long run-on sentences, and in this passage, he interrupts himself.
SPEAKER_02: He gets three words in and then interrupts himself.
SPEAKER_02: He says, for this reason, and where he's going is for this reason I have this prayer for you.
SPEAKER_02: But he interrupts himself for like 13 verses.
SPEAKER_02: So I just want to tell you that up front so you don't get lost.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so he he interrupts himself and he does that to unpack a very important reality, something about a revelation that he received.
SPEAKER_02: Really important.
SPEAKER_02: And then he repeats the phrase for this reason.
SPEAKER_02: So listen out for it about halfway through the chapter, and then he gets into the prayer.
SPEAKER_02: And the prayer, also kind of a complicated sentence, but it's really simple.
SPEAKER_02: He prays that God would grant that you are strengthened with power, and he would grant that Christ would dwell in your hearts with faith, so that you would be strong enough to comprehend and know the extent of God's love, which to whatever extent you know it, there's more.
SPEAKER_02: You might have trusted Jesus Christ this morning, just a few minutes ago.
SPEAKER_02: Guess what?
SPEAKER_02: There's more.
SPEAKER_02: There's a whole new life waiting for you.
SPEAKER_02: You might have trusted Christ when you were a wee little one, and you don't remember anything other than walking with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And you might feel like, I kind of know it all, and I've done all the things, and I'm just cruising and I'm happy and I'm content.
SPEAKER_02: The scripture says there's more for you.
SPEAKER_02: A lot of you here have been here as long as I've been here, and and longer, there's more for you, too.
SPEAKER_02: So let's read it.
SPEAKER_02: Ephesians 3.
SPEAKER_02: For this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I have written briefly.
SPEAKER_02: When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of his power.
SPEAKER_02: To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things.
SPEAKER_02: So that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_02: This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
SPEAKER_02: So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is for your glory.
SPEAKER_02: 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, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so 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, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_02: 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.
SPEAKER_02: To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I love it.
SPEAKER_02: So today we have this amazing prayer that Paul prays for you all being rooted and grounded in love.
SPEAKER_02: And the prayer is given in light of the truths that we've been unpacking for the last few weeks.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and in fact, I was thinking about it, the truths we've been unpacking for the last several months.
SPEAKER_02: When Paul starts with for this reason, he's referring back to chapter 2, which we uh were in last week.
SPEAKER_02: Luke preached last week, uh, and then a couple weeks before that, we're in the first part of Ephesians 2.
SPEAKER_02: Once dead, now alive.
SPEAKER_02: Once separated, now joined.
SPEAKER_02: Strangers from God, reconciled to God, at enmity with one another, brought into one body.
SPEAKER_02: Once the circumcision, uh more on that in a little bit, um, but this letter is written to the circumcision or Gentiles, non-Jews, alienated strangers, having no hope and without God in the world.
SPEAKER_02: God broke down that wall of separation, which was the law.
SPEAKER_02: The law was given to the Jewish nation, and it's what separated Gentile from Jew.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, if you wanted to come to God, you had to come into Judaism and into the law of the nation.
SPEAKER_02: As Jesus demonstrated over and over, um the law was was required.
SPEAKER_02: He constantly highlighted how it was impossible for us to live up to it.
SPEAKER_02: And uh now he's reconciling us all to God, tearing down that wall uh which was the law, and consigned all of us to disobedience, whether Jew or Gentile, so that he could show mercy to us all.
SPEAKER_02: So that was chapter two.
SPEAKER_02: And it talks about the body of Christ and this new creation that comes in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And then we get to chapter three, which is uh for this reason.
SPEAKER_02: And I'd like to show verses one through three again, if we can.
SPEAKER_02: Um I want to highlight a few things in this first half that maybe y'all aren't familiar with.
SPEAKER_02: This might be new for some of you.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but did you know that when Paul was saved, he was immediately sequestered by God for three years, and then he uh approached Peter and James, then he and then he went away for a total of 14 years before starting his ministry.
SPEAKER_02: And he was sequestered.
SPEAKER_02: It tells us in Galatians 1 and hints at it here that he was given special revelation.
SPEAKER_02: He was given direct word from the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't passed down to him from the other disciples.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't, he wasn't um given it or taught it from the people who are with Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: He was taught it by Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
SPEAKER_02: God had something to say that he hadn't said already, something to reveal that hadn't been revealed.
SPEAKER_02: And he raised up the apostle Paul in this miraculous way to give a revelation to the world, and it and Paul even says how he went to Peter and James and pulled them aside privately to explain the revelation that had been given to him because he didn't want to uh embarrass them because they were the leaders of the church.
SPEAKER_02: And now Paul has this new information for them.
SPEAKER_02: He used to be an opposition to them, and now he's gotten saved, and not only has he gotten saved, but he's bringing this new word that was quite disruptive in that day.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh Paul says, Here, I, a prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation.
SPEAKER_02: Now, he's assuming they all knew this because everybody in that day and age knew, they were well aware of the controversy around circumcision.
SPEAKER_02: We don't think about circumcision at all, other than in a medical sense, as an optional choice after birth.
SPEAKER_02: But this was a pivotal issue to God followers in the day.
SPEAKER_02: And they debated it, argued it, they had councils over it.
SPEAKER_02: This was a disruptive thing that happened when God raised up Paul and gave him this revelation.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, he preached this message to uh to Jews first who largely rejected it.
SPEAKER_02: And I think we'll understand that more in a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but then he explains what this mystery is.
SPEAKER_02: What is it?
SPEAKER_02: Very simply, uh let's look at verses four and five.
SPEAKER_02: Yep, I've already covered that.
SPEAKER_02: All right, verse six.
SPEAKER_02: The mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: There's another three words that have a co in front of it, by the way: co-heirs, co-members, co-partakers.
SPEAKER_02: Just as the Jews were heirs, members, and partakers.
SPEAKER_02: The mystery, the hidden truth, the big aha, the big reveal is that Gentiles had the same access as Jews.
SPEAKER_02: That may not seem very controversial to you, and it may not be obvious because even the Old Testament talks about Gentiles coming to God.
SPEAKER_02: So, what is the big deal?
SPEAKER_02: How is this a hidden truth?
SPEAKER_02: This was a significant plot twist in the story of Scripture, and it took serious adjustment for the believing Jews.
SPEAKER_02: So, to help you understand this, let's just take a very quick journey through history.
SPEAKER_02: And I'll say a journey through history is something we've done many times the last uh several months.
SPEAKER_02: I was thinking of Tiana's wonderful slides about the history.
SPEAKER_02: She had some cartoon graphics just going all the way through the history of the nation of Israel when she talked about Jesus encountering the responsive.
SPEAKER_02: And then Luke in the series on the unseen realm talks about the history of the supernatural realm and what it means to us and how we interact and how that flows through history.
SPEAKER_02: I gave a word to you guys about the family of God, how the development of uh Adam and Eve into family and then the nations and so forth.
SPEAKER_02: So we we have a rich, rich history, and I don't think it's by accident that the Lord keeps impressing upon us to keep repeating this history to you all.
SPEAKER_02: As I'm prepping and praying, Lord, what is it you want us to hear?
SPEAKER_02: We come back to this history, hopefully it's becoming more familiar.
SPEAKER_02: There's something here the Lord wants us to dig into.
SPEAKER_02: We have the Garden of Eden.
SPEAKER_02: It's perfect, it's blissful.
SPEAKER_02: Then there's a fall, and then there's nations form, and then the nations scattered.
SPEAKER_02: And then out of the nations, which by the way, God had divided up amongst the gods, the fallen uh realm and the unseen realm who claimed to be what God could be.
SPEAKER_02: God said, You know what?
SPEAKER_02: Let's do this.
SPEAKER_02: You gods, little g gods, can have domain over these nations.
SPEAKER_02: I am going to separate out for myself a nation that is going to be the people of God, and we are going to see who the one true God is.
SPEAKER_02: Remember Elijah at Mount Carmel.
SPEAKER_02: There had been a drought in Israel because Israel had decided to start worshiping one of those false gods, the Baal.
SPEAKER_02: And they were worshiping, and God punished them with drought, and he said that the drought's gonna go until I say it stops.
SPEAKER_02: Elijah comes to the prophets of Baal and he says, Let's have a contest and see who the one true God is.
SPEAKER_02: How many of you are familiar with this story?
SPEAKER_02: Some of you aren't, though.
SPEAKER_02: That's gonna be fun.
SPEAKER_02: So he goes to Mount Carmel, and there are 400 prophets of Baal, and he challenged them to a duel.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Let's build an altar, let's pray to our God, and let's see who can light it on fire.
SPEAKER_02: Simple challenge.
SPEAKER_02: So they do the, he gave you guys go first.
SPEAKER_02: Elijah's there all by himself.
SPEAKER_02: And they are dancing and hollering and singing and cutting themselves and doing blood sacrifice and going crazy to get Baal, who, by the way, was the God of rain.
SPEAKER_02: And it hadn't been raining.
SPEAKER_02: So they are doing their darndest to appeal to this God to accept their sacrifice and bring rain to the land, and they cannot do it.
SPEAKER_02: Elijah's, my turn?
SPEAKER_02: Ready?
SPEAKER_02: Put some water on the altar.
SPEAKER_02: Put some more water on the altar.
SPEAKER_02: Just drench it.
SPEAKER_02: No, even more, even more.
SPEAKER_02: And then he prays just this simple prayer.
SPEAKER_02: God, if you're who you say you are, light this on fire.
SPEAKER_02: Lights it on fire, all the prophets are slain, and the whole nation returns to God.
SPEAKER_02: This is the motif of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02: If you read through the Old Testament and understand that God set up this warfare motif between Him as the one true God of the nation of Israel and the other gods who were not the one true God.
SPEAKER_02: So Israel had a very special place of separation from the nations.
SPEAKER_02: And God marked that with a physical mark of circumcision, and he marked it with a cultural mark of the way they ran their society, and he marked it with a religious mark of the laws that they followed.
SPEAKER_02: And if you heard about this God, this one true God, you came to him by becoming a member of the nation of the one true God.
SPEAKER_02: So, yes, while it's true, the Jews developed a sense of pride over that and some exclusivity and an us versus them thing.
SPEAKER_02: That happened because they brought their humanity into it.
SPEAKER_02: But it was originally part of God's design to say, I, the one true God, as opposed to these other gods, am going to bless these people.
SPEAKER_02: But to meet me, you've got to come into this people, into this land, and accept these rituals.
SPEAKER_02: You can participate in the feasts and the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: You can receive atonement for your sins.
SPEAKER_02: But the Bible's very clear that the only person who could receive the atonement and perform the sacrifices and participate were people who became Jews.
SPEAKER_02: Even if they were non-Jews, they were welcome.
SPEAKER_02: So that's how Gentile salvation came about.
SPEAKER_02: So now that's all going along marvelously.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus gives his disciples the commission to go to nations and bring in disciples.
SPEAKER_02: And they uh do that faithfully.
SPEAKER_02: And we have the giving of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, which is an amazing event.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but guess what?
SPEAKER_02: Paul wasn't even saved yet in Acts 2.
SPEAKER_02: So we have uh this event that we uh regard in our circles as kind of the the the pinnacle of the the church.
SPEAKER_02: We even aspire for Acts 2 style services, and we we really long for that pouring out of the Spirit in that way.
SPEAKER_02: But I think God wants us to hear and be reminded that there's there's more.
SPEAKER_02: There's a whole story about Christian life, there's a whole story of the church that hadn't even started to be revealed yet.
SPEAKER_02: God hadn't met Saul, converted him to Paul, hadn't given him the revelation, and had not communicated that to the church, and had not written a third of the New Testament in light of a revelation that had yet to be seen.
SPEAKER_02: Here, Paul's reminding us that God gave him that message to deliver it to us, and it is huge.
SPEAKER_02: It is a hidden truth.
SPEAKER_02: Let's look at some of the some of the phrases uh that Paul describes it with.
SPEAKER_02: Um To me who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all people see what is the plan of the mystery which from the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Christ Jesus, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_02: So, all of that to say, all of that history lesson to say, you have some very deep roots.
SPEAKER_02: Your story as a believer or one who's being invited to be a believer goes all the way back through the annals of history to the foundation, even Ephesians 1 says, before the foundation of the earth, God had this plan in mind, this plan of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: People made one with God without the middle wall of separation, which was the law.
SPEAKER_02: No, you don't actually have to follow the law because we've been doing that for a few thousand years, and nobody is succeeding at it.
SPEAKER_02: Paul even asks in Romans, well, what was the purpose then of Israel if we're just all one in Christ without the law?
SPEAKER_02: And he says, No, to them was given the oracles of God, and the law was a tutor to bring us to Christ.
SPEAKER_02: This is how we know the significance of grace, because we compare that to what was required beforehand.
SPEAKER_02: So you have some very deep roots.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'd like the uh ushers or people to hand out these cards.
SPEAKER_02: We've got a card with this prayer, and we're gonna get into this prayer now.
SPEAKER_02: Um he prays, and I'll just give you the outline before you before you get the whole verse.
SPEAKER_02: There's a purpose, and it's for this reason, all of what I just talked about, which I could go on for hours about the significance of that that mystery, but it's for that reason that he would that he's praying that God would grant you to be strengthened and to be indwelt.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: To be strengthened and indwelt.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: So that you could be strengthened and filled.
SPEAKER_02: So he's praying for you to have strength and indwelling so that you can be strong and indwelt.
SPEAKER_02: What are we strong for?
SPEAKER_02: We're we're he's praying that we would be strong enough to comprehend and to know and that it would be um filled.
SPEAKER_02: So I gotta find my card here, and we're gonna highlight a couple beautiful phrases in here, and then we're gonna put it into practice.
SPEAKER_02: Sound good?
SPEAKER_02: All right.
SPEAKER_02: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit, uh, and that Christ may dwell in your heart, that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_02: So, a couple things about that.
SPEAKER_02: Um, the prayer that you would be strengthened and filled is so that you would be strong enough to comprehend and know.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, let's just think about that for a second.
SPEAKER_02: He's asking that you would be strong enough to know.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if I say to you, I would like you to be strong enough to compete in a marathon, or strong enough to bench three, what's your bench currently?
SPEAKER_02: 315, come on.
SPEAKER_02: That is three plates on each side.
SPEAKER_02: That is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
SPEAKER_02: Um I can listen I can do 315 too in a deadlift.
SPEAKER_02: All right.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so could could you be strong enough to bench press 315 pounds?
SPEAKER_02: So when you say, I want you to be strong enough to, and then you fill in the blank, the thing that's filled in is something that would require strength.
SPEAKER_02: It's fascinating to me that Paul is praying that we would be strong enough to comprehend.
SPEAKER_02: That tells me that when we start to comprehend, it might be like, oh wow, that's so much.
SPEAKER_02: I can't even bear the extent of his love.
SPEAKER_02: And he's praying that you would have the capacity, that you would be large enough to receive how massive his love is for you.
SPEAKER_02: And he wants you to comprehend it and to know it.
SPEAKER_02: Comprehend the dimensions of his love, the length and width and height and depth.
SPEAKER_02: I think about the universe and all the studies we've done of the universe, and as far out as we look, and then we get a bigger telescope and we look farther, and then we get a bigger telescope and we look farther, and as far as we look, all we discover is that there's more beyond that.
SPEAKER_02: That's how it is with God's love.
SPEAKER_02: The more we experience it, the more we know that there's more to experience.
SPEAKER_02: So when he says that he wants us to have power to know what is the surpassing knowledge of his love, I scratched my head on that one too.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, we're supposed to know something that surpasses knowing.
SPEAKER_02: How do I know something that's beyond knowing?
SPEAKER_02: Why am I being prayed for to know what's beyond knowing?
SPEAKER_02: And it's an experiential knowledge in this text.
SPEAKER_02: The word is not just know with mental ascent, it's knowing experientially.
SPEAKER_02: And that's how we do it.
SPEAKER_02: We dive in and we know it, and then as we know it, we realize we don't know nothing yet.
SPEAKER_02: And so we keep digging deeper and we find that there's more, and then there's more, and then there's more, and then there's more.
SPEAKER_02: Fascinating, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: You guys with me?
SPEAKER_02: He says as he prays this prayer that it is to you who are grounded and who are rooted and grounded in love.
SPEAKER_02: Those are things that we don't, we're not aspiring to.
SPEAKER_02: Let me be very clear.
SPEAKER_02: The prayer is not that you would be rooted.
SPEAKER_02: The prayer is not that you would be grounded.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, God, help me to be rooted.
SPEAKER_02: The prayer is to people who are rooted and are grounded because that is a fact of life as a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: And I just described very, very briefly all of the history leading up to this moment in time in God's plan.
SPEAKER_02: Your roots go deep.
SPEAKER_02: I looked at some different trees whose roots go deep.
SPEAKER_02: And a juniper is one of them.
SPEAKER_02: I think we got a picture of a juniper.
SPEAKER_02: And you can look when it comes up at the landscape that this thing finds itself in.
SPEAKER_02: Does that look like an inviting landscape for a tree?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: So the next time you see a scraggly juniper in the dry country, just remember it has a whole network of roots that work overtime underground.
SPEAKER_02: They go deep, deep, deep.
SPEAKER_02: And they uh find that water and they survive and they even thrive in these harsh environments.
SPEAKER_02: And the the cool thing is they even bring blessing to the soil.
SPEAKER_02: Uh they they make the soil five times more absorbent, such that in a desert area you get these, it doesn't rain very often, but when it does, it rains a lot.
SPEAKER_02: And the problem is it only soaks in a little bit and then runs off and makes floods everywhere else.
SPEAKER_02: Well, not when the juniper tree's there.
SPEAKER_02: Those roots go deep, make the soil absorbent, and then the soil retains the moisture deeper, deeper, deeper, and it brings blessing to all who are around.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that true for us as believers?
SPEAKER_02: Our roots go deep enough that we can withstand drought.
SPEAKER_02: We can withstand dry spells in our Christian life.
SPEAKER_02: Um I would say most of you are here in this church because you appreciate the supernatural.
SPEAKER_02: Amen?
SPEAKER_02: You guys appreciate.
SPEAKER_02: We have an affinity for signs and wonders and moves of the spirit.
SPEAKER_02: But the problem with that is sometimes we struggle when we're not experiencing that, when there's a drought.
SPEAKER_02: And the enemy comes in and he starts speaking these insidious lies about well, maybe you just aren't there yet.
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe when you arrive like so-and-so has arrived, maybe one day you'll experience something like that.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you have never experienced anything like that, and you're wondering when and if you ever will.
SPEAKER_02: And that's really sad to me because there is a whole wealth of God's riches that is available to you in the drought.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we also talk about grounded, rooted and grounded.
SPEAKER_02: So we have uh thinking back to Bob's foundation, exposed to the raging flood waters, and he tells me about uh sitting through that night in the dark and in the rain, listening to what sounded like constant earthquake and constant thunder.
SPEAKER_02: Come to find out it was car-sized boulders being carried down the river just for hours and hours and hours.
SPEAKER_02: Um I think also when I'm thinking of deep foundations of the tallest building in the world, the Burge Khalifa, we got a picture of that too.
SPEAKER_02: Um, these other skyscrapers are probably, these smaller ones are probably similar to Denver skyscrapers.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and then you've got this beast.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, how does that survive up to 150 mile an hour winds?
SPEAKER_02: Well, it has a pretty massive foundation.
SPEAKER_02: It's like 16-foot deep uh concrete slab, reinforced concrete slab, stuck on top of 192 piles that go down, I don't know, like 100, 150 feet uh deep into the into the earth.
SPEAKER_02: And that's not even the deepest foundation uh of buildings in the world.
SPEAKER_02: The the Petronas Towers in Kolalumpur, Malaysia have the deepest.
SPEAKER_02: Their foundation goes 400 feet.
SPEAKER_02: These foundations are massive, massive.
SPEAKER_02: The the weight of the tower, Burj Khalifa alone, is 500,000 tons, which is uh uh one billion pounds.
SPEAKER_02: Is your is your uh uh sidewalk settling around your house?
SPEAKER_02: Has your driveway got cracks in it because it settles a little bit?
SPEAKER_02: Throw a billion pounds on that and see what settles.
SPEAKER_02: And yet, on a firm foundation, no amount of burden or weight can cause you to settle and be pushed down.
SPEAKER_02: No force of wind, no earthquake can shake your foundation.
SPEAKER_02: Because guess what, guys?
SPEAKER_02: The foundation you have is a foundation that no one else can lay.
SPEAKER_02: And it is Jesus Christ, the rock of our salvation, our fortress, our refuge.
SPEAKER_02: This is your foundation.
SPEAKER_02: This is not something you have to work at, this is not something you have to pray into your life.
SPEAKER_02: This exists.
SPEAKER_02: So we are going to um experience this.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna practice this.
SPEAKER_02: Uh notice, get your card.
SPEAKER_02: I lost my card.
SPEAKER_02: And I'd like you to notice on the um about halfway in this card, it says, Together with all the Lord's people.
SPEAKER_02: So he's praying that together with all the Lord's people, you would be able to assimilate these truths.
SPEAKER_02: There's something about this, or something about succeeding at this that involves community.
SPEAKER_02: This need is supposed to be done in the context of other believers.
SPEAKER_02: So, what I would like to do, what I'd like to invite you all to do, and this is this is optional, but I'd like to invite you to pray this with someone today.
SPEAKER_02: So here's how it'll look, and not everyone, you don't have to do this.
SPEAKER_02: So I'll ask you in a second to hold your card up.
SPEAKER_02: You don't have to do it right now, to if you want to pray with someone.
SPEAKER_02: If you don't, you're just gonna you're gonna just look at the card and have a moment with you and the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: But I'd like to invite you to pray with each other.
SPEAKER_02: Now, some of you have never prayed out loud with another person, and some of you love and you do it all the time.
SPEAKER_02: If you've never done this, or you're going out of your comfort zone, or you're you're more introverted, um, this could be as simple as just reading it.
SPEAKER_02: Just read it and put it in the form of a prayer with the other person.
SPEAKER_02: I pray that out of his glory, you literally can just read that.
SPEAKER_02: You might even take one phrase and just say, Oh God, I pray that this person would know your love that surpasses knowledge.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, so if you're willing to do that, just hold your hold your card up.
SPEAKER_02: And what I'd like to do is for those of you who have your cards up, look around you and find one or two other people.
SPEAKER_02: We can pair off or triple off, and we're gonna give you a few minutes to just pray this over each other.
SPEAKER_02: All right?
SPEAKER_02: Sound like a deal?
SPEAKER_02: And if you want to just pray this for yourself or let the Lord um just shower you with these words, then you can just keep your your card in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, go ahead, we'll give you a few minutes.
SPEAKER_02: This is really beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: You guys can keep praying if you want, uh, that's fine.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I'm just gonna go ahead and appreciate as I hear the the the whispers and the murmuring throughout the room, and I look out and see you all.
SPEAKER_02: I just picture God on his throne and the Holy Spirit in each of you, listening simultaneously to all of your voices.
SPEAKER_02: And the the thing about this prayer, guys, is that um you know, Jesus said when you pray according to God's will, whatever you ask, he'll give it to you.
SPEAKER_02: And let's be honest, most of our prayers are what I would call uh preferential prayers, and we are totally commanded by God to tell God what we want.
SPEAKER_02: He asks us to cast our cares on him, he says to make our requests known to him.
SPEAKER_02: He loves as a loving father that we tell him what we want with great specificity.
SPEAKER_02: But in those prayers, there's this underlying sense of Lord, but if it's your will.
SPEAKER_02: And God wants us to pray, and sometimes He answers those things, but we also submit it to not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_02: And the the thing about this prayer that it's not like those kinds of prayers.
SPEAKER_02: This is not a preference prayer, this is not a prayer of telling our Father what we want.
SPEAKER_02: This is a prayer that is 100% praying according to the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_02: This is a prayer that God answers 100% of the time.
SPEAKER_02: Do you want to pray some prayers that are always answered?
SPEAKER_02: Here's one.
SPEAKER_02: So as we're getting ready to go uh away, I'd like to paint a picture of what this might look like uh when this when this prayer is answered in your life.
SPEAKER_02: Because as I look at it and I think, okay, this prayer is that we would be that we'd be strengthened in our inner being and that we'd really know and start to comprehend the vastness of God's love for us.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's really a prayer of of mental assent and acknowledgement and agreement and alignment with.
SPEAKER_02: It's a welcoming of something that's true.
SPEAKER_02: It's not a striving for something we want, it's just a welcoming.
SPEAKER_02: Remember that the prayers that you would have the capacity to receive it.
SPEAKER_02: So how can that look for us tomorrow morning when we're getting ready for work or throughout the week when we're struggling?
SPEAKER_02: And I might challenge you with a really just simple but powerful thing, and that is if you could take the time on a regular basis, maybe a few times a day, maybe just in the morning, maybe just at night, to open the word of God and receive these truths as your own.
SPEAKER_02: And when you when you have a steak dinner, now not all of you like steak, but just go with me, all right?
SPEAKER_02: Steak is like the the highlight of oh, the best meal, all right?
SPEAKER_02: So just put your insert your best meal in there if you want.
SPEAKER_02: But when you have a steak dinner, you gotta savor that sucker.
SPEAKER_02: You don't go get steak and drive-through.
SPEAKER_02: You sit down, you have some appetizers, you set the mood, you cut it slowly and with manners, and you put that in and you you chew on that.
SPEAKER_02: You you ruminate on it.
SPEAKER_02: This is what God wants us to do with these deep truths.
SPEAKER_02: He wants us to get into the word, he wants to look us to look at a single phrase or a single word or a whole passage and just go broad and go deep, go deep and go in and out and looking at the words and and really chewing on it.
SPEAKER_02: So, my uh challenge to you is uh as you think about being rooted and grounded, you you might encounter the you might encounter the opposite of that.
SPEAKER_02: You might have days where you feel totally ungrounded, totally unsettled, totally shaky, completely in a storm, not knowing if you can stand.
SPEAKER_02: But what would it, what would it look like if you could receive the extent of what God has done for you and walk in that truth.
SPEAKER_02: And it's it's gonna happen as you receive it.
SPEAKER_02: So you've got to make the time to receive it.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you guys for uh listening.
SPEAKER_02: Luke's gonna come up and give you a blessing, and we're gonna go about our day in the in the grounding and rootedness of God's love.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: So good.
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet this morning, stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_00: What a great word.
SPEAKER_00: Being rooted and grounded in love, man.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to take you and encourage you, like Jesse said, take this card, keep it with you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't throw it in your back seat, alright?
SPEAKER_00: I know you, alright?
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Leave this in your Bible, bring it out in the morning, pray it over you that you may be filled with the fullness.
SPEAKER_00: It's what you are made for.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So may the Lord bless you and keep you, may you make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you and give you peace.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you guys.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: And we thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming this morning.
SPEAKER_00: If you're part of the Heatherwood outreach, we'll be uh we'll meet in the foyer or else meet at uh Heatherwood Elementary.
SPEAKER_00: There's a missions potluck in the theater.
SPEAKER_00: Blessings, guys.
SPEAKER_00: Have an awesome day.