SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Jeremy.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the uh student family pastor.
SPEAKER_02: It is good to have you here worshiping with us on this last Sunday of 2020.
SPEAKER_02: And all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, 2020.
SPEAKER_02: It's been an incredibly difficult year.
SPEAKER_02: And in typical fashion, as I normally do, things are smooth.
SPEAKER_02: As I reflected on 2020 this morning, I was thinking how difficult it's been, but it's been incredibly wonderful in its own unique way.
SPEAKER_02: God has been incredibly good to us, hasn't he?
SPEAKER_02: Lots that we could complain about, but we really don't have reason to.
SPEAKER_02: If you uh will join me in uh the book of Ephesians here this morning, I get the privilege of closing our Christmas service or our Christmas uh sermon series.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 through 19.
SPEAKER_02: If you're new with us and you don't have a Bible, there should be a black one uh in the seat in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to grab that and open up to page 977, uh that's where we will be.
SPEAKER_02: While I hear the pages wrestling, okay, I just want to make a side note.
SPEAKER_02: This today is a unique day.
SPEAKER_02: Normally we have uh children's ministry going during the service.
SPEAKER_02: We have children's church for uh children up to age five.
SPEAKER_02: Today we only have our nursery available, so we have kids in the service with us and we love it, okay?
SPEAKER_02: So, parents, we hear your children and we love it, okay?
SPEAKER_02: Your children are welcome.
SPEAKER_02: We love having them in here with us.
SPEAKER_02: I love it when little kids get to watch mom and dad worship with the rest of the church.
SPEAKER_02: I love it when little kids get to watch mom and dad open up the Bible to hear what is being preached and studied.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh we want to welcome parents.
SPEAKER_02: If you get a little uh antsy about your your children uh fidgeting and things like that, we do have um little tool kits really, uh, their bags just outside in the foyers that you could grab, and it has all sorts of stuff to keep them keep them busy if you uh if you would like to use those.
SPEAKER_02: We would love for you to uh to take advantage of that.
SPEAKER_02: Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14.
SPEAKER_02: The apostle Paul writes, 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 the 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_02: Will you pray with me?
SPEAKER_02: Father God, we thank you for ordaining this morning that we would gather together as your people to open your word so that you would speak to us this morning.
SPEAKER_02: I pray that our our hearts and our minds would be attentive to your word.
SPEAKER_02: That we would not only hear these words, but I pray it would convict us deeply in a way that changes us.
SPEAKER_02: Spirit, we we know that we cannot do this on our own.
SPEAKER_02: We know that the natural mind has no ability to comprehend your word.
SPEAKER_02: So, Holy Spirit, we pray that you would transcend our hearts and minds.
SPEAKER_02: We would know the scriptures, understand them, and live them out.
SPEAKER_02: Lord Jesus, I pray that we would make much of you and your gospel this morning.
SPEAKER_02: On behalf of your people and those who have not yet been counted.
SPEAKER_02: We pray this in your name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Well, welcome uh again to the last Sunday of Christmas, Feliz Navidad, as we say in my house.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's Merry Christmas, and uh, like I said, I'm closing up our Christmas series, and many of you over the past few days have been snacking a lot, haven't you?
SPEAKER_02: Snacking is a wonderful, wonderful activity.
SPEAKER_02: It's it's something that we do when we're not quite hungry, and we're kind of bored, we're not quite sure what to do with ourselves, and many of you have had time off from work, and so you're sitting around the house, kids are playing, you're like, what do you do?
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, let's snack, right?
SPEAKER_02: Let's get out some stuff and snack on it.
SPEAKER_02: One of my favorite snacks is this beautiful invention called candy pop popcorn.
SPEAKER_02: Candy pop popcorn is so wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: I made sure to give it out in our student ministry at our Christmas party.
SPEAKER_02: It's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: If you're not sure what candy pop popcorn is, it is the holy invention of a love affair between popcorn and candy.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's it's popcorn meets MMs and Snickers and all bundled up and so it it's it's popcorn, so it feels like a snack, but there's some candy on it, which makes it feel kind of like a dessert, right?
SPEAKER_02: It's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: But one thing I don't like about candy popcorn, and maybe you can maybe you can relate to this if you had some.
SPEAKER_02: You pick it up at the store, and the thing just feels crammed full, right?
SPEAKER_02: Like if you press it in at any moment, it's just going pop.
SPEAKER_02: Alright?
SPEAKER_02: But then you get home, you open it, ready to dive in, and you realize that your candy popcorn bag is only half full.
SPEAKER_02: It's incredibly frustrating.
SPEAKER_02: It gave the illusion of fullness, but when you opened it up, it was only half full.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you optimists are saying, well, or some of you pessimists are saying it's half empty, right?
SPEAKER_02: Half empty, half full, whatever it is, it's not full.
SPEAKER_02: It's not complete.
SPEAKER_02: It lets me down every time I open it up, even though I'm grateful to have it.
SPEAKER_02: I thought that was a fitting way to think of all the things in the world, all the things in life that promise fullness.
SPEAKER_02: And yet the more we pursue fullness in this world and in this life, we realize that this world and this life is lacking.
SPEAKER_02: Time is lacking, right?
SPEAKER_02: We find ourselves running out of time or running late.
SPEAKER_02: Relationships sometimes seem empty or lacking.
SPEAKER_02: Your spouse or your friends don't quite understand you, and so there's something lacking there.
SPEAKER_02: Your job isn't fulfilling, and so you you feel an emptiness inside you that you're not being fulfilled, and on and on we can go.
SPEAKER_02: And this series that we've been preaching on has been on the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_02: That in the fullness of time, not a minute sooner, not a minute later, the fullness of God came in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And he offered fullness of redemption, not partial redemption, fullness of redemption for you and I.
SPEAKER_02: And I end it here this morning with the fullness of God in Ephesians 3.
SPEAKER_02: I have three segments I want to unpack for us this morning as we drive towards the point that Paul is making here with the fullness of God, because it's not just merely this big idea of God's fullness, it's not merely this idea of something that happened in the past completely, but it affects us presently, here and now.
SPEAKER_02: And what I want to unpack here this morning is one, what prompts Paul to pray, because this here is a prayer of Paul.
SPEAKER_02: What prompts him to pray?
SPEAKER_02: What does Paul pray for?
SPEAKER_02: And the culmination of that prayer.
SPEAKER_02: So again, this is one of two prayers in the book of Ephesians from the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_02: In chapter one, Paul unpacks all the blessings that those in Christ possess.
SPEAKER_02: Blessings that are untouchable that you and I possess.
SPEAKER_02: There are blessings that are in the heavenly places, right?
SPEAKER_02: Blessings that happened in eternity past that affect you here, now, in the present, and will come to fulfillment in eternity future.
SPEAKER_02: You and I have tremendous amounts of blessings in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And that prompts Paul to his first prayer, which is a thanksgiving for the Ephesians for their faith.
SPEAKER_02: They own these blessings that he's speaking of in chapter one.
SPEAKER_02: And then in chapter two, he ends that prayer talking about God's power, and then chapter two.
SPEAKER_02: Paul continuing this thought about his power, right?
SPEAKER_02: God, Paul goes on and says, You were dead in this, in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the discourse of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that has now worked in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
SPEAKER_02: But God, who is rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_02: This power that God demonstrates in making dead people live, prompts Paul to talk about how we were brought together.
SPEAKER_02: Those who were considered the farthest away from God have now been brought near.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because God is in the business of making dead people alive.
SPEAKER_02: Whether it's Jew or Gentile, it doesn't matter who you are, God makes dead people live.
SPEAKER_02: And he brought Paul into this mission to spread this news in chapter 3.
SPEAKER_02: And thinking about all of this prompts Paul to pray.
SPEAKER_02: God is saving people who were believed to be too far for salvation.
SPEAKER_02: People were considered dead in their sins.
SPEAKER_02: Every single person on the planet is dead in their sins.
SPEAKER_02: If you think of the nature of a dead person, they are completely incapable of functioning.
SPEAKER_02: A dying man outside of a hospital can still walk himself inside and seek treatment, but a dead man outside of a hospital has no capability of doing so.
SPEAKER_02: What prompts Paul to pray is the fact that God is making dead people live.
SPEAKER_02: Again, verse 4 in chapter 2.
SPEAKER_02: God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_02: By grace you have been saved.
SPEAKER_02: And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: My friends, you and I have a spiritual condition.
SPEAKER_02: That condition is not that you are a good person but happen to do bad things.
SPEAKER_02: It's not that you are spiritually sick.
SPEAKER_02: You and I are dead in our trespasses, dead in our sins.
SPEAKER_02: If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian, your problem, your ultimate problem, is not what is going wrong in your life.
SPEAKER_02: Your ultimate problem is that you are spiritually dead and separated from the God who made you.
SPEAKER_02: And if you are dead in your sins, you need an external power outside of you to make you alive.
SPEAKER_02: You have no ability to do it.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because you're dead.
SPEAKER_02: You need God to make you alive.
SPEAKER_02: And I pray he would do that here this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Because God makes dead people live.
SPEAKER_02: And God has brought Paul in on that mission of spreading the gospel of God making dead people live.
SPEAKER_02: That's what prompts Paul to pray in verse 14.
SPEAKER_02: So now the question is what does Paul pray for?
SPEAKER_02: What does Paul pray for?
SPEAKER_02: Well, Paul's prayer focuses on the new life we've been given.
SPEAKER_02: This prayer precedes the admonition Paul gives us in chapter 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: If you look to chapter 4, verse 1, he says, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
SPEAKER_02: Again, God makes you alive, and now the strength and power in which you must live does not come from you.
SPEAKER_02: So Paul prays for God's people to be strengthened with power through his spirit.
SPEAKER_02: That's what he says in verse 16.
SPEAKER_02: According to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit.
SPEAKER_02: God does not save you and expect you and I to do the rest on our own.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't say, I'll come this far, you go the rest.
SPEAKER_02: God is going to completely, totally strengthen you for the life, this new life that He has given you.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what Paul is praying for.
SPEAKER_02: The only power you and I possess is the power to sin.
SPEAKER_02: Romans 3 23 says this for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_02: Earlier on in that chapter in Romans 3, Paul talks about all sinning, all no one does good, no one seeks after God.
SPEAKER_02: Our throats are open graves.
SPEAKER_02: The only power you and I have to have is to sin.
SPEAKER_02: And that sin in Romans 6 leads to death.
SPEAKER_02: The wages of sin is death.
SPEAKER_02: If this is the power you and I have, it's going to end up in the exact same spot that we were.
SPEAKER_02: Dead in our trespasses.
SPEAKER_02: God makes us alive, but then also gives us the power and strength to continue living.
SPEAKER_02: Friends, I want to tell you that some of you have been made alive by God, but you're trying to live life on your own strength.
SPEAKER_02: You find yourself weary and tired and exhausted because you've been trying to go it alone on your own.
SPEAKER_02: That's not the Christian life.
SPEAKER_02: That's not God's intention for you.
SPEAKER_02: God's intention is not to save you, give you a pat on the bottom and say, go get him, tiger.
SPEAKER_02: God's intention is to save you and strengthen you so that you would live on his power and not yours.
SPEAKER_02: It is incredibly exhausting to try and do what God wants, to obey Christ on the strength of our own.
SPEAKER_02: And God doesn't want that.
SPEAKER_02: Paul doesn't want that.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: That's why Paul prays for them to be strengthened with power.
SPEAKER_02: But this power is locative.
SPEAKER_02: And what I mean is it's in a specific place.
SPEAKER_02: He prays for power, not just general power.
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't pray that you would have physical strength or merely just generally spiritual strength.
SPEAKER_02: He prays that you would be strengthened in your inner being.
SPEAKER_02: Your inner being is the part of you that consists of those immeasurable qualities such as your conscience, your reasoning, your emotions, and your soul.
SPEAKER_02: It's the immaterial part of you.
SPEAKER_02: It's the part of you that cannot be seen, and it is what is in view here when Paul refers to your inner being.
SPEAKER_02: It is from your inner being that all of your life flows out of.
SPEAKER_02: It is the part of you that determines who or what you love, who or what you hate, what you believe, why you believe it.
SPEAKER_02: It is the part that determines what fills your thought life and who or what you will worship.
SPEAKER_02: This is the part of you that pray that Paul prays will be strengthened by God's Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Your greatest need this morning, and in this life, is the strength to live this new life in accordance to the will of God.
SPEAKER_02: Your chief prayer request should not merely be for material things that will eventually fade.
SPEAKER_02: It should not merely be for healing and health, which eventually will deteriorate.
SPEAKER_02: The power you need is the strength to endure that when all else fails, you can continue walking in step with the will of God.
SPEAKER_02: Your greatest need in life is the strength to live life in accordance with the will of God.
SPEAKER_02: The greatest need for God's people here this morning is soul strength.
SPEAKER_02: You need strength in your soul.
SPEAKER_02: Because there are times where you're just saying, Lord, I don't have anymore, I can't do anymore, I don't know what else to do, I need help, and God provides the power for you.
SPEAKER_02: Paul prays for this power to strengthen your soul so that you would be able to live this new life.
SPEAKER_02: Now, in light of everything I just said, you might conclude that you know the, you understand why Paul's praying for this strength, right, in our soul, and so we can continue on living, but he has specific things in mind.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, he has three specific purposes that culminate in one ultimate purpose for why he's praying for strength in God's people.
SPEAKER_02: The first purpose of this prayer for strength and our inner being is this that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith.
SPEAKER_02: We often associate our hearts with emotions, right?
SPEAKER_02: We have these uh these sayings and phrases, my heart is broken, right?
SPEAKER_02: That's communicating emotional distress.
SPEAKER_02: I I often tell my wife and children, I love you with all of my heart.
SPEAKER_02: We often associate following your heart, it doesn't really have anything to do except for that which makes you happy.
SPEAKER_02: Follow what makes you happy, right?
SPEAKER_02: It's it's incredibly uh connected to emotion in our modern understanding.
SPEAKER_02: But in biblical times, and what the biblical writers understood the heart to be is completely different than what you and I understand it to be.
SPEAKER_02: The heart in the ancient world was the seat of the will.
SPEAKER_02: It was the connection between your emotions and your mind, so that you're not just blindly following whatever makes you feel good, but rather you are informed.
SPEAKER_02: It's the connection between what we treasure and what we what we worship, very closely connected to that inner being that Paul refers to.
SPEAKER_02: Matthew 6, 21, when Jesus is teaching us on what we ought to treasure, he says this for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
SPEAKER_02: What you desire, what you want, is where your heart is going to be.
SPEAKER_02: And that's not merely an emotion, that is also connected to logic and reasoning.
SPEAKER_02: What you think about.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's prayers that God's people would be strengthened by God's Spirit, so that our hearts would have the strength not just to make room for Christ in our hearts, not just for Christ to visit our hearts, but for Christ to dwell permanently in our hearts, so that our minds would be filled with Christ and that our emotions would be set on him, so that Psalm 37.4 would be fulfilled in Christ dwelling in our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 37.4 says this delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
SPEAKER_02: If Christ is seated on the throne of your heart, then you will be, you will be directed to delight yourself in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And what God will give you in return is Himself.
SPEAKER_02: He will give you the desires of what your heart wants.
SPEAKER_02: Does Christ dwell in your heart this morning?
SPEAKER_02: Does Christ dwell in your heart this morning, or are you seated on the throne of your heart?
SPEAKER_02: Are your wants, your needs, your pleasures, your Or is it Christ?
SPEAKER_02: Does Christ dwell in your heart?
SPEAKER_02: If not, your heart needs strength.
SPEAKER_02: It needs God's strength.
SPEAKER_02: It needs strength by God's Spirit to make your heart the abode in which Christ dwells in.
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, your heart will be weak and susceptible to the vain temptations of this world.
SPEAKER_02: Our hearts are constantly deceived into believing that they will be satisfied by all kinds of pleasure, only to be left wanting.
SPEAKER_02: When your heart is strengthened by God's Spirit, Christ dwells in it and drives it towards delight in God, and God always fulfills.
SPEAKER_02: He will never leave you wanting.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's prayer is that we would be strengthened first, so that Christ would dwell in our hearts, but also second, that God's people would have the strength to comprehend with God's people the magnitude of God's love.
SPEAKER_02: He prays that we would be strengthened so that we would be able to comprehend with all the saints.
SPEAKER_02: In verse 18, what is the breadth and length and height and depth of God's love?
SPEAKER_02: And before we discuss what it means to comprehend God's love, I want you to notice that this strength is communal.
SPEAKER_02: Look again in verse 18.
SPEAKER_02: That you may have the strength to comprehend with all the saints.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to say that again.
SPEAKER_02: That you would have the strength to comprehend with all the saints.
SPEAKER_02: This is not an individual prayer.
SPEAKER_02: It's not prayer for you to be strengthened merely as an individual, but rather to be strengthened together as God's people.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's prayer is that God would strengthen us, that God would grant strength within the community of the church.
SPEAKER_02: You might think this is a bit of a stretch, but actually in chapter 4, Paul prays for this very thing that we'd be strengthened by the gift of the local church.
SPEAKER_02: Ephesians 4, 11 through 16, he says this: that he, that is God, gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers.
SPEAKER_02: What?
SPEAKER_02: To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, speaking the truth in love, together as God's people, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
SPEAKER_02: Paul's prayer here is with the body of Christ in mind, that you would be strengthened together.
SPEAKER_02: And I gotta say, many people who feel weak in their faith are often disconnected from the local church.
SPEAKER_02: Not always, but there are a lot of people you end up talking to who say, I don't feel very strong in my faith.
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm faltering.
SPEAKER_02: But my question is, are you connected to the people of God?
SPEAKER_02: And the answer is often no.
SPEAKER_02: And can I just say that coming to church on Sunday is great, but that does not in and of itself connect you to the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: You are missing out on a wealth of strength by not getting plugged in.
SPEAKER_02: You're coming to the to the lobby of the gym, so to speak.
SPEAKER_02: You're just sitting there waving as everybody else who's going in to strengthen their bodies, you're waving at them as they go in.
SPEAKER_02: You're there, you see them, but you're not doing it with them.
SPEAKER_02: You're doing nothing to strengthen yourself.
SPEAKER_02: It is with God's people that Paul prays that we would be strengthened to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: If you're having a hard time thinking about the dimensions of the love of Christ, that's okay.
SPEAKER_02: It's infinite.
SPEAKER_02: The love of Christ has no boundaries.
SPEAKER_02: This is a tool that Paul is using kind of to kind of exaggerate a point, to get you to think in terms of dimensions.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to think of it this way, look at Psalm 103, 11 through 12.
SPEAKER_02: The psalmist says this: for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.
SPEAKER_02: If you can't imagine the heavens above the earth, that's a long ways away.
SPEAKER_02: It's infinite.
SPEAKER_02: As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to imagine the east and the west going in a straight line, they will never ever meet.
SPEAKER_02: They will continue going.
SPEAKER_02: And that is the breadth, the height, the depth, the dimension of God's love for you.
SPEAKER_02: It is boundless, it cannot be contained.
SPEAKER_02: And it is this that Paul prays that we would have the strength as God's people together to comprehend.
SPEAKER_02: Now, I want to ask you: have you ever communicated important information to another person that they just couldn't comprehend?
SPEAKER_02: Parents?
SPEAKER_02: You ever ever communicate something that, not to name names, but someone in your house may not have comprehended fully?
SPEAKER_02: You understand whether or not they comprehend what you're saying, all right?
SPEAKER_01: They may hear you, but they demonstrate whether or not they comprehend by actually living it out, right?
SPEAKER_01: Actually doing what it is you tell them to do.
SPEAKER_01: And the failure of their ability to fulfill whatever task they're needing reveals a lack of comprehension.
SPEAKER_02: It is the love that not only offers forgiveness, but also adoption into God's family.
SPEAKER_02: It is the love that promises one day Jesus Christ will return for his own to be with him in eternity.
SPEAKER_02: This is the love that Paul prays you would comprehend.
SPEAKER_02: Paul prays that God's people, having been made alive by God's grace, would be strengthened by God's Spirit so that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith, that we would comprehend with all the saints the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And that they would know the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 19.
SPEAKER_02: The love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
SPEAKER_02: You might be asking yourself, what is the difference between comprehending and knowing?
SPEAKER_02: Aren't they synonymous?
SPEAKER_02: I just want to uh take you back to Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis chapter 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: This is this is after Adam and Eve have sinned, God pronounces a curse on their sin, and thus the entire creation is a curse.
SPEAKER_01: The story moves on in chapter 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Now Adam Eve and his wife knowledge you have in mind.
SPEAKER_01: It should be the central focus of every Christian's life, is the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: But if that word only leads to the minimization of fact, you are missing knowledge of God's love.
SPEAKER_01: You do not know it in an intimate way, and you're not experiencing it in an intimate way.
SPEAKER_02: Recently I uh I listened to a podcast of two radically different men.
SPEAKER_02: Both were considered scholars in biblical studies, both had expertise in the gospel accounts, both taught the Bible at universities.
SPEAKER_02: Only one of them was a Christian.
SPEAKER_02: One of these men simply studied and knew the Bible so as to try and understand the ancient world.
SPEAKER_02: He had this fascination with biblical times, and the Bible being one of the most accurate and detailed history books.
SPEAKER_02: He goes there to study, to study, to know what was it like during the time of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes, there was a Jesus, but he wasn't the Son of God, he'll say.
SPEAKER_02: The other man didn't just know what the Bible says, didn't just have facts about the Bible memorized.
SPEAKER_02: He experienced what the Bible says about the love of God in a very real way.
SPEAKER_02: And as Scripture informed him of the God who rescues and saves people from the damnation of their sins, he began to experience the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Charles Spurgeon has this quote.
SPEAKER_02: I hope helps to give you the idea of the knowledge of God's love, of Christ's love.
SPEAKER_02: He says, I know many people.
SPEAKER_02: That is to say, I've seen them in the streets and they tip their hats to me.
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, back in England, back in the day, that's what they would do.
SPEAKER_02: They would all wear hats, they tip their hats, right?
SPEAKER_02: In the bygone days, they tip their hats to him, and I do the same to them.
SPEAKER_02: And thus I know them.
SPEAKER_02: There's this mutual recognition and acknowledgement of each other's existence.
SPEAKER_02: This is a slender form of knowledge, he says, yet I fear it is the kind of knowledge most people have of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Even such a knowledge as comes by trembling faith is a knowledge that saves.
SPEAKER_02: But I will tell you the people I know best.
SPEAKER_02: They live with me in my own house.
SPEAKER_02: I see them every day.
SPEAKER_02: I am on the most familiar terms with them, and this is the knowledge here intended when it comes to the knowledge of the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Do you experience it in a real, lasting way?
SPEAKER_02: My friends, do you recognize what it means to know the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_02: You might have been told all your life that Jesus loves you, but it's never made an impact in your life.
SPEAKER_02: I want to try and demonstrate this through what we know of God's word.
SPEAKER_02: And I just have six examples here of knowing God's love in a way that transforms us.
SPEAKER_02: God wants you to know his faithful love so that we can trust him when things are difficult.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 13, 5 says, But I have trusted in your steadfast love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
SPEAKER_02: That's in contrast to bad things happening in the psalmist life.
SPEAKER_02: God wants you to know his love so that you can flourish.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 52, 7 and 8 says, See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches, and therefore he sought refuge in his own destruction.
SPEAKER_02: But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God.
SPEAKER_02: I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.
SPEAKER_02: God wants you to know his love so that you aren't lost in life.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 143, 8.
SPEAKER_02: Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust.
SPEAKER_02: Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.
SPEAKER_02: God wants you to know his love, even though you were dead in your sins.
SPEAKER_02: Back to Ephesians 2, verses 4 and 5.
SPEAKER_02: But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
SPEAKER_02: By grace you have been saved.
SPEAKER_02: God wants you to know his love because it cannot be taken from you.
SPEAKER_02: They gotta say, assurance is the bed is one of the bedrocks of God's love.
SPEAKER_02: When you have messed things up royally, or life just seems stacked against you, knowing nothing can take God's love from you, is the wind in your sails.
SPEAKER_02: Romans 8, 35 through 39.
SPEAKER_02: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
SPEAKER_02: Shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, as it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.
SPEAKER_02: We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
SPEAKER_02: For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_02: God wants you to know his love because you are his child.
SPEAKER_02: 1 John 3, 1, see what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God.
SPEAKER_02: And so we are.
SPEAKER_02: Trust him with your life.
SPEAKER_02: And this love that he promises for you will never disappoint.
SPEAKER_02: It will always satisfy.
SPEAKER_02: For every failure, his love will meet you with grace.
SPEAKER_02: For every challenge, his love will equip you with wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: For every need, his love will provide.
SPEAKER_02: For everything that lacks, God will provide his fullness.
SPEAKER_02: That brings me to our conclusion this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Paul prays that God's people would be strengthened in their inner beings so that Christ would dwell in their hearts, that they would have the strength to comprehend the magnitude of Christ's love, and that they would know it in an intimate, experiential way.
SPEAKER_02: All leading to the culmination of Paul's prayer here in verse 19.
SPEAKER_02: Paul prays that God's Spirit would strengthen them in all these ways, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_02: Are you seeing what I'm seeing here?
SPEAKER_02: Look at it again.
SPEAKER_02: That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_02: Let's say that again.
SPEAKER_02: That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_02: If that just doesn't blow you away, I don't know what Bible you're reading, because when I read that, I'm just, I'm completely paralyzed in thought.
SPEAKER_02: The fullness of God to dwell in me, the infinite, eternal God who existed before time began and will exist eternally after it's over, that the God who just has the power to speak worlds into existence, this God who cannot be contained, the fullness of this God within me?
SPEAKER_02: My friends, this is unthinkable.
SPEAKER_02: The fullness, the infinite God filling the emptiness of finite people.
SPEAKER_02: Can I ask, do you need anything more?
SPEAKER_02: Is there anything more that you could ever want or need or hope for than have the eternal infinite God filling every fiber of your being?
SPEAKER_02: As Christ sits on the throne of your heart and strengthens you to comprehend his love and know it in an experiential, intimate way.
SPEAKER_02: Is there anything else you need?
SPEAKER_02: No, because God has provided his fullness in such a way.
SPEAKER_02: Would you be filled by him today?
SPEAKER_02: Will you ask God for strength?
SPEAKER_02: That Christ may dwell in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: That you would comprehend the magnitude of his love.
SPEAKER_02: That you would know the love of Christ deeply.
SPEAKER_02: So that you would be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_02: My prayer here this morning is Paul's prayer.
SPEAKER_02: I hope your prayer this morning is Paul's prayer.
SPEAKER_02: That Christ would strengthen you so that you would be filled with all the fullness that God has to offer.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: God in heaven, I confess.
SPEAKER_02: More times than I can count.
SPEAKER_02: I depend on my own strength.
SPEAKER_02: And my own strength cannot accomplish what Paul writes here in this text.
SPEAKER_02: My own strength leaves me lacking and wanting.
SPEAKER_02: My own strength has no ability to fill me in any significant way.
SPEAKER_02: Lord, I pray that we would be strengthened by the power of your spirit.
SPEAKER_02: And I pray that that power would knock the idols that we have placed in our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: I pray it would knock it off those thrones and place Christ as the rightful Lord over our lives, that He would guide us and direct us.
SPEAKER_02: He would be the Lord of our heart, that He would fill our desires, that He would be all that we think about.
SPEAKER_02: I pray that we would be strengthened, Lord, to comprehend this unimaginable love.
SPEAKER_02: This love that is infinite, that is greater than anything we could ever think of.
SPEAKER_02: I pray that we would be strengthened to know the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: The love that would send your only son to be born in a manger and live a perfect life.
SPEAKER_02: So that one day he would die as the sacrifice and payment for rebellious sinners.
SPEAKER_02: I pray we would we would be strengthened to have these things, Lord, so that we would be filled with your fullness.
SPEAKER_02: Lacking nothing.
SPEAKER_02: I pray this in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.