Knowing and Growing (Ephesians 1:15-23)

Ephesians chapter 1, starting in verse 15.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I never stop giving thanks for you all as I remember you in my prayers.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.

He exercised his power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him as his right hand in the heavens, far above every ruler in authority, power, and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

And he subjected everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your word.

Thank you that is living and active.

I thank you that is the compass by which we guide all things, Lord.

And I ask that as we study your word, you would fill me with your spirit to teach rightly, that you would fill the hearers with your spirit if they know you to discern and of what is of you and apply, and that ultimately that we would draw closer to you as a result today.

In your name.

Amen.

Alright, go ahead and have a seat.

So, Ephesians, as we are continuing forward, something that is really, really, really important to remember, especially as we are studying today, Paul is speaking to followers of Jesus in this area.

Followers of Jesus.

How do we know this?

Well, first of all, his introduction says to the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.

But as he continues what we went over last week, he talks about the promises that they have.

We see that in verse 13 they were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when they heard the word of truth.

And so we know that the people to whom Paul is addressing are currently already followers of Jesus.

That'll matter in a moment.

But as he's continuing forward, in this section, we get a little bit of his introduction here, and we get a little bit of a turn that's kind of showing a lot of what is going to be coming in this book, which is great.

There is a lot of encouragement in Ephesians, there is a lot of challenge and exhortation to grow in Ephesians, to follow to follow more in the footsteps of Jesus.

And so, as we are going through here, we can start in verse 15.

This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I never stop giving thanks for you all as I remember you in my prayers.

So here, Paul is thanking the Lord for the fruit that he sees in their life, for the evidence he sees in their life as followers of Jesus.

Their faith in the Lord Jesus, their love for all the saints.

They are exhibiting life in him.

And Paul is praising God for that.

You're all going probably being like, yeah, duh, I understand that.

This will make sense in a moment why this matters.

He is praising them and praising God for the fruit and the life that he already sees in them as followers of Jesus.

What is that?

That is their faith in the Lord, their love for all the saints.

Both the vertical and the horizontal showing fruit in these believers.

He doesn't end the book there, though.

That would have actually been the shortest sentence Paul has ever given in the Bible.

Some of these sentences in here, it's like, number one, that's like this long of a sentence.

Number two, that's this long of a fragment of a sentence.

Well, but it'll be fun to write.

But with that, he is giving thanks for the life and the fruit that he sees.

And then he's going to transition here in 17, I pray.

There's going to be two in 17 and 18, I pray this.

Now, why is this important?

Because he is praising them for the fruit he sees in their life, and then he's going to pray that they grow.

This is important because both of these things are important in the life of the believer.

It is when uh Pastor Chris went through the intro of this book, he talked about how there are lots of encouragement and there may be some challenges to grow and everything in between.

And this is really, really important because it's easy to have the mindset of I'm a follower of Jesus, I have accepted him, I have the fruit of that in my life, and that's it.

And now I'm basically in spiritual topperware, waiting for eternity, just waiting for that to happen.

There's a little more to that.

He wants us to grow.

And sometimes those things are pitted against each other.

To where if you uh are calling someone to grow, it can people be like, well, that sounds like legalism.

It's like, no, I'm not telling you that you're saved if you grow these ways.

I'm not saying you have to do these things in order to be a Christian.

I'm saying because you are a follower of Jesus, he wants you to grow healthy.

Better to give you a visual of this.

I want to introduce you to one of our family members.

This is Sir Isaac Newton.

Sir Isaac Newton.

I don't know where that name came from.

I wasn't home when it happened, but there we go.

We also have a plant named Madame Curie, and she's a little less healthy, but it could be the radiation.

But with that, here is Sir Isaac Newton.

Here he is in February.

Here he is in June.

Now I ask you, was he dead in February?

No.

No.

He's alive, he still has leaves, he but in February there's less sun.

It turns out we had to move him to a different spot.

We had to give him some food, we had to do these different things.

Here he is in June.

Is he less alive now than he was in February?

No.

He's not less alive.

But he is healthier, to be sure.

If you could give a plant CPR, my wife would have on a regular basis.

Basically, there are those things of like, I know you love this plant, but we also have to take care of our biological children as well.

So with that in mind, just because he is alive does not, I say he, he uh is alive, does not mean that it does not have an opportunity to grow healthier, more vibrant, and more um fruitful in that way.

That's important because we sit there and we go, well, yeah, duh, I know that.

Of course we do that.

But do we really live that way?

Do we really think that?

We sit there and we go, okay, we have Jesus, which is true.

That is the only means to salvation.

The only way to salvation, the only way to be made right with God is through faith in Jesus, in his substitutionary atonement on the cross.

And then he desired us for to be healthier, which is good as well as called sanctification.

We're gonna see some of that in this book.

He's gonna we're gonna see lots of uh good reminders and lots of good challenges.

So, having that in mind, Paul is giving thanks for the fruit he sees in their life.

And now he's going to pray for more growth, for more fruitfulness, for more nice shiny green leaves.

He needs a bigger pot, that's not the point.

So, we bought the pot, we haven't bought the soil yet.

So, okay, with that in mind, he starts in verse 17.

I pray.

What does he pray for them?

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father.

Now that's very verbose, but we're in Ephesus, which is like idle opolis.

Lots of foreign deities worship there.

Paul is very specifically saying, God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father.

There is no misunderstanding who is uh the God he is speaking of here.

And he prays that God would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

He is praying that God would give them the spirit.

Some verses, some versions, translations say the spirit, some say a spirit.

Which one is it?

Yes.

So it is, as I see, in this way, the spirit, the Holy Spirit, working on our spirit, bearing fruit for wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

So either or, it's okay for both.

So regardless, this we the Father gives the Spirit.

He already gave them the Spirit in verse 13 as a sealed and promised down payment.

So it's not like they don't have him and he is handing it to them now.

They already have the Holy Spirit.

So at best, this is an extra outpouring for this purpose and for the purpose of their spirit growing as well.

Of what?

Of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

We're going to talk about knowledge a little bit, but before we do that, wisdom.

What is wisdom?

Best description I've heard is wisdom is the application of knowledge.

It's not an esoteric.

I have gathered this discrete information and I have this wisdom that I can now impart to you that you don't possibly have access to, but I do, and so let me instruct you in that.

Here's the best way that I can uh put it IKEA.

IKEA furniture.

Knowledge are the 25,000 particle board pieces and little turnie screws and all these, like the little all those toggles and all that stuff.

Wisdom are the tools and the instructions of turning all those different pieces into furniture.

So, the knowledge are all those little pieces.

Wisdom is how to actually make that useful.

We'll talk about that more in a second, but that is wisdom, and then of revelation.

When we think of revelation, as good Christians, we think, oh, revelation, like the book of Revelation, that's talking about the future and the apocalypse and the end of the world as we know it.

No.

Revelation, it just simply means uncovering something that is hidden, being or not evident, being made evident, being visible, being revealed even.

And so with that in mind, he is praying for them to have wisdom, knowledge applied, and revelation, a uncovering of something that they have not yet understood, in the knowledge of him.

The knowledge of him.

We have a word knowledge in English, right?

That's just knowledge.

There's a lot of nuance in that, even in the English language.

Uh depending on potentially, let's hit just broad brush stereotypes.

Uh, knowledge for an older generation may apply to experience, things you have learned from doing something for a lot of time.

Expertise.

For a young generation, knowledge could be something you learned from a YouTube video.

There's a very big difference of understanding, just that one word.

And so there are multiple words for knowledge in Greek, because this is what Greek is what this is written in originally as well.

And so we have three main ones here that we'll put up on the slide here.

Number one, there's gnosko.

I say gnosko, you say don't care, and that's pretty much where we're at with that.

That's an knowing by experiencing.

Experiential knowledge.

The best way that I can uh describe this is when my kids were babies and not yet walking.

What is the method by which they learned or understood information?

Putting things in their mouth.

Or putting, huh, look at that.

Everything has to go with that.

I we actually have a, we had like full-on high noon standoffs with one of our kids where they would look at us, and we would look at them, and that child would start madly crawling for the fuzzy thing on the carpet, hoping to put it in that person's mouth before we could get to them and not do that.

So, experiential knowledge, experiencing it in that way.

There's also Ido, which is knowing by seeing and perceiving and analyzing.

You can look at something and understand it.

You can perceive it that way.

Both of those are good.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, but both of those are necessary for a healthy follower of Jesus.

There is the experiencing, and there's also the perceiving and analyzing.

You need both of those things in order to be healthy.

We do not want you, as adults, be in a situation where we have to put everything in our mouth to understand it.

However, if you have your favorite meal in front of you, does it do you any good to look at it and go, that tastes good?

That is good food.

I can tell you, I can perceive by the flavoring, by the cooking, that that is good stuff.

Put the food in your mouth.

It's good to experience.

In the same way, we want to be able to both perceive and experience.

You need both of those kinds of knowing in order to grow, because that leads to what uh they would call ultimately the apex of that, which is epe gnosco, which is epe upon ultimate uber knowledge.

Thorough and accurate knowledge and understanding recognition.

One is experiencing, one is perceiving, and one as a result is thorough and accurate familiarity and knowledge and understanding.

I promise you that I am more familiar in my understanding of my wife than any of you are.

That comes from being married for a number of years, from living together for that whole time, from knowing and dating beforehand, all of that.

And that requires both that interaction and also studying and perceiving and understanding that how that works.

So that results in epignosco, and that is what we see here in the knowledge of him.

That was a whole long, roundabout way of getting to understand that knowledge isn't just knowing about God.

When he says, I pray the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, Paul is praying that they would have a mastery understanding of God.

He wants them to grow in that way so that they are not just familiar with God, so they don't just perceive him, but that they are very familiar, thoroughly, and understanding.

How do they get that?

Going back to the beginning of verse 17, I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him.

Knowing God comes from God revealing Himself to us.

It's not an esoteric knowledge, it's not a deep analysis and study apart from him.

It is being with him, walking with him, perceiving, experiencing, knowing.

Now, why do I make a big deal out of this?

Because one of the things that we grow in, and hopefully growing in this, is the knowledge of him.

He is responsible for giving us the means of wisdom and revelation.

We must be willing to receive that knowledge and information and wisdom and grow as a result.

And like I said, there's a weird culture that we can run into where knowledge is bad, that God is just an experience thing, you can only really experience him, you can't know him, you can't grow in that way, can't reveal himself in that way, ignorance is next to godliness, this kind of idea.

And it's just this weird thing of like he wants us to grow in the knowledge and familiarity and understanding of him, both in experiencing and perceiving and studying him.

So, knowing is not bad.

Continuing forward, we'll see more of that in verse 18.

Not only did he pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of him.

Verse 18, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know.

Okay.

The heart, the eyes of your heart, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.

Enlightened, illuminated, light shining on something where light normally isn't.

I'm gonna tell you something.

Mind-blowing.

When it's dark, it's hard to see.

I know that by experience and perception.

And when light is shown on something, you can see it and perceive it and understand it.

So he is praying that the eyes of their heart may be enlightened, that light would be shown on the eyes of their heart.

The metaphor.

Sounds like a weird like picture out of like Ezekiel or something.

You have a heart covered with eyes, but he is hoping that this illumination would cause them to know.

Something that I um a really good way to put this uh that David Gusig says is too many Christian hearts have no eyes.

Places where they gain real knowledge and understanding.

Too many Christian eyes have no heart.

God wants both to be combined in us.

May we have hearts that see and grow and know.

May we have eyes that also experience and understand in that way.

Together.

Soft hearts and sanctified brains working together to for what purpose?

To know God more.

Not to know us more, we'll talk about that in a moment, to know God more.

So I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know.

Now, if we go back to the knowing slide, there is that second one, knowing by seeing and perceiving, the idol.

That is the knowledge he's talking about here.

Doesn't it make sense that he's saying, I hope that the eyes of your heart would be illuminated so that you could see and perceive something?

Makes sense, that the light would come on so you can go, oh, hey, I know what that is.

Maybe you guys are much more mature, I know you're more mature than I am, but in this way, everything's creepy in the dark.

There's nothing worse than being the person who has to at night like turn off all the lights and lock all the doors by yourself.

I don't care what building it is, it's creepy.

You know, and with that in mind, when the light comes on, it ain't creepy.

And that is the cool thing with this is that he just wants enlightened eyes of the heart so that they would know, they would see, they would perceive what?

What would they be knowing and seeing and perceiving?

He's gonna do a pattern here of three things.

Best way I could do this is to break it up and box it so that we can see what the different pieces of it are.

So I have a slide for that.

It's all colorful.

So three things.

So that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.

So there's a what, there's a who and a what.

First, what is it?

I pray your eyes may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of his calling.

Hope is an eager expectation, is a looking ahead.

The Greek hope here is not a kid on Christmas going, gosh, I really hope I get that thing.

It's an anticipation.

A looking ahead for something that you are persuaded is there.

And what is it that's there?

His calling.

Who's calling?

His.

Yeah.

Good.

We make this so complicated.

And it becomes such a scary word, and it becomes such a big crazy thing.

And I understand why.

I totally understand why.

But how do I know that I've been called by God?

Because I follow him.

And that's awesome.

That doesn't mean that the person next to me who doesn't follow God has not been called by him.

That could be a not yet.

We don't know.

God knows, and so I'm gonna let him figure that out, and that's awesome.

But what that does is produce hope in us.

Paul wants the Ephesian believers to have opened and illuminated hearts and eyes so they would know the hope of his calling.

Looking forward to the fact that God has called us out of darkness into light.

Also, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints?

We talked in the introduction a couple weeks ago, this idea of the riches that we have in Jesus, how loaded we are in him.

I think he's fine with me saying this.

When uh Pastor Chris, that my son would say is fine with this, when Pastor Chris talked about uh the riches and like, would you have you ever thought would your life be different if you were had grew up incredibly wealthy?

Weirdly, my son turned, leaned over and says, then I would have a suit, finally.

I'm like, that's what you went with?

That's your big dream?

Okay, I would not have gone with that.

So with that in mind, the riches, the wealth.

The wealth of what?

The wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints.

So the wealth of inheritance, whose inheritance?

His.

Again.

Of his glorious inheritance in the saints.

At the beginning of this book, we saw the inheritance in verse 11 that we have received.

Here we see the other side of that deal and the inheritance that God has received.

And what is that?

Us! That's pretty cool.

How do I know that that's a thing?

How do I know that that's the thing that is a plausible thing with him?

All the way back in Deuteronomy 32, 9, he says, like the Lord's portion is his people.

Jacob his own inheritance.

It is not stretching credulity to see that the Lord's portion, his inheritance, is his people.

And so, as followers of Jesus, what God gets out of the deal is us.

I think that's a ripoff.

At least for me, for myself.

God doesn't seem to think so.

Isn't that cool?

Isn't that amazing that the God of the universe doesn't sit there and go, oh man, I really got taken in this deal.

I gave him my son as a sacrifice.

I gave him the death and resurrection of that.

I gave him for I gave them forgiveness, and what I got out of this was them.

He seems to be okay with it.

Are we okay with him being okay with that?

Can we accept that?

That is wonderful to hear that that is the case.

And then third, was the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.

So, immeasurable greatness.

Greatness cannot be measured.

That's how big God's greatness is.

Can you measure it?

No.

Why?

Because it's immeasurable.

And that power, whose power?

His power.

Toward us who believe.

We are so rich.

And Paul here is asking, praying that the Ephesian believers would have the eyes of their heart enlightened through the work of the Spirit, so that they would deeper grow in the revelation and knowledge of God, that they would grasp and perceive the hope of his calling, the wealth of his inheritance, the greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.

That's cool.

He's not sitting there going, I hope that God opens your eyes so that you may know your most authentic self.

So that you may live your best life.

Turns out that's actually true, the best life is in Jesus.

But with that, he's telling them, I hope that you can grow and know God better.

And know how good he is toward us.

Because that is what brings about health and life and fruitfulness.

So, with that in mind, what is this power he speaks of?

Let's continue in verse 20.

He, God, exercised this power in Christ.

And he did it in four ways here.

So we have a slide for that.

I was into colors this week.

He exercised this power in Christ.

Number one, by raising him from the dead.

Show hands who has the intrinsic power within themselves to raise people from the dead.

Anybody in this room?

Just in and of themselves?

No?

No?

Okay.

Only God is able to do that.

We see him, his spirit, working through apostles in the book of Acts.

Just have that happen.

Well, we're back in the Old Testament, in the prophets, for that to happen.

But ultimately, the power of life is God's, God's alone.

He gave us the breath of life.

He can revoke that at any time.

So that is his authority and his authority alone.

What kind of power does our God have?

He has power over life and death, and he raised Jesus from the dead.

What else did he do?

He sat him at his right hand in the heavens.

He established him at his right hand in the position of authority in heaven.

We spent a whole book, the Gospel of John, looking at God's kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Jesus being revealed here.

It is far beyond earth, although that includes earth.

He sits in authority in the heavens, far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

I think that's pretty all-encompassing.

Like that is like airtight lawyer speak right there for Paul.

Everything, any power, any authority, anywhere, past, present, future, Jesus is far above it.

Not slightly above it, but far.

And again, I ask you: who has the authority to establish that?

God and nobody else.

Although we do this in our hearts on a regular basis, in practicality, we can't sit there and tell God, you know what?

I think it's about time for me to sit on that throne.

God?

Can I get up there?

No.

He can't, only God has the ability to do that, and God has chosen to put Jesus in a position of authority far above every rule and authority, power, dominion.

And we see in Ephesians 6.12, these powers identified as spiritual powers and authority.

So things that we don't even fully grasp or comprehend are far beneath Jesus' feet.

What else did he do?

He subjected everything under his feet.

So it's not just that he put Jesus up here, he put everything else below Jesus' feet.

There is no friction, there is no conflict.

It's not that there's God and then God and then you have Jesus and his sibling authorities who constantly bicker and want their screen time first.

Is that my life only?

But with that, there's no hierarchy here except Jesus and everything else.

What else did he do?

He appointed him as head over everything for the church, which is his body.

The fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

He appointed Jesus to be the head over the church, which is his body.

How many of you have your head attached to your body?

Alright, one person said coffee.

That's good.

So it's an attach-there is a connection there and an attachment there.

Funny thing.

If the body removes itself from the head, how does that go for the body?

Doesn't.

This is kind of an interesting thing when we look in Revelation to the Church of Ephesus, when he's saying, you do all of these things super well and you don't tolerate these things, but you've left your first love.

It's a good example of removing yourself from the head and pretending that you're still living.

I don't recommend that.

But the cool thing with that is if Jesus is the head of the church, and we are his body, and he is seated at the right hand of God, far above all powers, principalities, authorities, and we are connected to the head, that's a really good place to be sitting, right?

If everything is subjected under his feet and we are his body, where does that put us?

Connected to him.

That's the right answer.

And that's all that matters, is ultimately, so therefore, this is an amazing level of riches is that by being connected to Jesus as he is the head of the church, and we are part of the body, which is the church, we are put in a position where our head has power and authority over everything, past, present, future.

Isn't that awesome?

Paul's going to talk more later in this book about the head and the body church, how that works.

And so I'm not going to go into that here because well, I don't got time, that's why.

But with that, there is an important uh establishing more information of that.

But this is what's so cool is he's telling them I want you guys to grow.

I am so happy that you are alive, and I see the fruit of you being alive, flourishing alive.

And I want you to grow even more.

Your January, Sir Isaac Newton.

Wants you to be June, Sir Isaac Newton, and beyond.

And the people who are just listening to this are like, what the heck is he talking about?

With that whole thing.

What does that look like?

How do we do that?

How do we do him?

We remain connected to Jesus.

We allow his spirit to guide us through his word to give us wisdom, that application of knowledge, for him to open our eyes so that we would know more about him.

Now, why is this important?

Well, we're gonna get in uh probably two chapters, I believe it is, into the mystery of God.

The mystery and revelation of that, which, spoiler alert, is just simply that God has chosen to save both Jew and Gentile.

That is the super Cliff Notes version, but that was pretty revolutionary back in that time.

And so, with that, he is asking that God would continue to open their eyes so that they would grow, so that their brains would be engaged, not remaining at this level of just putting everything in their mouth to understand it, but that they would see and perceive and then apply knowledge of him.

That's where fruitfulness comes from, is knowledge of him, is realizing how rich we are, because he has called us as followers of Jesus.

We are his inheritance as followers of Jesus.

His power is at work toward us.

Number one, in the raising of Jesus from the dead, so that we could actually be made right with him through faith in Jesus, but then also as we are a part of his body, the part of the church, where God is established far above every power and authority.

And so when we remain in him, we are set eternally.

Doesn't mean things are gonna go smoothly, for actually promised suffering and hardship and tribulation and persecution, because we live in a fallen world and we still have uh struggle with sin with that.

Doesn't mean things are gonna be perfect, but ultimately in the eternal landscape, we are set.

And that should spill out of us in joy, in hope, because of the riches that we have in him.

Isn't that cool?

So awesome.

So, how secure we are in him as well?

I don't want to go too far deep into this, but if he's called us, if we are part of his body, everything is far below him, everything he is above, what's gonna steal us from him?

What could, as we saw in the gospel, what could snatch us out of God's hand?

Nothing.

Nothing, which is so cool.

So the best thing we can do is not run away from him, but with that in mind, we are safe in him, and he loves us, and so we are safe with him as well.

Isn't that cool?

This is a weird chapter in that it's largely the continuing of the introduction of this letter.

And so we see Paul's desire here is for them to, number one, he's affirming and praising the growth that he sees in them, the life that he sees in them, the fruit that he sees in them.

And then as believers, he wants them to grow.

He wants them to mature in their knowledge of him and their understanding of him and their grasp of the wealth of the riches we have in him.

And we're gonna see that play out in the rest of the book, but ultimately, may we not only praise him for all that he does, the fact he finds us worthy as his inheritance.

Not because of anything great about us, but because he loves us.

And that is amazing.

But then also, may we uh accept growth, may we not reject this gift as we continue through this book.

I'm sure there are things that will continue to challenge us to grow more and more and more like him, that will encourage us of the fruit that we are that we are already bearing fruit.

But then may we just hold tight to the head, may we function as a functional body, the body of Christ, the church.

If your body starts fighting itself, at best awkward, at worst unhealthy.

And so, with that in mind, these are all different things we will continue to explore through this book.

But our big takeaway, we are loaded in him.

May we continue to understand better the loadedness that we have in him and fall more and more in love with him as a result.

Let's pray.

Oh Lord, I thank you so much for your goodness in all things.

I thank you that you are so deeply in love with us, not in a weird, squishy way, but rather in a way that is a commitment that we know that you are with us in all things, that your power works toward us to be connected to you.

I thank you so much that you are the head, Jesus, over all things, all powers and dominions.

That we can rest in you, that we can hope in you, we can feel secure in that.

I ask that that security would lead to more growth, not as a way to prove our connection to you, but rather as a joyful outpouring and as a natural byproduct.

May we never be challenged to grow for the purpose of trying to earn our salvation.

Our salvation is only found in Jesus.

Faith in Him, confession and belief.

May we instead be quickened to draw close to you, to cling to you as our head, and to fall more in love with you.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.