Ephesians Part 5 - The Church-Displaying the Wisdom of God

Mark: It is so good to be together today. Hey, there's something I just was thinking about that I ⁓ I wanna, you know, I'm gonna be out after today for for a bit, and I was just ⁓ realizing this last week, well actually last couple weeks, Pastor Charity, isn't she amazing? Our worship pastor, she's the one who led you in worship today with the team. She has been at hope just this first week of July 20 years. Twenty years. Isn't that incredible? When I heard that, I was like, I am getting old. 20 years. My goodness. I remember when she came. And she came and originally ⁓ as she came on staff, she was one of our administrative assistants and then ⁓ administrative pastor and just kind of all different various roles. And then about seven years ago, she became our our lead worship pastor. And so ⁓ I I I just am thankful for faithful people. And she is one of those, man, what a gift she is to our church. Give her a hand one more time. I don't think she's in here yet, but if you see her, ⁓ give her a hug, thank her. If you want to give her a Pentecostal handshake, you should do that too. If you don't know what that is, you know, ask somebody who's Pentecostal around you. All right. I want to encourage you, don't miss Wednesday night. Summer celebration is gonna be so fun out in the front lawn. I remember last year we just had a blast, so I will be here for that, and then I'm leaving you. ⁓ for six weeks, but ⁓ it's gonna be such a beautiful night. Encourage you to invite somebody. Well, we are gonna continue our series on ⁓ the book of Ephesians today. ⁓ we're gonna be in Ephesians chapter three, and the last ⁓ last week we were in Ephesians chapter two, and we we worked through that over the last couple of weeks. And I just want to do just a really quick little minute or two recap of what what we hit on in these last couple of weeks, because we're we're building, as I said last week. Paul really layers, there's so many beautiful layers of richness as we as we go through this book. ⁓ but last week, Paul reminded us where every one of us began. Before Jesus, we were spiritually dead, that we were dead in our trespasses, we were dead in our sins, following the course of this world, the ways and means of the world. We were living under the kingdom of darkness. But God, who is rich in mercy, who is rich in love, He stepped into our deadness and he made us alive in Christ Jesus. That by grace we've been saved through faith. How many are thankful for the grace of God today? He stepped into our deadness, he made us alive together, all of us, with Christ. And Paul tells us that the cross didn't only reconcile us to God, but the cross actually reconciled us to one another. We spent a lot of time last week talking about what Jesus has done. In bringing Jews and Gentiles together, that Jesus has literally torn down that wall of his hostility that was between Jew and Gentile. There was an actual wall. Remember that the Gentiles had to stay far back from the temple and they couldn't go into worship. There was this wall. And and Jesus came and he literally broke that wall down. Not only between Jew and Gentile, but between every man and woman who is in Christ. Between every nation and every tribe, he broke down the wall. In him, those dividing walls of hatred, those dividing walls of hostility are gone. Whether they look like it or not, he broke them down. This means that in Jesus, we said, you have more in common with an Iranian Christian than you do with an unbelieving person who lives on your street. That's the reality of what Jesus has done. Our deepest identity is found in In him, our truest identity is found in him. And what he's done on the cross through his blood, he's made us one in him. Last week we talked about this. Paul calls this the one new man. The one new man, one new humanity. In other words, no longer strangers and aliens and and and no longer divided, but we have become one new family, fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. This is the church. I heard one amen. Thank you. And then we ended out chapter two with verse 22, which is so powerful. He says, This in him, we are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. We're being built together into the dwelling place of God by the Spirit. I want you to take a minute and I want you to just scan the room real quick. Look around the room, look at these beautiful people around. Some of you are like, I'm not turning my head. Okay, don't do it then. You're gonna miss out. Look around the room. We together are being built for something. And we also can't just look in this room. We have to actually look outside of this room to the larger body of Christ, down the road, to the to the believers down, you know, on on each part of town. And then we look even further to the believers in other nations. We are being built together for something. In other words, this is this is way bigger than just you. This is way bigger than just me. Individually. We are being built. Together into the dwelling place of God by the Spirit. You think about that. The church is not simply a gathering. If you look at this as like this is this thing I go to on a Sunday morning, you're missing it. The church is not a club, it is not just an organization that gathers each week. The church is God's dwelling place on the earth. We are God's new family. We're literally God's new family. We are a part of the family of God. We are his, we could say, I've heard this language used, his new society. His new society in which the world can begin to get a glimpse of what all of life is going to look like under the rule and reign of King Jesus one day. Family life, business, economics, practices, all of life. We are to be the beginning of the modeling of what he will ultimately one do. Are you getting that? This is big. This is big. And as difficult as it may be to actually believe when you you know you look around at at all the imperfections of the church, can we just be honest? We have a lot of imperfections. Like there, there's a lot of mess in the church. There's a lot that isn't great. But the very existence of the church is to be a sign of hope to the world. Like, I love our name. It's amazing. We are not just to be a cool name that people come in here and find hope. We're actually to display hope to the world. Our existence as fellow citizens of the body of Christ, this new society. The existence of the church is God's declaration to the world that his new creation has already begun. This is why it matters how we live. This is why it matters that we have our identity in Jesus Christ. This is why it matters how we practice our lives, how we walk out our lives, that what God has begun in his new creation people today, he is going to fulfill. When heaven and earth come together in him one day. We read that in chapter one, verse ten. That's a powerful line right there. Go back, read over it. That that in Jesus, heaven and earth are going to come together. The church is to be, we could say, a preview of the kingdom that's coming. That'll break you out of just religious routine. And this isn't a new plan. It wasn't like plan B. It's been the plan we read. His eternal purpose from the beginning. Who we are together is a foretaste of what will come when he comes. This is where chapter three picks up. And Paul doesn't start a new thought, he's still actually unpacking the same idea. Have you noticed Paul likes run-on sentences? It's like, Paul, calm the heck down a little. He's unpacking the same idea. And now he wants us to understand why. Why? Why God is building this new people and why the church matters. How many know you got to come back to the why of things? Why? Ephesians chapter three, we're gonna jump in here, verse one. It says this: for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles. And then there's a dash. 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. 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. This mystery, here's the mystery. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellows. Heirs. That's you and me. Fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Okay? So part Paul, he hardly begins his first sentence and then he interrupts himself. Do you know people like that? he says, for this reason, verse one there, for this reason, I Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, on behalf of you Gentiles, and then there's this dash, and it's almost as if. Paul gets so overwhelmed or excited by what he's about to say that he takes a 13-verse detour before he finally comes back to his prayer in verse 14, which we'll get to at the very end of today. It's almost as if he's saying, Before I pray for you, I want you to understand why the church matters. I want you to see what God has been doing from before the foundations of the world and why right now I'm suffering for it in a jail cell. And he reminds them again, as we've seen over and over, he's in prison. Okay? But notice what he says. He doesn't call himself a prisoner of Rome. He calls himself there in verse one a prisoner of Christ Jesus. A prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you. So Rome may have chained his hands, but Rome does not determine his destiny. Jesus does. And he's saying I'm exactly where Jesus has assigned me. That's a different concept for us Western Americans, because we have rights. He's saying I'm exactly where Jesus is assigned me. And then he says this in verse 13, we'll just jump to that real quick. He says, he says, So I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm suffering for you, which is for your glory. Which is for your glory. For for many people in Paul's world and in that time, being a prisoner would have likely meant falling out of God's favor. It would it would have been like God had abandoned you. That's what people would have thought. ⁓ God, he must not be the real deal. God's abandoned him. He's in prison. But Paul's not in prison because he's out of God's plan. He's in prison because he's right in the middle of God's plan and what God is doing. Sometimes we can be in a very dark place and we think, man, this is not God, God's not with me. I to tell you, you could be right in the middle of God's plan, right in the middle of a difficult thing. That's the truth. Walking in the favor of God does not mean the absence of hardship. Some difficulties are of course the result of our own choices. Amen. I like somebody said, it's always possible that we make a rod for our own backs. But many hardships and many difficulties, many, many sufferings come simply because we're faithfully following Jesus Christ. Jesus said in this world, He said, You're gonna have trouble. But take heart, because I have overcome the world. In other words, life is hard. And it's not just hard for bad people. Life can be hard for good people, the best people. They can have trouble. And there's something we need to we need to get and we need to have in us. The gospel doesn't remove conflict. In fact, oftentimes the gospel actually creates conflict. Because every time the kingdom of God advances, it pushes back the kingdom of darkness. Paul's imprisonment was actually evidence that the gospel was was advancing and the rulers and the authorities were taking notice. And that's why he's in prison. I I think of the persecuted church all over the world. We don't have a clue about that, do we? I mean, we don't. We don't have a clue about persecution. In fact, I ⁓ just a few days ago, this last week, I was listening to some stories of of some pastors from a Bible college that we support that has pastors ⁓ whose churches are in jeopardy of closing ⁓ if they don't have a biblical degree. And so I don't know if you know this, but we're supporting 10 pastors right now that their churches ⁓ would, you know, they're the threat of their churches being closed because they didn't have a degree. So we're educating pastors and keeping churches open in Africa. And we're paying for their education. Ten of them. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. And so we were talking, sitting with the president of the school and and this beautiful couple, and one of the stories that they were telling us was about one pastor in particular in northern Nigeria. And if you know anything that's going on, there there's such a great persecution happening in that area of that country. I mean, Christians are being slayed by the thousands. It's unreal what's happening. But but this particular ⁓ Nigerian pastor came under such pushback and such persecution from the local Muslim chief in his village ⁓ because of The gospel going forth. And the chief told his people, he said, I want you to silence him. I want you to silence this pastor in this church. And and and that resulted in them actually going and destroying, physically destroying the church. They literally tore this pastor's church down. Can you imagine? And it's just this powerful story. It's this amazing story, but but somehow the the chief's wife. was very, very sick, deathly sick in fact. And the pastor somehow, I don't know how this happened, pastor ended up going and praying for her in the hospital. How many know that's that's a shift on the on the way you do things. That's called blessing those who curse you. Right? And and he goes and he prays for her and she he's he he just says I'm I'm praying to a man who can heal you. And guess what? The woman was completely healed. She was on her deathbed, she's completely healed. The pastor shares Jesus with them. And long story short, we'll probably play the story here in the next bit. But the chief then has a total heart change, supplies the all the supplies that they need, he takes care of and helps the church rebuild the church. That's the kingdom of God breaking in, right? I'll tell you this: when the gospel goes forth. When the gospel advances, the rulers and the authorities take notice. Where there's a clash between kingdoms, guys, we gotta get this. There is going to be a pushback. And Paul here, he doesn't want the Ephesian believers to be discouraged or disheartened by it. He wants them to understand that he's being imprisoned because of what God is doing, and it's for their glory. In fact, his imprisonment is a sign that the gospel's going forth. That the principalities and powers had become aware that somebody was actually invading their territory. How many know that when when you start invading the territory of the kingdom of darkness, they pay attention? This is what happens when the gospel goes forth. Verse 7 Of this gospel, he says, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace. Which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, do you hear that humility in him? This grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone, everyone, what is the plan of the mystery hidden for the ages in God, who created all things? And here's where we're gonna focus in on the next two verses for our time this morning. Verse 10. So that through the church, everybody say through the church, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 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. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I'm suffering for you, which is for your glory. Father, I pray that your word would come alive in us. I pray that you would anoint me beyond my ability to communicate today. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would speak on a hundred levels right now. I you know what everyone needs to hear. And I pray that your word would go forth in power and it would awaken us. It would cause us to come alive to the gospel and it would cause our hearts to burn for Jesus our King. And I pray that in Jesus' name and everybody said, Amen. I'm Amen. I believe verses 10 and 11 that we just read are one of the highest points in the entire book about why the church exists. Now, there may be a couple moments where you're gonna be like, I feel like we're in the nosebleed section on this, but I want to tell you, we we need to get this because it's gonna empower us down here on the on the field. Okay. I want us to look again at what he just said in verse 10. He said, so that through the church, through the church, that's us, the manifold wisdom of God might now be known to the rulers and the authorities in heavenly places. Do you catch that? Paul says, through the church, not through governments, not through political movements, not through military power. Through the church. Through the church. God looked at the church in all of her weaknesses, in all of her imperfections, all of her flaws, and said, This is how I will display my wisdom. When the church is actually really being the church, guess what? Heaven watches. And guess who else watches? Hell watches. The rulers and the authorities are forced to witness the wisdom of God on display. So the church doesn't only preach the gospel to the world. Get this, this is big. The church becomes a living demonstration of. Of the wisdom of God to the powers of darkness, simply by living as the community of Jesus Christ together on the earth. This is big. This is big. We gotta get this. The vision here is this is that we would make known the manifold wisdom of God through our life together. That word manifold is it means different things, but like I as I looked it up, it was it was like brilliant. It's like the it's like the the multicolored, multi-layered wisdom of God. We display that to the rulers and the authorities. In the heavenly places. Now, my guess is that probably not many of us woke up today and were like, Praise the Lord, I get to display the manifold wisdom of God to the principalities and the powers of the air. Thank you, Lord. Did anybody okay I I I didn't either. But yet he says, this is what we're to do. This is who we're to be. So what is this wisdom? What is the wisdom that we display? There are really two competing wisdoms. There's the wisdom of the world, and then there's the wisdom of God. Right? The wisdom, the the world's wisdom is primarily built. On self-interest. Okay, this is follow me here. The world's wisdom built on self-interest. In other words, what's in it for me? Right? Like, like, how does this benefit me? That's how we get wisdom in the world. It the world's wisdom is like all about protect yourself, promote yourself, build yourself, preserve yourself. The world, the wisdom of this world says. I'm gonna take care of number one. And I'm number one. From the fall until today, the wisdom of this age has always revolved around me. It's revolved around self. But the wisdom of God is altogether different. The wisdom of God is actually cross-shaped, it's cruciform. The wisdom of God is actually altogether sacrificial. The wisdom of God isn't built on what I can gain, it's built on what glorifies the Father. Are you with me? The wisdom of this world, and we need to get this, we got to call it out, and it creeps into this. No creeps into this church. I'm sure it does. It creeps into the church so easily. But the wisdom of the world says live for yourself in the subtlest of ways. But the wisdom of God says lose your life and you'll find it. Right? Like one of the greatest enemies, I believe, of of of a believer is actually self-centeredness. And even our spirituality can become self-centered. Even like our life in church and the kingdom can be about my it can become about my breakthrough. Okay? It can become about like my blessing or my calling or my purpose or my circumstances. I'm not saying there isn't a place for these things, actually, there's Great importance in that. How many are thankful for the breakthroughs of God? I am too. How many are thankful for the blessings of God? I am too. How many are thankful for the callings of God? All of that is so important. But I I read this the other day by Tim Keller. He said it's remarkable in all of his writings. Paul's prayers for his friends contain no appeals for changes in their circumstances. And Paul's not praying to get out of jail. Paul's praying for the eternal plans of God to come forth. Right? And I think what breaks us from the stronghold looses us from this worldly wisdom. What breaks us out of self centeredness is actually becoming captivated by the eternal purposes of God. Because if our our view gets too small, life becomes just about me. It becomes about survival. It becomes about like how do I get through this week? And and there are times that, man, we just have to get through this week, right? But when your life is primarily about you, and your pr life is primarily about your story, you'll always be consumed with yourself. But when you discover that your life has actually been swept up into God's eternal story, everything changes. You begin to ask different questions. It's not not what what what do I want or how does this affect me? But but what does he want and how can my life get in line with what he wants? How can my life actually begin to display the wisdom of God? The wisdom of heaven. All right. So what is the wisdom of heaven? I think it's a it would take. A whole year to go through all of that, but James chapter 3 gives us some of what this is, and I want us to look at this. James chapter 3, verse 13 says, This who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct, let him show his works in meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy, and here it is, selfish ambition. Okay, there's that self-thing, selfish ambition. If your life is driven by your selfish ambitions, if that's what's in your heart, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, he says, even demonic. It's pretty intense, isn't it? For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vial exists. Practice. Isn't that wild? But the wisdom from above is first pure. Everybody say pure. Then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, sincere, and a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. This Is the wisdom of heaven. And this wisdom makes absolutely no sense to the rulers and the authorities of darkness in the heavenly realms. They understand, they understand the currency of power. Okay? They understand the currency of domination. They understand the currency of force and fear and violence. What they cannot comprehend is pure, peaceable, and gentle. They cannot comprehend sacrifice. They cannot comprehend humility. They cannot comprehend full of mercy. They cannot comprehend a king who conquers by dying. Okay? I want you to think about this. If you are writing the story, how would God defeat evil? Wouldn't you probably want to send fire from heaven? Some of you are looking like, no. Yes, you would. I mean think about it, wouldn't you be like, what would be effective? Let's send an army in. Like, let's display force. Wouldn't you crush your enemies with your might? That's how earthly kingdoms win. But God's kingdom. God's kingdom doesn't operate according to the wisdom of this age. In fact, God defeats evil in a way no one would have ever expected. He doesn't match their power with force, he conquers hatred with love. He lays himself down on a cross. And in the midst of the greatest violence and the greatest injustice has ever been known, he cries out actually, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. The rulers and the authorities, they thought they'd won. Think about this. When they crucified Jesus, they they thought they'd won. Think about what that all that they did, they stirred up Judas. That wasn't just Judas' own thoughts. He submitted to demonic forces. They stirred up the religious leaders. They manipulated the political powers. They inspired betrayal. They inspired injustice, hatred, ultimately the execution of the Son of God. This is the world's wisdom. That's the way the world works. From every other earthly perspective, it looked like it was over. But when Jesus cried out, it is finished, what looked like defeat was actually the wisdom of God. Was actually the wisdom of God. It was actually the greatest victory in history. How he did it. In fact, Paul says this in second, in Colossians 2, verse 15 that on the cross, it says this he Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities, and he put them to open shame by triumphing over them in Him. Come on. This is how he did it. The very instrument that Satan intended to use to destroy the Son of God became the instrument of Satan's own defeat. The cross wasn't God's backup plan. The cross was the eternal plan. It is the wisdom of God. Here's what we have to get. It hasn't changed. The cross is the wisdom of God. First Corinthians 1, if you read it, it says it's the power of God and it is the wisdom of God. The cross is the wisdom of God. We don't fight in the ways and the means of the world. We are kingdom people. We are a new society people. And now, Paul, what he's saying here is just absolutely mind blowing. He says the cross was not the actual final display of God's wisdom, the church is going to be. Think about that a minute. That through the church, now the cross displayed the wisdom of God. But now, after the cross, the church actually displays the manifold wisdom of God. That's you and me. That's us. How do we do that? We do it through the laid down life. We do it through the crucified life. I'm crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, it's Christ who lives within me. Every time forgiveness triumphs over bitterness, the wisdom of God is displayed. Every time reconciliation overcomes hostility among us. Every time believers from every race and generation and all the cultures and the backgrounds and the political opinions gather around a table because of Jesus, do you know what happens? The powers take notice. The rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places they see the wisdom of God. Do you get this? Every time you lay your offense down and you fight for unity, the wisdom of God is displayed. Every time you bless instead of retaliate, every time you bless instead of curse, every time you choose humility instead of pride, the rulers and the authorities are reminded that the wisdom of God has prevailed. They say, whoa, they're like their king. It wasn't only Jesus who displayed the wisdom of heaven. Now we get to display the wisdom of heaven. Every time somebody refuses revenge and chooses forgiveness, I'm just throwing these out here. Every time we choose to serve instead of give in to our selfish ambition, heaven sees, hell sees. The rulers and the authorities are reminded all over again the cross is won. Cross has won. Sometimes we think spiritual warfare is shouting louder. Or jumping higher. Or a dramatic spiritual encounter. And actually, I believe in all those things. Remember a couple months ago I preached a sermon actually to do those things. We talked about worship, the shouting, the Hebrew words of praise. Like we should shout. Amen? We should dance. Amen. Like all these things are so great. I am I believe in dramatic spiritual encounters. You see them all through the scripture. I believe in all that. But one of the greatest displays of spiritual warfare is a church that actually looks like Jesus. A church that actually lives like Jesus. A church that actually demonstrates who He is through our lives. A church that displays the manifold wisdom of God. A people who love Forgiveness who serve a people who lay down their lives for one another. The greatest weapon the church possesses is actually not our size, our numbers, our influence, or our programs. It is people who have embraced the wisdom of the cross because they're undefeatable, because they're dead. They're not living for them anymore. They're completely alive for the purposes of heaven. I mean, this is this is how we really live. I'm way more excited about this than maybe maybe you. I don't know. Of course, I've been sitting in this this week. This gets me burning. Church, we gotta get out of just the routine of all this. We gotta get our vision higher on the internal purposes of God. Because when we have that, it'll fuel us to live the Jesus way. It'll fuel us to be surrendered, laid down believers. For the purposes of God. Every time the rulers and the authorities, every time they see a church shaped by the cross, every time they see humble, forgiving, united, sacrificial brothers and sisters, they're confronted again and again with the victory of Jesus Christ. How incredible that we not only get to show the world who he is, but that through the church we show the rulers and the authorities in the spiritual realm who he is. So you say, What does this look like on Monday? Let's come out of the nosebleeds. What does this look like on money? What does this look like on Thursday afternoon? Every day we have the opportunity to display the wisdom of God. And every day we have the opportunity to display the wisdom of the world. That's the truth. At home, at work, finding that parking spot. Driving down the road. Right? Like every day we do. Every day. I'm gonna give you a few ideas. How do we put this in practice? How many know that it's important we actually this we're able to put something into practice that we're hearing? Here's what I want to encourage you. We tomorrow, Thursday, we choose forgiveness over offense. We're gonna get into all this in chapter four, five, and six, which are the chapters I really wanted to preach. But I'm preferring my brothers sisters. Can you tell I'm dealing with that? When I come back, I may just go back over what they missed. I'm kidding. You'll be ready to move on by then. Tomorrow when you choose forgiveness over offense. That's how this plays out. That's the wisdom of God. When you choose unity over division. So I just even ask you this, like, like how does this actually play out? How do we display it? It's not even always when we're together. Sometimes it's it's like you go into that person tomorrow that you've held something against and you making it right. That moment is a spiritual moment. Ask you to who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to let go of something to? Choosing unity over division. What what what do you need to make right? Who do you need to extend mercy to? Who do you who do you need to make peace with? Because these are the these are part of the wisdom of God. Are you following? Like one of those things that we read there in James was open to reason. That's the wisdom of God. Have you been open to reason or are you unreasonable? When you are open to reason and you pursue unity among the fellowship, what happens is the powers and the principalities they take notice of the wisdom of God. They say, Wow, we don't understand that. They never have. Here's another way on Thursday afternoon, you choose to serve over your self-interest. Men. You put your wife's needs over yours. I should have heard like at least a hundred and fifty amens. When you choose obedience over comfort and you say, Not my will, but yours be done. These are the ways in which heaven and hell witness the manifold wisdom of God through us, through the church. How many want to be a part of that kind of a church? kingdom of God is breaking in in the earth. And just as it did in Jesus, in the death and the resurrection of Jesus, it surprised everyone how he did it. And I want to tell you today, in the midst of the wisdom of the world, the church needs to surprise the world with the wisdom of God. We cannot operate in the means and the ways of the world. We are a different people. We together are citizens of a different kingdom, a different society, and we show the world who he is, and we show the spiritual realm who he is too. Man, I wanted to preach the prayer, but we don't have time. So I'm gonna read the prayer and then we're gonna pray the prayer. Are you with me? I'm gonna close with this prayer. I think is a powerful prayer for me to pray over us too. We could spend hours on this. Paul says this, for this reason. Did you notice in verse one he started out with for this reason? He's getting back to the reason. He says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father. How many know the posture of bowing your knee is surrender? I bow my knee before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth is named. That accord, this is the prayer, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. So that Christ. May dwell in your hearts through faith. That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. He says, This has got to go way beyond information. We need to know that you can go to church your whole life and not have an encounter with the love of God. He's like, I want you. It's interesting, he's praying for all these things that really are already theirs. And yet he's like, I want you to know it. No, no, no, not just know it here. I want you to encounter the love of God. this last one that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we could ask or think, according to the power of work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. And the church said, Amen. Stand with me. I'm gonna pray. We're gonna close. And if you just want to receive that prayer, I would just encourage you to lift your hands right now. I want to bless you and pray it over you, Father. In the name of Jesus, I'm coming before you. I'm not bowing right now, but I'm I'm I'm lifting my voice among the people, among your congregation, among your bride here. We're lifting our voices from every family in heaven and earth is named that according to the riches of your glory, I pray that you would grant Hope Church, everyone here, everyone in the sound of my voice, to be strengthened with power. On just lift your voices if you if you pray in the spirit, just begin to pray in spirit, just receive this that you be strengthened with power through your spirit in your inner being. I pray in the name of Jesus, Holy Spirit, strengthening right now with might all over this room, just in your inner man. Strengthened with power, the power of the Holy Spirit. I pray that that Jesus would dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in His love. I pray that there would be such a rooting and a grounding in our identity of your love that we've been adopted, that we've been chosen, that we've been redeemed, that we've been forgiven, that we've been washed by the blood of the Lamb. I pray that we would be so rooted and grounded in this love. I pray that we would have strength to comprehend. I pray that we would have the spirit of wisdom and revelation. To comprehend with all the saints, the breadth, the length, the height, the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. I pray you would take hope, church, way beyond just mental ascent. I pray you would wreck us in your love. I pray that you would wreck us in your love. I pray that as a church we would drip with the love of God. That we'd go back to our first love. I pray we'd turn from every other love and we'd go back to our first love because it's the only love that satisfies. It's the only love that opens up our heart to what we're really created to be alive for. I pray you would do this in us, God, way beyond mental ascent. I pray, Jesus. And I pray that we would be filled, I pray this over you today, that you would be filled with the fullness of God. The fullness of God. Would you just put your hand on somebody right now as we lay our hands on each other? We just ask for the fullness of God. We just ask for the fullness of God that you would be filled with the fullness of God. Holy Spirit filling right now, overflowing, filling. I thank you that the Spirit lives in every believer, but God, we're asking for an overflow. We're asking for an overflow. We're asking for such an overflow of the Spirit of God. Filled with the fullness of God. There is no end to this. And I pray that over the church today, that when we walk out of here, we'd walk in boldness, we'd walk in authority, we'd walk in and see the kingdom come and advance every step we take. I pray this in Jesus' name, full of the fullness of God. And we pray this according to your will and according to your word. And the church said together, Amen. Can we just give him one more just shout of praise this morning? Sing that charity, go ahead. Back to life. The Christ in me, for I've been born again. My heart is free, the hope of heaven before me. Hallelujah, you brought me back. Come on, lift your voice just one more time. No longer I who live with Christ, but Christ in me, for I've been born again. My heart is free, the hope of heaven before me, the lady high. ⁓ Hallelujah, you brought me back to life. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You brought me back to life. God bless you. We love you. Have an amazing afternoon. We'll see you soon.

James 3 · chapter mention James 3:13 Colossians 2:15