Apocalypse Now: Part 8- The Prayer

Welcome to the River City Church podcast and a message by our

lead pastor, Jason Powers. Our prayer is that this message

would inspire and encourage you, build your faith and point you

to the life changing love of Jesus.

May you enjoy the goodness of God as you follow Him today.

I want to begin with our confession.

We're going to actually wrap up the first half of Ephesians

today. Somebody's excited and that's

good. You know, we've talked about the

first half really really of the letter.

Paul really lays down the theological foundation of what's

going to come next. And I just want to again, thank

you. Like I acknowledge like it's

been heavy lifting. We've been digging through some

stuff. It's not always comfortable,

it's not always easy, but we're getting into the good stuff.

So I just want to thank you for continuing to come, continuing

to press in. We're going to wrap up the first

half today, which again with again, it's good news and it's

exciting, but we begin with our confession and our confession is

just the truth that we tell about the reality that we live

in. And so our confession, as his

church is we are badly broken. Yes, you are.

Grace and peace to you last. Week as Johnny kind of moved

into chapter 3, he started he said really it's like this

interlude. Paul began to pray for the

church. He began to pray for the

Ephesians, but then he's as he started to praise like did you

hear that I was in jail. I want to tell you about me

being in jail because the idea of him being in jail has been

difficult, right? Like you can imagine if somebody

had come to you and then started talking about all the things

that God was doing and God in their life and all these changes

and then you're a while ago like he's a.

Criminal. He's a criminal.

Well, that would maybe cast a shadow on it.

What? Paul says is things aren't what

they seem. And what we said is Paul's

ability to see this, where he talks about like this prison,

these chains that I'm in, it's actually God's presence.

It's actually God's goodness what allowed him to see this,

What we've been calling since the beginning, the apocalypse.

An apocalypse is not like mushroom clouds on the horizon.

The apocalypse is a revelation. It's the open secret.

It's the pulling back, the falling off of the scales.

It's the ability to see reality as it is.

Reality as it's gathered around the throne of Jesus, the throne

of God where Jesus is seated at the right hand.

And what Paul has been saying kind of over and over throughout

is that. We're seated there as well.

That's an actual reality that we can experience now and not fully

now. And so this apocalypse, this

reality that Paul saw of God on the throne, Jesus risen and

resurrected in his church, reigning with him without

division, without separation. That's what enabled Paul to stay

grounded when many, me included, would turn back.

I know for me it's a hard thing to just go like man, like I'll

serve you Jesus and I like, and it's easy to go now, like I'll

give everything for you. But when they come start

throwing the cuffs on, maybe it changes.

I mean when it gets. Really, really difficult.

We wonder how would we endure? How would we hold on to that?

But what Paul shows us is that when we align correctly with

reality, God is our ultimate reality.

Jesus is resurrected Son, risen and seated at the right hand of

Father. That's where ultimate reality

and powers. And when we engage in that and

when we begin to live out that truth and that reality, like

Johnny says, it makes us humble, is purposeful, it makes us

confident, and it connects us with this power, which is his

Holy Spirit. O next week we're going to see

real practical. Lots of ways over the next

several weeks of what that looks like.

But today I want us to not rush past what Paul started last

week. Last week, Paul started to pray

for the Ephesians before he started talking about his rap

sheet, right? He started talking about about

praying, right? And he started to pray with all

of this insight behind him, right?

And it's funny, if you look in the Greek at the first 3

chapters of Ephesians, it's like this structure right where he

sets up this point, the the chapter one begins with a prayer

and it ends. With a prayer it begins.

With all these things that he shows us, he wraps back up and

underneath it all is this reality that God has been making

through Jesus, through the cross, a new humanity.

But we're not separated and divided by the things that we

think separate us and divide us. And the reason we keep coming

back to this, you know, Paul went over it and over it, and we

are really kind of slowing down and dialing in on this and

really focusing in like a laser. Because my belief is that you

want this. You're here today on a Sunday

morning. You got this is first service

for crying out loud, right? Like, I mean, you got up, you

got the kids ready, you came here.

I believe that you absolutely want this.

And also, I believe that it eludes most of us.

Me included, right? I have to acknowledge I'm weak

towards temptation. It's not hard to tempt me to do

things. It's not hard to get me to pay

attention to the demands of my flesh, Things that I want to

make me feel good or make me hide from the pain.

I am weak towards those things. But the problem is when I give

in to my desires, what my desires do is make me an enemy

of you eventually, right? Because what I want is something

that ultimately you or someone else has.

And so my inability to stand up towards temptation, it creates

separation and division. In the world, we'll have moments

of spiritual vitality. Have you ever had that?

Or you just wake up and you're like, this is it, I may never

sin again? They've seen the Lord high and

lifted up. And that is so good for like 14

seconds. Then a kid runs in the room

like, no, and you're running after him and you want to fight

him, right? And you're like, I don't think.

Jesus would do that. I have these moments of great

spiritual intensity followed by what seems like long seasons of

wilderness, doesn't it, where we pray and it seems like the

ceiling catches everything and bounces it off.

And what happens then is we begin to compartmentalize our

lives. We just go know the, the, the

spiritual part works here in church.

But man, what does that have to do with my marriage?

Like marriage is just getting along and figuring it out how to

go. What does that?

What does that have to do with my job, with my work, with my

money? And so we build these

compartments in our life, sacred and secular and God's stuff and

human stuff, and we let God handle the God stuff, but we

want to handle the human stuff. And we just wonder, why doesn't

that work? We believe that we're saved by

grace. You believe this.

We know what Ephesians 289 tells us.

For by grace, you're saved through faith.

And this is not on yourself. It's a gift.

We know this. We know that we're saved by

grace. And yet we root ourselves in

culture. We turn on the TV, we go to

places with, tell us that our value is in our performance.

And So what happens is we believe that sure, maybe we're

saved by grace, but we live down here by work.

And so we walk around here, rooted and overwhelmed by shame

and guilt and fear and anxiety. Is it just me?

Am I the only one? One more good.

I feel better. We're driven to consume.

We turn on the TV and every advertisement tells us that

we're one thing short. We're about to be in the holiday

season where every good husband must put a red bow on a Lexus

for his spouse, right? Only then will we be OK.

But the thing that we get after we consume, right?

Like when we when we buy the car, the new car, the bigger

house, the new outfit, we take the trip, we go to the thing, we

do the stuff. And what we realize is that more

always wants more. And so the more that I get, the

more that I'm driven to consume, the emptier my life gets.

And it just looks more like chaos and chaos and chaos

instead of peace. We know we heard a couple weeks

ago Johnny said that we are unconditioned, that we are

unconditioned. He loves us without a condition.

He just comes to us. But we're still anxious and we.

Want to root our identity and all kinds of things in the place

that we live or the people that we love or wealth or image.

And what Paul tells us is that these fears, as real as they are

in our life, they're opposed to the reality seated at the right

hand of Father. This revelation that Paul is

about to pray for his church is a prayer for us because there

are many things about the Ephesian church that were very

different from us, but there are also many things that were the

same. They were still people that

lived in a world dominated by the powers, not the powers

family, but by these dark forces that would draw us away from the

truth and away from the light. And so in light of this, in

light of a church. Striving, desiring, wanting to

see what God has for them and yet unable to follow it out and

to walk it out just like us. Paul praise this Ephesians

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 starting in verse 14 for this reason and that's one

of those words like therefore or so that right where we just want

to make sure that we go back and we and we look at all of the

things because of what Paul's seen in his his apocalypse for

that reason, because he knows what God is doing.

I bend my knees before the Father from whom every family in

heaven and on earth derives his name.

Paul says. I've experienced God's work.

And So what I do is in these moments when I face the things,

I bend my knee. I bow my knees.

It's a picture of submission, and it's a picture of humility.

And again, notice how he identifies this person to whom

he bows his knee. He calls him a what Father

before God was anything he was a father before he created the

heavens and the earth before he was just before he made the son

before he divided the day and night.

He was the father of Jesus, which means that loving his

children is the most natural and inescapable aspect of his life.

But what he says is he says he's he been sends these prayers up

to the father from who every family gets his name.

This ability to name things is a picture of authority.

Now what we see is God. Tells Adam in the Garden of Eden

to go what? Name the animals, right?

So you can imagine Adam standing there and say go, that's an

aardvark, that is an anteater, that is a duck, right?

Like all of these things. And that is a reflection of

God's command, Adam to go have dominion over the animals.

Adam didn't get the name day and night.

Adam didn't get to name sun and moon and stars.

God named those because God has authority.

So when it says, we pray to the. Father, we see his.

Character, he says, pray to the Father.

From whom every family gets its name, We.

See his authority. But what's interesting here,

right, is because one of the things that we've been talking

about is how God does tears down these walls, right?

Like there's no division between Jews and Gentiles, right?

Between, you know, them and us. But what another division that

we seem to miss, it seems to show up here is it says every

family in heaven and on earth. So we understand that down here,

whether you're black or white, whether you are rich or poor,

whether you live in Asia or Europe, that we all derive our

names from him, our identities from who.

He is, he tells us, who we. Are and how He created us?

But we find that that's not only true on earth, but also in

heaven. Listen to Psalm 89.

This is the Psalm. This is way back in the Old

Testament. He's getting a picture and I a

glimpse into heaven, right So I'm 89 verse 5.

The heavens will praise your wonders Lord your faithfulness.

Also listen in the assembly of the holy ones, this is a picture

into the heavens where God is seated on his throne of these

surrounded by these holy ones, these heavens.

For who in the skies, right? Talking about the heavens, for

who in the skies is comparable to the Lord?

Who among the sons of the mighty?

So if you kind of look for that phrase, that's a weird one,

right? Sons of the mighty Some

translations say the sons of God that takes us all the way back,

like to Genesis 6. Right when these sons of God and

the daughters of mankind, God greatly feared in the counsel of

the holy ones, and awesome above all, those who are around him.

Lord God of armies, who is like you, mighty Lord, your

faithfulness also surrounds you. This is a picture of the Host of

Heaven. The host that holds up in the

throne that worships the Father day and night that that are his

messengers. We read about angels and

cherubim and seraphim and what Paul calls them in Ephesians is

the families of heaven and listen, This is why this is

important, right? Because what we find about God

is this in this idea, this fatherhood is he is personal, he

is intimate. He doesn't treat you like like a

slave or a servant. He treats you and in his love

as. Family as His people and what

He's showing us is what He showed us in verse 9, Ephesians

one, verse 9, He made known to us the mystery of His will.

Mystery is not a thing that nobody can see.

The mystery now is like the open secret.

It's the thing that God had been doing for a long time, but now

everybody sees according to His good pleasure, which He said

forth in Him regarding His plan of the fullness of time.

Listen to bring all things together in Christ, things in

the heavens and things on earth. So when we read Paul praying to

this God from whom everyone derives his name, things in

heaven and things on earth, what Paul is telling us is this

summation, this bringing together.

It's already a reality. It's a.

Truth and a reality that we can live in.

And that's his prayer. He prays to the Father whom

everything bows to. And this is an important thing

because what Paul sees that we sometimes miss is there is a

person, a person, place for everything in your life.

And that place is under the heavens.

And I want to talk about now the things that threaten you, that

challenge you, that scare you, that make you afraid, that drive

you away. I want to talk about your

addiction. I want to talk about your fear.

I want to talk about your identity.

I want to talk about that thing that you lost, the daydreams,

the things that you think are gone forever.

And what I want to tell you is Paul places all of those things

under the authority of God, and what he tells you is God has the

ability to make your life exactly what he wants it.

What that means is there's no newscast identifying our enemy

that can remove what God has planned for his people.

That means the people that you're most afraid of are the

same in in the same family as the God who served.

Here's the great thing, right? When my kids start duking it out

right, I'm not powerless here. I just guess stop.

Break them up, right? Why?

Because we're all family here. And what that means is that you

serve a God who is able to do good to you in the midst of

this. That's the ultimate reality.

And so when Paul begins to pray, he's but praying things in their

proper place. And what I want you to begin

doing is to begin praying things into their proper place.

When you pray about that addiction that you haven't been

able to quit, to give up, to move past, you begin your prayer

by saying, Lord, this addiction is under your authority.

I'm struggling with it right now.

It's killing me right now. But this ultimately is under

your authority, and I am under your authority.

And if I'm under your authority, then I have the ability to walk

in or walk away from whatever it is that you tell me.

So Paul is painting this picture of a power that is derived from

the Father. So he's like, hey, and he kind

of just sets himself right. This is like Jesus.

How did Jesus teach us to pray? Our Father in heaven, hallowed

be your name, holy, powerful, set aside your Kingdom come, He

said your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So Paul begins with that focus. You are a father and you are the

father of all. And because he knows this power

that he has from Father, he begins to pray for his friends.

What does he pray for them? In verse 16, I remember where

Paul is. Paul is in prison and he knows

that his friends are going through.

He knows what they're facing. Verse 16, he says to bend my

knees in prayer, that he would grant you according to the

riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through

his Spirit in the enter in the inner self.

Paul doesn't pray to get out of prison.

I just want to leave that with you.

Paul doesn't pray for his circumstances to change.

Who doesn't pray for it to get easier for the Ephesians to

recognize him and to align with him?

We always want to align with power.

We always want to align with the one who's out of jail.

We always want to align with the one right?

Like who seems the strongest? Who seems like he's going to

fight who? Seems like he's going to win and

Paul doesn't pray that he prays for strength, for a settled

strength to reside. Where says you?

He says so that Christ may dwell in your hearts.

Now we've been doing some exegesis work, some language

work, right? Who is you in the book of

Ephesians? Y'all, all y'all.

I pray that He would settle in all y'all's heart.

He would dwell there. See, that's the problem too many

times, right? Like we get here and we hear a

message. Yeah, man, I'm going whoa.

And we run out and we get out there and there's someone out

there, right? And so like Jesus, like touches

down in our heart and he gives us his taste and he takes gives

us a glint. But then we go out and

somebody's driving too slow and they've got their carted HEB and

it's sideways in the middle of the aisle and you can't get past

it. And then you're like, Lord, I'm

taking them out, I'm getting them, right?

And he's like, and so like this piece of Jesus that we're told

can transcend every understanding, right?

Like it, it gets gets in the way.

And So what Paul's like, I pray that that kind of power would

dwell in your heart, that it would reside in your heart, that

this strength that comes from Jesus would reside not just in

your heart. The problem is if it was just

that if this was singular an individual you like, we usually

read this. I could do it in my house.

I'd prefer to do it in my house. It's so much easier to love

people. When there aren't any people

around but what Paul is praying, are you listening?

Is that in the community gathering there would be a

settled sense of Jesus's presence.

So here's the question that I'm asking you.

In times of this, does your mob make it harder or easier to

follow Jesus? Does the people with whom you

spend the most significant part of your time make it harder or

easier for you to gossip about somebody that you shouldn't?

Does your mob make it harder or easier to forgive someone who

has hurt you? Do.

They tell you. Are they the ones that are just

like? Well, I'll burn their house down

with you. Or do they look you in the eye

and say, hey, that hurt, I can tell that hurt you deeply.

I want you to know Jesus sees your pain and the path to the

goodness that he has for you is through forgiveness.

Does your mob make you more or less hopeful?

Does your mob make you more or less generous?

What Paul prays is that in the community, in the gathering of

the Saints. Wherever two or more are.

Gathered in his name. Pauls prayer is that Jesus would

dwell richly in there. That would be strengthened

inside, not external. There's different kinds of

power. There's an internal power and

there's an external power. The internal power, we praise

that you would have internal strength to deal with this,

right? The internal power is the

ability to endure. It says no matter what it says,

I'm going to come through this. I may smell like smoke when it's

done and the whole house burning down, but I'm coming through it.

And we see this in the stories of people surviving from the

Holocaust. We hear stories of triumph of

the Spirit from slavery, from all over the place.

We hear this. That's the internal strength,

the ability not to control others, but to control the self,

to continue to stay rooted and grounded.

And this is the kind of power that breeds unity.

Do you know why? Because when you hurt me, when

you display your brokenness, inevitably you display your

brokenness. Internal power is able to look

and say, for Jesus's sake, I'm not striking back.

I'm not going to return. Fight for fight, you know, I

fight all the time because we want the game to be as soon as I

get my retaliation, the game stops.

And so the hope for our world is for Christ to give the internal

fortitude to respond to retaliation with forgiveness, to

have a settled internal peace as his church.

And this doesn't work anywhere but in the church, right?

As his church to just. Say, yeah, man, they said those

things about us, what our mission is to serve them.

I find the hope and the comfort that I find in this place.

External strength is different. External wants to control

people. It wants to manipulate.

It wants to move. It wants to coerce.

That's the way that Jesus never moved.

He never fought, he never argued, He never struck back.

Says he's like a handled bruised reeds gentling Jesus in his

gentleness. He gives strength, but he gives

strength to all y'all. And I include me in that as well

because I'm part of all us, right?

And so he gives his strength, but he gives us this internal

strength to endure now until forever comes.

See, this is the big idea. God invests his spiritual

strength in the church. I want God to give me his

spiritual strength. Do you know why?

Because then I don't have to wait on all y'all.

Then I can do what I want. Then it doesn't matter what you

think. But when he gives his strength

to us, to the church, right? Because that's what he said

again, it's, it's all y'all. So here's the thing, right?

Like we go to Jesus and we go Jesus.

Please help me quit drinking. And what we wanted to do is

remove all the desires from you. Like Lord, make me not want

this. I know I've been doing this for

years and for decades, but I want to wake up tomorrow and not

desire it and not one. And we say so God, please take

this desire away. And instead what God says is go

to a A and confess to someone and tell them that you're an

alcoholic and submit yourself to A to a.

What do they call it? A who?

The higher power? Jesus.

Right now I'm talking. About your partner, your guy,

the person sponsored. It's been way too long trying to

figure that out. But you see the power, right?

Like this. Yeah, the higher power, right?

Like we acknowledge that I don't have control over this.

I can't even want to do, right? The thing that I want to do ends

up destroying everything, right? So he says, great, if you want

power, you need to go be a part of something that's bigger than

you. We call that the church, right?

And guess what? It's this church, and it's Epic

Life Church, and it's Resurrection Church and it's

Compass Church, and it's all the places where the name of Jesus

is lifted up and people are told to follow him.

The strength that you want is in here.

This on Sunday morning is not enough.

What you need is someone who's going to call you tomorrow and

go. Did you smoke today?

You did. That's OK.

We're ready to quit. Oh, did you drink today?

Oh, that's right. Hey, I saw that thing that you

posted on Facebook and you just go.

They deserved it. And you go.

They did, but you're different. You exist in a reality where

there are no walls, where there is no us and them, or there is

only life. We need the church, not just the

preaching, not just the songs. We need the gathering.

That's why it says in Hebrews, right?

Don't forsake the gathering together, a group of people who

will see you and know it, know you and look at you and remind

you who God says that you are. So this is now a cultural thing

and we talk about the church as having his spirit and his power

and his strength in in US, not just in me, but in in US.

Well that becomes a culture. Now we begin to have a culture

of spirit shaped power. And he tells them why, why this

is important, right? He's saying, hey, I hope that

you'll have this power that every time you get together,

there's a power that moves like it's and it's spiritual and it's

bigger and it's the power to overcome.

It's the power to heal. It's the power to to teach, it's

the power to do good. Verse 17, he says this so that

right? I pray that you have power so

that this is what the power is for Christ may dwell in your

hearts. Who is your all y'all?

See the hardest thing and I have to remember when I was studying

this, it took me days to make. I'm reading this like OK, power

in my heart. Yes Lord, I don't have power in

this. Like all y'all, you have the

power that I need you do. I need you.

I can't escape. From you I've tried, trust me.

You too, I know, right? Like I see the attendance

numbers, I get it, right? We know and that's OK.

But we've got to come through this reality that it's not just

what I'm attending, attending, it's who am I committed to?

It's who is working in me. Who's going to verse 17, right?

So he may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And what that means is that I believe that when I come to that

moment, I'm going to see it. When I come to that moment of

confrontation, I don't know what I'm going to say to that right

now. Because I'm not in the moment

right now, but the Spirit in me and the Spirit with me may be

able to comprehend with all the Saints.

That's all y'all. What is the width and length and

height and depth and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses

knowledge. Notice that what he says right?

I want you to know Christ's love, but Christ's love is so

big, high and wide in every direction.

It's like it's a totally unknowable, but I want you to

know it. You see what Paul's praying and

what brings all this home love, the love of Jesus.

Not a general warm feeling towards right.

Like we say love like I'm like, oh, I watched a movie and made

me feel so good and I just want to go out and let him know the

kind of love that when they're nailing him to the cross, he

says forgive them because they don't know what they're doing.

He doesn't blame them. He loves them.

So he says, I pray that you would have this power so that he

would dwell in your hearts that you may be able to comprehend,

to understand and to know this love, this kind of power, this

power to transform, this power to reveal the Father's hearts.

This kind of power should be the norm in our gatherings.

The problem is we have gotten lazy maybe with defining what

church is, and we say church is this.

But what I would say is when you run into somebody at HEB and you

know they're a believer, what I'm going to say is church is in

session and the power of God is available to you there.

Prayers offered in the HEB aisle may be some of the most powerful

prayers because they're out of this context, because you have

to have courage and bravery to bring it up because you have to

believe that prayer works. When you go to your booster club

and you find someone and you, you sit with someone who is a

follower of Jesus and you begin to pray for your students

sports, you begin to pray for your students activities.

And you gather there and you've got a group of people and you

say, hey, when it's me and two other people here and listen,

everything in you is going to. I want to go to the coach and

go, why isn't Johnny pray playing?

And I want to say stop, stop, gather with your people and pray

for a move of God. Pray for his love to be evident

in their hearts. When you go up to the school to

meet with your kids, when you go in to meet with your boss, have

somebody pray with you. Because what we're told is the

power of God resides in those moments.

And so the question is in those places, in the HEB aisle, in the

booster club, in the principal's office, at your kids school, in

the staff meeting where you are, does our behavior in those

places welcome Jesus or push them away?

And there's a couple things we know.

We were just told that every family in heaven on earth

derives their name from the Father.

So any of your behavior or any of our behaviors or perspectives

that dehumanize or minimize another soul, those are not

places where Jesus is welcome. And in fact, if those practices

and policies and behaviors, those become now things that

Jesus has to oppose, we become enemies of Christ when we

dehumanize the very ones that he's trying to love and serve

and save and call forward. So like I said earlier, is it

harder or easier to not gossip with your mob friends, right?

Is it harder or easier for you to stay sober when you're with

your people? Is it harder or easier to live

simply when you're with your people?

And I just want to introduce you a powerful cultural phrase,

right? Because what do you do when

somebody goes crazy and they does something like this?

Here's a powerful phrase. Are you ready?

Lovingly, gently, you just say this.

Oh, we don't do that here. Say it.

We don't do that here. Oh, man, you should have heard

about oh so and so man, Jason, he's the worst, terrible man.

I saw him at AGB and he was doing that and I got, that's a

terrible right. Like oh, hey man, let's.

Hey, we don't, we don't do that here.

We, we don't, we don't destroy people here.

Can I, can I pray for you? Can I love you?

Can I hurt you? Right.

We begin to create a culture where people are seen and known

and elevated. And you don't have to shame

anybody. We're not criticizing.

We just know like, hey, there's not like what you tell your kids

they're throwing balls in the house.

We don't do that here. It protects things that are

important, right? We don't do that here.

It's an invitation into a new kind of power and a new kind of

life. But again, all of this sits on

us. You only experience the fullness

of divine love when you express it freely to others.

See, I want to sit in my room and have God love me hard, fill

every hole in my soul with His love.

And what he says is, oh, I'll do that, but not in your room.

This is challenging to me because what this tells me is

that my personal devotion isn't enough.

However fiercely intense it may be, however committed, however

many times I show up here and do this and stand up and preach, my

personal devotion isn't enough. If I have my personal devotion

and I look at pictures coming out of Gaza and I just go, well,

that's fine. It's not enough.

If I'm not grieving at loss and pain and hurt and death, it's

not enough. If I tolerate prejudice in my

own life or in my own perspective, if I walk around

self-righteous and feeling like in some way, for some reason I

am more worthy or deserving of the goodness and the things that

God has for me, it's not enough. We'll know that we're in step

with the Spirit when we we choose love and service over are

you listening, winning and being right.

And what that means is that we may have to lay down some of our

priorities. We may have to lay down some of

our privileges. We may have to walk in step with

someone who is not who is not right.

And you may look at your mob and you go, no, no, my mob does not

make it easier for me. My mob makes me want to cuss

very much. And and all of the things, what

I'm not asking you to do is hate them, reject them, turn away

from them. What I am inviting is an

acknowledgement. They're walking a different

direction than you. They're going a different way

than you are. And So what you do is you begin

to love them and you begin to serve them, but you begin to

look for a group of people who will encourage you in that.

Who will help you? Walk in the strength that you

need to love that person. Well, And so I look at my friend

Jacob here, and I'm like, Jacob ain't got it, man.

Like that. We can't.

Sorry, bro. We ain't got that right, you

know, over here, right? Well, I see my friend Tony and I

just go, Hey, Tony, I need you to pray for me in my

relationship with Jacob. I want Jacob to find Jesus and I

want him to get it. And my job, I've got to love

him, but I've got to figure out kind of how to have some

boundaries in a way that loves him, but allows me to, to show

him the life and the leading and the leaning of, of Jesus, right.

And so there may be some organizational realignment that

needs to happen in your life to experience this power, to

experience this goodness. But it comes from us.

It's us. And what it looks like is what

Caitlin and Johnny talked about it last week is tables.

It's the gift of hospitality. It is practicing in our spaces,

the bringing of the church and inviting of those into it to

experience his goodness. So we're talking about now, now

a radical infusion of power into the church.

And here's why that is hard. Because now your willingness to

pursue that kind of power effects my experience of that

power. What that means is I need you.

I can't experience everything apart from you.

And so now I better not yell at you.

I better not chase you away, right?

I better not make you feel terrible about yourself because

I need you, because I want you. Because I hope that you will

come, right? And I want to say that is hard.

That's a hard thing. So notice how Paul ends now.

To him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask

or think, Paul just knows that he's made a big ask.

Paul just knows that he's just laid it all on the line.

Lord, you got to bring all this. It's got to be new power.

And it's like to him who is able to do far more than all we ask

or think according to the power that works in US.

To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to

all generations, forever and forever.

Paul's reemphasizing again, our hope isn't in ourselves.

Our hope isn't in our ability to be good.

Our hope isn't in our ability to be right.

Our hope isn't in our ability to exclude all the wrong people and

bring in the right people. That's not where our hope is.

Our hope is that God is at work in a powerful way in the

movement of this as we walk out from here and submit to each

other and love each other other and learn from each other.

Our hope isn't in US. And the question is if he's able

to do more than we ask or even think, why don't we ask for

more? Why don't we ask him to do this?

Why don't we ask him more? Make my small group the most

spiritually powerful place in this city.

I'm. Going to have to go more often

probably. That's going to be tough, so

give me the strength to go. Lord, I need your power in my

marriage, so I need you make to make me humble enough to serve

my wife, to commit to her and to love her.

Paul prays that the church would be the glory of Jesus.

Tim Maki defines glory, right? That's a hard word as honor

revealed. Look around this room.

But some of you are. That's like, I mean really like

it's OK. Look around the room.

Funny looking group of people, huh?

This is what the almighty all wise God decided was going to be

the gotcha or the spiritual powers that divide us.

See, the powers out there want to tell you that you are as good

as your job. You know how?

You know how Jesus answers that? No, you're accepted here.

They want to tell you you're as good as your ability to do good.

And you know what Jesus says? You're not good.

I love you. I can transform you.

I can change you. So why don't we ask for more?

Paul prays for honor for the church.

Not that things would be easier. Isn't that wild?

Yeah. It's interesting to talk about

easy things in the church because there's a lot about this

church. It's not easy.

Our chairs, Right, Man, they're terrible.

I know your back hurts right now.

I can feel it. I can see it on your faces.

Right. We're too crowded here.

We're sitting on each other's laps, standing in the back.

You got Baby Land back there, like just stacked up, right?

We don't have enough room in children's ministry.

You got to go up the stairs and down the stairs.

And we got a nice play space outside.

That's good, right? But it's hard to go to church

here. And yet almost 100 people this

year have found Jesus and have started to follow him.

And listen, those people weren't baptized.

Remember, baptized means to immerse.

Those people weren't baptized into Johnny, they weren't

baptized into Jesus name. Do you know why people find

Jesus here? Because the Spirit and the power

of God dwells in us. When people come here, they feel

loved. That's you and the purpose and

the plan is to take that out. You have never encountered a

person that Jesus doesn't want to just love deeply and

passionately and powerful. You have never met a person in a

behavior system that Jesus didn't want you to give your

life to serve and to love them. You've never met that person.

And that's the apocalypse. That's the thing that Jesus,

that Paul saw, right? Christ's power on earth is

expressed in a community of committed individuals, rooted in

His love and strengthened by His Spirit.

That's what the church is. That's what we're about.

And so here's what you do. Couple things.

You ready? First thing, pray for capacity

in your life, not comfort. Pray for capacity.

Pray for the ability to endure. Pray for strength.

Pay for the ability to overwhelm.

We don't pray God get rid of the troublemakers in Washington, DC,

all right? We do that in November when we

vote. Put your vote, then get about

the business of loving and serving people.

Do your thing and then get about the place where you have access

to We pray, Lord, help me love my political enemies and

encourage others to do the same. I think more of us sometimes are

more worried about being on the wrong side of history than being

on the wrong side of Jesus. That's the wrong side to be

afraid of being on the wrong side of or something.

Pray for the capacity to love people like.

Jesus loves you. Second, pray for you, for your

community to be rooted and grounded in love.

Pray that your small group, pray that you're gathering.

Pray that your mob, that your group of people would be open to

all people and able to show them love in a way that they can

experience and know for themselves and keep Jesus's love

and power at the center of it all.

Remind each other as often as you see them, that your God and

your King is the father and power of all.

God is not a victim of your moods.

He's not a victim of sociological quirks of the

generations. He just loves and serves and

gives and he is King. Paul closes out this first half

of the book with praise and prayer the same way that he

started it. So next week we're going to get

real practical, I mean real practical about what it means to

live out this new humanity that Jesus has created.

But today I want to wrap this up as Paul did, with a prayer and

with a benediction. You close your eyes and join me

in prayer. For this reason, Father, I bend

my knees before you, the King, from whom every family in heaven

on earth derives its name. And I pray, River City, that

that God would grant you according to the riches of His

glory, that we would be strengthened with power through

His Spirit and our inner self, so that Christ may dwell in our

hearts through faith. And that we, being rooted and

grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the Saints

what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know

the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that we all

may be filled to all the fullness of God.

In the name of Jesus we pray these things.

Amen. And now I send you out the way

that Paul sent the Ephesians. And now to him who is able to do

far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according

to the power that works within us, To him be the glory in the

church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and

ever. Amen.

Thank you for joining us today. River City Church is all about

experiencing and expressing God's love in our lives and

community, and we hope that you've been able to experience

that today. As grateful as I am that you've

spent this time listening in this morning, this podcast is no

substitute for full participation in a local church.

I love it when River City people listen to other pastors, but it

is those who show up week after week, faithfully giving their

support and time and resources that make all of this possible.

If we can help you get connected to a local church, pray for you,

or support you in any way, click the link in the description and

let us know. If you'd like to financially

support the ministry of River City, click the give link on our

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don't forget to share this with your friends.

Thanks so much for listening. May the Lord bless and keep you

in all grace and peace.