SPEAKER_00 0:20

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding, been enlightened, that you may know what the hope of his calling is, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the sins, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ, and he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principalities and power and might and dominion in every name that is his name, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him which fills all in all. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Thanks, Enoch. I wish my accent was as cool as his. Love that.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Well, good morning, church. It's good to see you guys today and uh thankful that you're here. Uh if you are a guest here at Point today, uh say thanks for uh just taking a risk to join us and uh stepping out in faith today. Uh thank you for um for being our guest. And if you are a guest, let me uh just quickly encourage you that if you want to get more connected here, you want to find out more about who we are, uh there are some ways in the worship guide that you received when you came in, which by the way, if you did not get a worship guide when you came in, if you just lift your hand, we have some ushers who would love to give you one. And it's a great spot to take some notes. It's also a great spot to um, as I said, find some ways to get more involved or connected if that's something you're interested in. Um also uh in that worship guide, you will find uh on the back a reading plan, a daily reading plan. Um and I just want to encourage you to that we are a church that's a people of the word. Um and when I say the word, I mean the Bible, uh the scripture, that we believe that the scripture is breathed from God, that he divinely inspired men to write it down, and that it's life-changing. And when we actually spend time in God's word, um I hope more than just Sunday mornings, uh, but if you spend time in God's word, it will completely change you. And so there's uh there's some uh some guide there on how to read the word for yourself, and I want to encourage you in that, okay? Um as we get started today, I I want to quickly just make a note about something that's happening next week uh that I want you to be aware of. Uh first off, next Sunday is fifth Sunday, so there's five Sundays in the month of September, and every time we have a fifth Sunday, uh we actually take that time to uh pull away and not do our normal sermon, but actually have people in our church family share stories of life change. And then we take some time to pray together and we take some time to worship and just to thank God for what he's doing. Uh, one of the things you see in the Bible in the Old Testament is God instructing his people to regularly celebrate his goodness. And so we want to just take time on those fifth Sundays at minimum, that those are the weeks that we set aside some time to share stories of God's goodness and how he's changing us and making us new, how he's resurrecting us, as we just sang. And so next Sunday you're gonna hear some stories. Um, and we're excited about that. The other thing that's happening next Sunday that's really cool, uh, something we don't do often here, and that is next Sunday evening at 6 p.m., right here in this room, we're actually partnering with a local church uh called Welcome Church. Some of you may know of that church, they meet in Casuric Elementary. Uh Graham and I, he's the pastor there, lead pastor there. He and I have gotten to be friends over the last four years or so. And uh Graham, if you don't know his story, it's pretty cool. Um, any Metallica fans in here? Anybody willing to admit that? Okay. Uh Graham was actually their road manager, uh, and he was the road manager for a pretty good while. He's from England. If you've ever heard Graham talk, you will immediately go, wow. Uh but he was their road manager and God radically transformed him, saved him, and now he's pastoring a church, starting a church in South Austin called Welcome Church, and we've gotten to be good friends and partners, and we're actually going to partner together next Sunday night, 6 p.m., right here in this room, uh, to have a time of worship and teaching, a teaching from a guy named Andrew Wilson. Andrew Wilson is a theologian, uh thinker, writer, speaker uh that's at King's Church in London. And he's going to be here to speak to us next Sunday evening. And I promise you, you will not want to miss that if you want to uh come and just join us for a time to get into the Word together and talk about how that God is a part of every aspect of our life. And so that's next Sunday night, 6 p.m., right here. Encourage you to be a part of that after we have the morning together where we get to really celebrate uh God's goodness through stories of life change. Well, as I said, thank you, Enoch, uh, for reading the text for us today. Uh, I love getting to see the diversity of this body and how uh there's different people from different walks of life in different places. I got to actually meet with Enoch this week, uh, which is why I got to invite him to read the scripture. And uh he grew up in Ghana. Uh, he and his wife both were born there, and God brought them over here for school, and now they're here and a part of our church family. And I'm so thankful that when I look across this room, I see a church that is diverse, that represents what the gospel does. The good news of Jesus reaches every man, woman, and child, no matter what their background is, no matter what their socioeconomic status is, no matter where they were born. Uh God wants us to all see that he loves us and that our greatest need will be met in him. And so it draws together a church of diversity, which I love when I see this room every Sunday morning from this platform. I praise God for that. And I'm so thankful that he rescued me personally. Um I didn't deserve that. I don't deserve that. But he has been gracious to bring me to a place where I know him and can follow him and trust him with my life. Uh this morning, the text, as he already read for us, is phenomenal. Uh, I think every week we read in this book of Ephesians, we're gonna feel like, wow, that's a lot to chew on. It's a lot to think about, it's a lot to consider. And that's because this book is very dense. Uh some have actually considered this book like a crown with jewels in it, and you just keep discovering another jewel and another facet of God's goodness and his grace through this amazing book called Ephesians. And one of the things that we're hopeful for in the book of Ephesians is that both our view of God would expand, our view of his church would expand, and even our understanding of who we are and our value and our worth and our identity because of Christ, that that would grow, that we would have more security uh in who we truly are as God's children, as God's people. And I'm not assuming that every person in this room is actually one of God's children, that not every person in this room maybe believes yet that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he went to the cross to die for our sins, uh, that you've not actually received the grace that he is, offers, the grace gift called salvation. And if that's you, I just want to say special thanks that you're actually here exploring faith, because that can be a little bit weird. Um, being in a place where you're like, I don't even know how I feel about this. They're singing songs I don't really feel connected to, uh, talking about things I'm not completely convinced of. But thank you for being here. Thank you for taking time to be here with us. And we hope that you know this is a safe place to ask those questions, a safe place to wrestle them out. And chances are, if you are a believer, in everyday life, you're encountering people who are curious about Jesus but don't know where they can ask those questions in a safe spot. And so I hope you know that Point Community Church is one of those places, whether it be through Sunday morning or in our life groups, we love to engage people who are just asking who God is and who Jesus is in particular. So invite you to do that. Um, as we think about this text, as we consider it this morning, um, it is interesting how when I observe my life and the lives of those around me, that naturally in our humanness, we can tend to drift away from seeing God as awesome. Okay, now that word awesome gets overused, um, especially for those who grew up in the 80s and 90s. We we we use that word a lot, but here's the truth it's a it's a it's a reality of the human heart that we can tend to migrate away from having awe of God. That we can tend to move away from that. So specifically, um, I would say it this way this morning, if you're following along in the worship guide, our understanding of who God is and what he has done will naturally move towards indifference unless we know him supernaturally, not just theoretically. Now we're gonna talk about what that means the rest of our time together today and a little bit of how we move on from here, uh, maybe move forward with a greater sense of awe and wonder. That's my one of my biggest prayers. I mean, when I preach, I hope you guys know, I'm not trying to preach so you go, man, that was a really good sermon. Or preach so that you go, man, I've got three tips this week that are gonna make my life better. My prayer is that when we when we get together and we talk about God's word and we get to preach it, which is a, you know, it's a an 45-minute or less experience every week, that actually it stirs in us worship, that it produces worship, that it produces awe and reverence for God. And it is our tendency to move towards indifference towards the truths about God. I mean, I should know because I'm a church brat. So nine months before I was born, I was hearing sermons, I shared that with you guys before. And in that, it means that because I've heard these truths so much, it can be like, oh yeah, I've heard that before. Oh, oh yeah, I I got you. Oh yeah, I remember that doctrine. Yeah, God's Trinity. Awesome, got it. Check the box, right? But here's the truth: we need to know God supernaturally, not just theoretically. We need to know him as more than doctrinal bullet points, we need to know him personally. And so my prayer this morning is that somehow this will even stir you, that the words of Paul would stir you. We move on sometimes from these profound and amazing truths because it is in our human nature. I mean, you guys know this even in your life practically. When you get something that you've been really wanting to buy, maybe it was for your hobby, and you get the newest, latest, greatest version of that thing that you were like, oh, I gotta have this. Or maybe in your life you've been shooting for a particular vehicle that you want to drive, or a home you want to live in, and you get it. And have you noticed how it doesn't take too terribly long till that becomes just your norm? And it's just, oh, this is this is just what you have. Which, by the way, side note here, this isn't a main part of the sermon today, but it is interesting how we operate in an affluent culture where we have turned luxuries into necessities, right? Because we get so accustomed to just having things. Uh, some of you this week uh went out and got the new iPhone 11 Pro, right? Some of you are like, no, we don't like Apple anymore. Um that's fine. I know there's thousands of millions of people on the planet right now jumping out to get the new iPhone. If you did, it's okay. It's still safe to be here. There's much grace, all right? Uh I was tempted. Um, just gonna be honest. But here's the thing: why can Apple every year or every so often release these phones and everybody's like, oh, we gotta have that one? Oh, we gotta have that one. Because we want the new and the shiny and the better, and and marketing works. It really works. It produces in us this this need for more, this something else that we don't have, that we've got to have, right? And because that's in our hearts, we can quickly move past things that are so good and helpful and and actually uh are fine, but we can we can move on to something else. But it it's interesting how it works out with God, where God has said, here's who I am, here's who you are, and we're like, okay, but I need this new thing, I need something different, I need something more. And God actually knows that about us, and he wants to give us more, but it's not just gonna happen in the way we think, right? It's gonna happen in the in the way we experience Him. And Paul's gonna speak to that in this text today. Information about God stagnates apart from a fresh and ongoing work of his Holy Spirit in our lives. It stagnates. We become complacent. Let me ask you just a quick question on the front end this morning. Is God an idea to understand or a person to know? God is way more than just an idea for us to understand and get our minds around. In fact, we will never get our minds around him because he's God, he's beyond our comprehension. And Paul lays that out in this amazing text. But he is a person to know, not a human being to know, but a God who is a person who we can actually interact with personally. And I need that, you need that. God does not want us to simply know about him, he wants us to know him. And that's a profound truth that we as Christ followers need to meditate on and we need to realize. God doesn't want us just to acknowledge truths about him, but to actually know him and to come to believe those things personally in our lives. This means we need personal revelation of him, far more than we need an explanation of him. I love to teach. I love teaching God's word, it's fun. There's amazing things I find every time I go to the word. It's it's exciting to see new facets of the word and see different things when I understand the original Greek language or Hebrew language, if we're talking Old Testament. It's fun to see those things. It's fun to learn new aspects of the culture and the context through which these to which these particular texts were written. But guess what? We're not looking just to get excited and giddy about new things that we discover in this. We're learning to know the God who wrote these things, to actually understand and begin to somehow in a very minuscule way comprehend the greatness and the grandness of the God that we worship. He is far better than you can imagine. He is far better and more awesome than you can even begin to comprehend and understand. Do you believe that this morning? Do you believe there is more about God that is still amazing and awesome that you yet to you've yet to know and yet to learn? I believe that there is because God is not only beyond comprehension, he's just far, far, far, far bigger and greater than we can begin to imagine. And we're just barely touching the tip of the iceberg when we get into his word and we begin to experience some of the things that he's doing. So when we look at scripture, we understand that what's transforms people's lives are genuine encounters with God. Genuine, like think some of these are some of the more dramatic ones, but like Abraham. God pulls Abraham aside and he gives him this promise. He says, I'm gonna bless you, I'm gonna make you, and all the nations of the world are gonna be blessed through you, right? You're gonna have as many descendants as the sands on the shore, stars in the sky, and all the world's gonna be blessed through you. And he has this dramatic transformation uh in that moment of encountering God. How about Jacob? Can you imagine? Some of you guys maybe not be very familiar with the Bible. That's okay. But in the Old Testament, we're told that Jacob actually wrestled with God. It's an interesting thing. He wrestles with God and it changed the rest of his life, the course of his life. Moses actually met God at a burning bush in the middle of the wilderness. Okay, transformational for him, absolutely. This guy who was very timid and a little bit fearful, or a lot fearful, saying, I can't go before Pharaoh. But he has this moment where he meets God in this burning bush. How about the disciples? As we've said before, I mean, Jesus goes out and instead of picking the A team, he picks the C team or the D team and he transforms their life. These cussing fishermen become these amazing leaders in his church. God can do these things, can't he? He's amazing and how he transforms these guys' lives. Or even Saul, which we talked about last week a little bit, the guy who wrote this particular letter that we're right that we're reading, uh, Saul, who had a road to Damascus experience. Now, not every person in this room may have had some sort of sort of dramatic experience like that, but throughout the Bible, we see that when you encounter God, you will never be the same. That he transforms us, he changes, and that's a revelation of him that God graciously gave these people. And God has a desire to reveal himself to you. He has a desire to reveal himself to you. And in fact, when you are going through difficulty and trial in particular, when you are suffering, what you need is not so much an answer about why, but you need to know the who. Who is in control, who's in charge, who is with you in the suffering. We need more than uh an explanation, we need a revelation of God Himself in our lives, don't we? And we're gonna talk again some to that end today. So, what do you do when you find yourself moving towards indifference? What do you guys do when you're struggling to be excited about God? When you're struggling to feel like there's really anything worthwhile about going to a church gathering or spending time with your small group and being stirred for God, or maybe even the songs are just kind of like, ah, you know, sang these before. Maybe you read the Bible and you're just like, I'm just not getting anything out of it. What do you do in those kind of moments? What do you do when you become complacent in your relationship with God and actually you're more excited about your sports team you're following than Jesus? What happens when you're more excited about your work or about earning money or going on a vacation than you are about God, the God of the universe, who created you and knows you? What do you do in those moments? Maybe you're like, well, is that a problem? You know, it's like, hey, listen, God is better than anything and everything you can experience in this life. Don't believe me? I just dare you to just talk to God and ask him to reveal himself to you. Just to show you. In fact, anything in this life we experience that's good is only his grace and his goodness. And it's designed to point us to him because he's even better than those things. They're just little tastes, little shadows foreshadows of his goodness and his grace. And so in our lives, what do you do? Well, what does Paul do? Paul just gave us one of the most amazing 202-word sentences, okay, about what God has done for us. Choosing us before the foundations of the world were even laid, before you were born, knowing what you would do, knowing what I would do, choosing us, adopting us, redeeming us, Christ giving his life to redeem us, to pay the price, to purchase us, sealing us by his Holy Spirit. And Paul, because he knows humanity, he knows that he just gave them this reminder of this gospel that's just cosmic, that's just absolutely mind-blowing, that's mysterious and beautiful and beyond comprehension and full, but he gives us these words chosen, adopted, redeemed, and sealed. And then what does he do? He breaks out in prayer. Now, when you pray for people, or when you pray at church, or when you pray in your small group, or you pray over your meals, or you pray in your your life before bed, uh, what are some of the things that you typically pray for? I would dare say that much of our prayer is consumed with praying for sickness, praying for comfort, praying for provision like food to eat and clothes to wear and money to pay the bills, right? Are those good prayers to pray? Absolutely. The scripture says that it's okay to pray. Our Father in heaven, he loves to bless his children, he provides, doesn't he? And we read last year we went through the Sermon on the Mount, we talked about God cares. If he cares for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, he cares about us. He cares about our reality right now and the needs. But guess what? If that's all we pray for, is just for the stuff that we need right now, I actually believe we are missing out on experiencing the goodness and the grace of God as He intends us to. Notice what Paul prays for. I'm not condemning you if you pray for those things. I'm telling you, I'm calling you to start praying for some bigger things, some grander things. Because in the midst of all of those needs, guess what? There is a God who is faithful, who loves you, and who wants to minister to you personally. Have you ever gotten frustrated at God when He didn't deliver on those practical things? It may be because He's trying to say, listen, what you need is you need me more than those things. Maybe what you need is more than just the basic necessities of life. Maybe what you need, again, is an experience and encounter with the God who made you, loves you, and will give you a transformed perspective perspective, a picture of what really your life is all about and who you really are, what really matters in the whole scheme of things. So Paul says as he begins this passage today, he says, I've heard about your faith in the Lord and your love for all the saints. I've heard about your faith in the Lord and your love for all the saints. Uh that's what every church should be known by. That we are faithful in Christ, that we have faith in Jesus Christ, okay? Not just faith in religion, not faith in our church, faith in Jesus Christ. That's what draws us together, right? And he says, Your love for all the saints. There's a vertical and then there's a horizontal, that we love people. And the only way we're able to actually love people, because people are annoying. Amen? The only way we actually love people is because we have a connection with God first that gives us this capacity to receive love from Him and to be able to love from a supernatural place of knowing. Like, okay, God, you love me and I'm anointing to you, so now I can love these people that are annoying to me, right? I'm joking, but I'm not, because the truth is that the only way you can truly love people is to first receive the love that God has for us. Alright? Now, that said, Paul says, I've heard about these things, but then he begins in prayer. And it says, uh, Paul prays that the church at Ephesus would have the supernatural ability to know God. The supernatural ability to know God. He says this in verse 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. What is most important in our lives? Well, in order to answer what's most important in our lives, we have to ask the question: why are we here? What were we ultimately made for? Were we made to just simply live, enjoy as much as possible, make a good living, um, you know, have a family, and then die? Actually, did you know that all of us were here created for God's glory and his fame, his praise, and it's in knowing him that we actually experience the consummation of that purpose. It's in knowing him personally that we actually get to engage in what we were created to do. Okay? So the focus of Paul's prayer is that these people would know God, and in the text, that literally in the original language, it's this idea of knowing God progressively, knowing God better and better and better and better. You know what our lifelong goal as Christ followers is? To know God better and better and better and better. We say that it's important that we know God, but as we've already mentioned this morning, we will never know the fullness of God this side of heaven. That's why heaven's gonna be absolutely amazing one day because we're gonna actually see things more clearly. In fact, Paul says, he says, we see things dimly right now, but one day we'll see it clearly. We'll actually get to see and behold God and his goodness and his holiness and his awesomeness, and it's gonna be incredible. It's gonna be amazing. Now, that said, um, J.I. Packer, in his book, Knowing God, he says this about this knowledge of God and why it's so important. He says, we are cruel to ourselves if we think, if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul. Wow, you could just end right there. J.I. just kind of sticking it to us, right? In love. But if we go through this life and we don't know the God who made us, we could totally miss out. We could totally miss the purpose that we're here. But thankfully, many of us in this room today, we know God. Not perfectly, but we know him, and we know that we have a bigger purpose, a transcendent cause for which we are living. To know him, to know him. Salvation, the initial work and the ongoing work is all about knowing God more and more, better and better. John 17, verse 3 says it this way This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent, Jesus Christ. You know what God wants for you and he wants for me? He wants us to know him. He wants us to know him. Now, quick question. This fits with this, so just hang with me for a second. Would you want to go to heaven if God wasn't there? Some of you are like, I think so. I don't remember what's the alternative, right? Listen, let me tell you, the goal of heaven is not so that you get your own cloud with your golden fleece diaper and a harp, okay? You're the goal of heaven is actually to be with the one who made us, to know him fully, to know him. The truth of the matter is that what makes heaven worth going to one day when we die is that God is there. And to be to be fully in his presence and to know him. As followers of Jesus, we know that the goal of our lives, the end of this thing is to know our God. To know him. He made us for that end. If we just do church stuff and we seek to be good people, yet we don't know God better, we're missing the whole point. God doesn't want people to just show up to church and be try to be good people, just try to be better versions of ourselves. He brought us from death to life so that we could know him forever. It's an awesome thought. And so, in that, we could have good doctrine, we could have good theology, but that's not ultimately going to get us in the kingdom of heaven. One of the most interesting passages in the entire New Testament to me personally, John chapter 5, where Jesus is talking to these spiritual leaders. And in John chapter 5, Jesus says something very profound there. He tells these Pharisees, these religious leaders, these ones who were like the top-tier religious folks of his day, he says to them, He says, You pour over the scriptures. You guys, these people knew the scriptures. They had memorized them from the time they were very young. They knew most of the whole entire Old Testament. In fact, to be a religious leader in that day, you had to basically have memorized the whole Old Testament. And he says, you look for life in them, but it's not there because the life is in who? Christ. Knowing Christ. What I'm saying to you this morning is Jesus in his own words said, just knowing the Bible, just knowing scripture, just doing the religious stuff is not enough. It's knowing him personally, it's knowing him in a right relationship. And that relationship is only, again, available to us and restored through the person of Jesus Himself. So Paul, he goes on to say, not only do I pray that you would know God better and better, but I want you to know a few things that are so significant to knowing God, so significant to the ministry that God has for us, so significant to the life that he wants us to live, okay? First, he says this: I want you to know the hope of his calling. The hope of his calling. Um, we are hope-based creatures, aren't we? If you want to uh really evaluate humanity, you could probably say that we uh our fuel is hope. Hope in a better situation, hope in better circumstances. That's why we always say, I can't wait until dot dot dot. And we're always saying that, right? We talk to little kids and it's like, I can't wait till this, I can't wait till that, I can't wait till this. We train them from the time they're very young to always be like thinking about what could happen, what should happen. Um, and and the reality is that we have all these possibilities in front of us, and that's just part of the way, again, that we're made as human beings. But we are hope-based creatures. And that's why when we lose all hope, what happens? We die. We just lose hope. We just we just lose hope, and we're like, I'm done. I don't have any, there's not any uh things to live for. But listen, God says to us, I have given you a hope. A hope, a transcendent hope. In fact, in the Bible, we see over and over and over how that God reminds us that God is not talking to us about wishful thinking when he says hope. He's talking about confidence in promises that he's made. There's a big difference, right? There's a lot of things in your life where you have wishful thinking. In the faith, in the Christian faith, following Jesus, we can have confidence in the promises of our God, that he will always deliver. Now, it may not be what you think he's gonna deliver. Make sure you don't put your promises in God's mouth. Right? Because some of us put God's, we put our own promises in God's mouth, and then we're mad at him for not doing what we thought he should do. That's playing God. But God will always deliver the promises that have come from his mouth. And we can be confident in that today. In that, in fact, um, we see how, again, um, and our hope-based uh realities, we are motivated by that or we're demotivated by that. Now, understanding again how the human heart works on this, it doesn't take much, but if you if you've been around little kids who have to eat a meal that they don't want to eat, we understand this. Okay, we understand how this works. Because this happens fairly often in the shock house. If you were to come and sit down at our table in our dining room, uh and we serve something, and my kids know that they're like they this might sound harsh. We kind of say, well, you can have one thing that you don't you can say no to, everything else you have to eat, right? So certain meals, um, they're like, oh, this is my thing tonight, I don't have to eat that one. Um, but everything else they have to eat, right? Now, what's amazing to you about kids, and and I'm sure there's adults in here too that are this way, but kids is that they can say, I'm not hungry at all until the dessert comes out. Right? So, what we've learned is if we're eating a meal, kids, you can plug your ears. Um, now if we're eating a meal and and we want we want them to eat the mill, guess what? We can put a motivation in front of them. We can put hope in front of them. And that hope might come in the form of bluebell ice cream. Cookie two step is my favorite, but that's one of the ones. So basically, if we say, hey, look, if you eat your food, then you get to have ice cream. Now, the hope in that ice cream motivates them and they gobble it down. Right? Now, here's the truth. In our lives, when we lose sight of what we have coming, when we lose sight of what we have in Christ, then we lose hope. But when we put our eyes and we say, oh, wait, this life, this is the milk, that's the dessert. It's coming. And we begin to live with hope again. And it's not like mom and dad are gonna pull a dirty trick on us and say, Well, you ate it, but you didn't eat quite enough, or whoops, we're out of ice cream, or uh, not before bed. God isn't playing tricks with us. He says to us, Hey, I have this ready for you. In fact, he says, I go and prepare a place for you. I've gone and prepared a place for you so that where I am you can be also. And so we have hope, even in the face of difficulties and hardships and circumstances. This life is a vapor. It is a breath on a cold morning. It is like grass that comes up and it withers under the hot Texas sun. But our eternity with our God is forever, and it will last. And that's where we put our true hope, right? That has been given to us in Christ. Listen, our hope is in God, and that God is a God again of promises, not just possibilities. Listen to Romans 15, 13. It's one of my favorite verses, especially when people are struggling, going through difficulty, battling depression. Says, now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Supernatural hope. God is the God of all hope, and he fills us with hope by his spirit. That thing that seals us, that thing that was a deposit for our adoption that will ultimately deliver, we are given hope in Christ. The second thing, I have to move on, that he says is I don't want you just to know the hope of his calling, but the riches of his inheritance. The riches of his inheritance. Now, my mind immediately goes to, oh yeah, like we get to inherit eternal life. We get to inherit uh all these great things and all these great blessings of God. And that's that's actually good, and it is true that we do inherit things when we come become one of God's children. But I want you to know that our big brother Jesus, I don't know if you think about it this way, but our big brother Jesus, if you're in Christ and you're part of the family, he's actually excited about the fact that you and I are his inheritance. That actually what he did on the cross is he purchased us, and that God is actually excited about the fact that one day we're gonna be with him. That he's actually looking forward to the day that we will all be together in the great family reunion, and we get to celebrate that we are part of this amazing, again, diverse global family of God. I hope that that encourages you this morning. I hope that that amps you this morning because here's the truth. I still don't think that most of us in this room actually believe that God loves us. I don't. I still don't think that we in this room actually believe that God likes us and cares about us. I still think that we have many of us in our picture in our mind, maybe it became from an earthly parent, maybe it came from a religious environment we were in, maybe it came from our own self-condemnation, the enemy whispering in us in our ear, we still don't completely know that God actually loves us. And I'm telling you, this is huge because your whole life for you as a human being is a quest to be loved, to be accepted, to be approved of. And when we begin to understand that the God who made us and knows every detail about us, including those dirty thoughts that run through our minds, including the messiness that we make, including the doubts that we have, including the sinful rebellion that still plagues us, and he says, I still love you and I still choose you, it begins to transform the way we live. It begins to change the way that we see our lives. It begins to change, as I said last week, our willingness to surrender to him. Like to actually believe that God is good and he loves us, and so therefore, our lives we can lay our finances and our marriage and our kids before him and say, God, they're yours. I surrender. But as long as we think that God doesn't love us or that he's not loving, then we cling to everything. We try to control it. Like, I can't let God get a hold of that. He might mess it up. Right? Am I getting too honest? That God, if I let you have that, I don't, man, I don't know if I can trust your heart with that. Listen, we have a Father who loves us. He loves us. And he sees us as an inheritance. He sees us as a gift. He sees us as a blessing. Some of you need to sit down with someone this week and say, I'm just really struggling to believe that God loves me. Get honest. Would you pray for that I would believe that I actually am loved by my Heavenly Father? Listen, do we even begin to understand what Christ did on the cross? I I don't. I'm not, I've been studying this all my life. You know the beauty of the gospel, the beauty of our salvation is that it's easy enough for a child to understand, but it's more complicated and beautiful and complex enough that we'll spend our entire lives and never figure it out. The best theologian on this planet, whoever that might be, it's still baffling to really stop and to peer into the gospel and to consider what Christ has done. Yet we can receive by faith this gift that He gives us. We have an inheritance. But not only that, the last thing that Paul says is he says, I want you not to know just the hope of the calling or the riches of the inheritance, but the matchlessness of his power. Our God's power is unmatched. And you're like, this is one of those moments where if you've grown up in church or you've been around church for a little while, like, yep, got it. God's powerful. Right? Oh, yes, he's omnipotent. Listen, our God is a powerful God. Now you understand why Paul said, I'm praying that you have the spiritual eyes and ears to see and to hear this truth and to receive it, not just here, but here. God is matchless in his power. The immeasurable greatness of his power to us who believe is what he says in the text. According to the working of his vast strength. Paul says his power is incomparable. He says it's provided to those what? Who believe. Who believe. One of the reasons you may not be experiencing the power of God in your life personally is because you still don't even believe he's actually all that powerful. Powerful for what? Powerful to change hardened hearts. Maybe your own, maybe your spouse, maybe your kids, maybe a family member who's really, really, really hurtful to you right now? Do you believe that God is powerful? Do you believe that God can change circumstances and situations? Do you believe that God can take whatever issue you're facing that may seem like a mountain and there is no way around it that God can move it? And do you also believe that God can sustain you and strengthen you if he doesn't choose to move that mountain? God is powerful. Paul says here, just practically, he shows us just how powerful God is. He gives us three ways that Jesus Christ is powerful, that God is powerful. He says in verse 20, he demonstrated this power in the Messiah by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens. You want to know where Jesus is right now? He's on his throne. In the midst of the chaos of our world, in the midst of the injustice, in the midst of the difficulty and the trial, in the midst of the political unrest and wars and natural disasters, Jesus Christ is on his throne. He's sovereign over all things. He is not freaking out. He's not uncomfortable. He's not anxious. He is over all things. He is in charge. He raised Christ from the dead, is what it says. That means that your greatest enemy and my greatest enemy has been defeated in Christ. We only preach this at Easter a lot of times. We should preach it every day. We really should. Your greatest enemy, death, has been defeated in Christ. He is more powerful than death, right? And isn't it interesting that in order to defeat death, Jesus didn't uh exert power simply by saying, death, stop. Jesus actually died. And he was saying, even in that, that the greatest thing that can overcome all powers and authorities in this life and in the next is the power of his love. That Jesus Christ would lay his very life down. Isn't it interesting that his power, in his power, he gave it up so that we could then experience his power? So Jesus Christ, he was raised from the grave, he was raised, and now is seated in the heavenlies. Not only that, but these people in Ephesus, probably more than we in Austin, are this way. Um, these people in Ephesus, they were pretty spiritual people. They worshiped a lot of gods, uh, varieties of gods, and so they they had this idea because um they understood that there was there was spiritual things happening around them. Because I don't know if you know this or not, maybe this sounds weird to you, but all other gods besides our God is actually the embodiment of a demon. And so there are demons, there are demonic works in our world. If you've ever been overseas on a mission trip, you've experienced this firsthand, maybe more than you do here. But there's demonic work, there's demonic power that's going on. And this book of Ephesians is going to speak to that. In fact, Ephesians chapter 6 tells us our war is really not against flesh and blood, but against what? Powers that are in these heavenly realms where they're invisible. And what I'm saying to you this morning is that Jesus is powerful over all those things, he's powerful over every authority. In fact, he says it in verse 21 far above every ruler and authority, power, dominion, and every title given, not only in this age, but also in the one that came to come. Jesus is powerful. And some of you just need to rest in his power today. Man, you are doing a lot of work in your own power. And you're wondering, why is there not change? Why is there not growth? Why is there not because your power is insufficient to the task, but God's power is sufficient. In fact, God's power is made perfect in our weakness. Isn't that good? And finally, we see he's reigning over his people, his church. It says in verse 22, he put everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church. You want to know who owns the church and who's in charge of the church? It's the pastor, right? It's the one who preaches the sermons. That's that's who's in charge of the church, right? No. That's silly. There's only one head, his name is Jesus, and everybody else's body, including me, including the elders, including anybody who stands up and represents him. It is Jesus that's the head of the church. It's his church. It belongs to him. And he's building it. So we can trust him with his church. We can trust him with his people. We can trust him with our own lives. And so we are told that Jesus is powerful over all things, that he is the head. And the rest of this book of Ephesians is going to continue to build on this idea. This is why we are not just passive participants. We don't just show up, eat our popcorn, and listen to the sermon. We are actively participating in the kingdom of God. We're active participants because we're part of this body and we all have a role to play. And I don't just mean like on Sunday mornings on a ministry team. In all of life, you have a role to play. To make Christ known, to make the one who is the head, who's the authority over all things, who has chosen us, adopted us, redeemed us, and sealed us to make him known in our neighborhood, in our workplace. So God wants us to participate. And he's given us a command. He's given us a commission. He said, Go into all the world and what? Make disciples. That's what we should be doing with our lives. He didn't say go into all the world and be really good people. Go into all the world and, you know, like manage your money well. Go into all the world and love your family well. Okay, those are good things, but what he told us to do is to go into all the world and make disciples. And some of those other things can be support to that. But those in of themselves can't be the end-all-be-all. There's a bigger goal than those things. Does that make sense? When I'm raising my kids, I'm parenting my kids. It's not just so that people go, man, you're a good dad. Whew, you did a good job raising those kids. Listen, the bigger goal is I'm to make disciples of my kids, to help them see their God-given purpose. And so that they would then make disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples, that we would continue to see multiplication of the gospel, the good news of Christ. That more and more people would know God. It's bigger than just simply getting our kids to behave. Or having a marriage where we just get along. Or just not overspending our money. It's about making disciples. Our head has given us that instruction. Jesus is the head, he's over the church. So to mature as a disciple of Jesus requires consistent personal interaction with God and his people so that we might be filled with him more and more and more. In verse 23, he says, which is his body, the church, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way. This morning, let me just challenge you. If we are going to be filled with God, we have to be emptied of self. If we are going to be filled with God, we have to be emptied of self. And some of us this morning, this afternoon now, we're so full of ourselves, there's no room for God in our life. And God's saying to us, I want to fill you with myself. I want you to experience my power. I want you to experience my goodness, my grace, my joy, my peace, my love. But you're so full of yourself. Isn't it interesting? Jesus said that when we lose our lives, we actually find it. That we actually find life when we lose it. Because He is life. If you want to know how to do this, it's real simple. We simply say to God, God, please help me to stop being all about me and help me to be all about you in childlike faith. He's not looking for complicated prayers. He's looking for simple childlike faith to say, God, I need you because I live my life for myself 99.9% of the time, apart from your grace and your mercy and your spirit. God, show me who you are. Reveal yourself to me. We need consistent interaction with Him. When we have conversations with God, we will have encounters with God. If you're not praying, if I'm not praying, why would we expect to have regular encounters with God? If prayer is simply something that we do formally before mealtime or in certain windows of time, but rather than an ongoing conversation and dialogue with the God who loves us and made us, then we are not going to have the encounters with God that He wants for us to have. But we also need God's people. We're a part of this church. We should have interactions regularly with people who are Christ's followers, believers. Yes, I understand that it's inconvenient. Yes, that I understand that we know we want friends until they're the kind of friends that get in our business. I know we want friends until they're the kind of friends that actually have needs that we feel like, oh man, that's gonna require my time. It's gonna require my energy. But we're a part of the church and we get to participate in God's work. And so we're gonna need regular interaction with people to show us where we need more of Christ, where we need more of Him to fill us in our deficiencies, insufficiencies. Based on Paul's prayer today, based on what he says in the text, if you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're not a follower of God, if you wouldn't say you've actually submitted and surrendered your life to Jesus and received by faith the gift of salvation, if you've never done that, then my simple encouragement to you this morning is would you just pray the prayer, God, if you are real, would you reveal yourself to me? And if you are real, help me to follow you. Help me to trust you. And if you are a follower of Jesus, if you have given your life to him, if you've received the gift of his salvation, would you just simply pray, God, this morning, would you make it more real than it's ever been? Would you awaken my heart? Because I'm just kind of stale. I'm just kind of complacent right now. I'm just going through the motions. I don't want to just know about you, I want to know you. Can we pray that for each other? Can we pray that for ourselves? The Christian life is way more awesome than what we're experiencing, or at least a lot of us. I think one of the reasons, I've said this before, one of the reasons men are bored with church is because the kind of version of the Christian life that they're experiencing is not adventurous at all. It's show up to church, sing some songs, hear some sermons, all right, go try to be a good guy all week. All right, come back, do it again. Listen, the Christian life is being filled with the fullness of God in all of life and experiencing the joy and the peace and the purpose of God. Do you want to be a part of that? Do you want to experience that? I pray that you would have the eyes to see and the ears to hear God. That he would reveal himself to you. That he would show you that he is better than your beloved sports team. He's better than your hobbies. He's better than your job. He's better than the best day you've ever had. He is better. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much that you are a gracious father. Thank you that you meet us right where we are. Thank you, God, that today, even when we come into this room and we just kind of start to go through the motions. Thank you, God, that you stir us, that by your spirit, that this work is supernatural this morning, that it's not just us being here in this room doing some religious things, but it is your spirit that stirs us to have fresh ability to see and to hear and to experience personally your love. God, I pray for those who've disconnected ourselves from community, who've disconnected ourselves from your word, who've disconnected ourselves from you by not ever praying and never actually talking to you, God. I pray that today it would be a fresh start, it'd be a fresh day. It would be a moment for us in our lives where we would say, Jesus, I don't want to just make it through life. I don't want to just survive. I don't want to just go through this process of I've accepted you my Savior. I'm going to go to heaven. And so just from now, I just want to live my best life until I get there. God, I pray that right now we would we would experience your kingdom coming in our hearts today. God, I pray right now for all of us in this room, God, would you please grace us with your empowering presence and remind us that you are a powerful, awesome God who has given us hope and who has given us an inheritance and who has given us an unlimited capacity to be made new, to be resurrected, to be changed. Give us that perspective today, please, Father. We ask for that in your name, Jesus. Amen. As we wrap up today, we say this just to give us instruction as we move forward. I want to invite you to respond. Uh, to respond in a couple different ways. One, uh, you can respond simply by sitting and being quiet, listening to the lyrics that are being sung, or just talking to the Lord and saying, God, what do you want me to do with this personally? How do you want me to respond today, God? Um, His Spirit will speak to you if you ask that question. Uh secondly, maybe today you um you know you need to know more about Jesus. You have been a part of church services before. Uh, maybe this is one of your first times, I don't know, but you know you'd like to know more about Jesus. Then today, maybe you just say, like I said earlier, reveal yourself to me, Father. Reveal yourself to you, God, if you're real, and then respond to what he says to you. I would I would encourage you and invite you to give your life to him. Stop living apart from the one who made you. Um also say to you, if you want to take communion, we have communion available every single week here. And we take communion together as a remembrance, like Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me, that we would remember his body broken, his blood shed. If you're not a Christ follower, if you're not a if you've not surrendered your life to Jesus, then we ask that you not take communion because it's not helpful. It's not actually meaningful. But if you are a Christ follower, that you would take a minute to reflect and say, is there anything in my heart, God, that I need to make right, that I need to uh own, that I need to confess, that I need to turn from, and then go take communion. I encourage you to take it with a family member or a friend and remind each other that we are God's loved children because of Christ, okay? If you need prayer, there'll be some folks at the back of the room that could pray with you, pray for you. Um, not in condemnation, but as just a desire to like build you up, to pray over you, that God would strengthen you and empower you, okay? Let's be people who don't just talk about God, but obey Him, follow Him, surrender to Him, worship Him. Okay? Let's do that together this morning.