background for 'for this reason': Jews and Gentiles as fellow citizens, Jesus as cornerstone, God's dwelling
1 You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins,
2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;
3 among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus;
8 for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, that no one would boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
11 Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision”, (in the flesh, made by hands);
12 that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ.
14 For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition,
15 having abolished in his flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace;
16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby.
17 He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near.
18 For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,
20 being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone;
21 in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
22 in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit.
according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will
11 in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will;
the immeasurable greatness of God's power exercised in raising Jesus from the dead
18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to that working of the strength of his might
I have been crucified with Christ, the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God
20 I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. That life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This message was a close reading of Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21, the second half of a passage Pastor Van had been working toward for several weeks. He traced four things Paul prays for his readers, and then turned to the doxology at the end of the chapter to show where all four are heading.
What was said
Paul opens the prayer with "for this reason," and Pastor Van pressed on that phrase first. The reason runs back through everything in the letter so far: that we were children of wrath, excluded from Christ, but have been brought near by His blood, adopted into God's family, made alive together with Christ. Paul has piled up all of that knowledge and then, rather than leaving it there, he prays over it. The point was that knowledge without prayer has no power.
The first thing Paul prays for is the inner being, that God would strengthen it through His Spirit according to the riches of His glory. Pastor Van noted that Paul elsewhere says the outer self is wasting away while the inner self is renewed day by day, and he described people in the congregation whose bodies are failing but whose inner being is so alive they are sharing the gospel with their doctors and nurses. The "according to" matters, he said, because it connects to a pattern throughout chapters one and two where Paul keeps pointing to a limitless source, the riches of grace, the immeasurable greatness of His power.
The second thing Paul prays for is that Christ would dwell in the heart through faith. This raised an obvious question: if Christ already indwells a believer at conversion, what is Paul asking for? Pastor Van's answer was that there is a direct relationship between the strength of faith and the fullness of Christ's presence in us. He used a renovation analogy: when we are saved, God holds the deed, but there is a lifetime of rooms in us that still need Him to work through.
The third petition is for knowledge, specifically the strength to comprehend with all the saints the length and width and height and depth of Christ's love, love that surpasses knowledge. Pastor Van noted that Paul calls it a group project, something the whole church works on together, not something any one person can take in alone. He drew on the vine and branches passage from John 15 to show what being rooted in that love looks like in practice, and he connected knowledge to action, quoting James's point that hearers who do nothing with what they hear have missed something.
The fourth petition is for fullness, that we would be filled with all the fullness of God. Pastor Van described this as the destination the whole prayer has been building toward, every dimension of Christ's love filling us beyond what we can comprehend in an intellectual sense and into something experiential. He tied it back to grace: all of the strength, knowledge, and power flowing into us comes from God's undeserved favor lavished on us.
The sermon then turned to Paul's doxology. Pastor Van read "far more abundantly than all that we ask or think" and sat with the uncomfortable implication: our asking and thinking fall so far short of what God is able to do that the limitation is entirely on our side. A lack of faith, a lack of prayer, and the junk still occupying rooms in us all shrink what we receive. The church exists to glorify God, and the final phrase, "throughout all generations, forever and ever," became a direct word to everyone serving in children's and youth ministry, and a call to anyone who is not yet pouring into someone younger to find that person and start.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Pastor Van described the posture of kneeling in prayer as something that helps him physically to focus. What practices or habits help you approach prayer with intentionality, and what gets in the way?
Pastor Van talked about the pattern throughout Ephesians of Paul praying 'according to' a limitless source, and said that without God's strength in our inner being we can't do anything pleasing to Him. Where in your life right now do you most feel the need for that inner strengthening?
I've still got joy in chaos. I've got peace that makes no sense. I won't be going under.
It's like almost 800. We'll
just do an intro of this one. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to First Bee. Yeah. Love for you to stand up, and let's let's worship together.
We're glad you're here. Here's a good word from Psalm one zero three to lead us into worship. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is in with that is within me. Bless his holy name. Would you join us in singing 10,000 reasons?
Let's just pray real quick. God, we just pray for for this service, and we just pray that you would be we know that you're here. Just touch our hearts, Lord, and and, and help us to, to worship your name and remember who you are and who you are to, towards us. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.
Alright. You can have a seat.
Alright. Good morning. Welcome to First Baptist Church. So good to have you all here. So many things going on.
First of all, Juana's back tomorrow. It's our kids program here from 05:45 to 07:30PM in this big room. That's what the big circle is. Come join us for that. Secret Church is coming up too.
Van's gonna give you a little talk about that.
Good morning, everybody. Secret Church, I know we had a video play last week. You probably saw it because I think everybody was here for Easter last week. But we don't meet in secret, but there are believers. There's brothers and sisters around the world that do.
And so there's a connection to them in this. We're simulcasting this really short five, six hour message, Friday night in the fellowship hall. We're gonna meet at five, and I'm gonna cook some burgers. So I know a lot of you all have said, I wanna come. I'll be there, but I really need you to put your name on the sheet if you plan to come.
The opportunity is great for us to learn. It's almost like a little mission trip in a way. You're gonna get to see things that will open your minds to what's going on all over the world, and there's no book of Elijah in the Bible. You may have read that in the email. We are studying Elijah who is in the Bible.
Okay? So just a little clarification, but it's gonna be awesome. So come and bring your we'll have caffeine. You don't have to bring caffeine, we're super excited. Sign up sheet is on the table.
So thank you.
Nice. We look look forward to seeing you there. There is a gear swap for kids and infants, May 2. It's a big blessing to the whole community. Bring some stuff.
Drop it off there. Pick some stuff up. This is also on our website if you have any more questions. Vacation Bible School, we're looking for students to register, for volunteers to register, June twenty second through twenty fifth. It's a blast.
Even if you can only help us decorate, would you show up for that? We also need people to help decorate cookies. There's all kinds of different jobs to be a part of, which consider signing up for that. There's the volunteer sign up, and there's more information on the website. One last note, our summer challenge to move one row forward to make room for other people has begun.
If you always sit in the far back, would you consider sitting one one row further to make room for people? And squeeze together if there's a seat between you in about three minutes. A whole bunch more people are gonna come in and need a place to sit, so please don't leave any spaces between you. That'd be a big blessing to us. We're gonna bring you back with a little music.
Thanks so much.
Yeah. And if you would stand up, we'll give you an opportunity to move if you'd like to, and and say hi to your neighbor.
To Jesus and find your peace if you run down empty handed come to Jesus and find
You can have a seat for a minute.
Good morning, everybody. I'm John Hammond. I'm one of your elders here. And as we come to a time of offering, we remember that God is the giver of every good gift. He gives us life and breath and everything.
And so we give not because we're obliged to, not from compulsion, but because it's an acknowledgment that the king of kings and lord of lords has been so good good to us. Would you pray with me for a moment? Father in heaven, we we know that you're the giver of every gift. And so as we pray as we make our offering, Lord, would it be not just our money, but also, Lord, our abilities and the time that we have Lord. We ask you to help us to be generous givers because you have done so very much for us.
We pray in the name of the father, son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ is my firm foundation the rock on which I stand when everything around me shaken
Good morning again, everybody. We well, I am thirsty. What a what an awesome Sunday last Sunday was. I loved just the way that Ray put together the artwork and everything. If you hadn't seen it, go back, watch it.
But now we are picking back up from two weeks ago in Ephesians three and this this is such a I think overlooked. In my life, it's been overlooked. It's a it's Paul's prayer in Ephesians three. It's the second half verse 14 through the end of the chapter and what he prays is so rich and life giving. And it is I'm excited for us to go through it.
Blake, get the slides up there. Yeah. There we go. Alright. So here's a little overview of where we're headed.
There's two paragraphs probably broken out in your Bible that way and that's these two things here. So Paul is praying for a purpose. He's praying for our inner being and our faith, knowledge, and our filling, and there's a lot more in there than that. And he's praying for God's glorification in our prayers, in the church, and in Jesus, and for eternity. So we will start off with Paul praying for a purpose, and he says right there, for this reason, I kneel before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through 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 length and width and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Before we go further, let's let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for this prayer that Paul has prayed that we get to study today. May it shape how we pray for ourselves and for each other and and for you and for your glory, lord. I pray this morning that you open our our spiritual eyes and ears and you help us to receive knowledge and that it wouldn't just be head knowledge but it would impact our life in every way. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. Alright. So for this reason, right there in the beginning, we've gotta look back. Okay? We've gotta look back.
What reason is he talking about? If we go back to chapter two, he's talking about how we, you know, both the Jews and the Gentiles, we are no longer foreigners and strangers, but we are fellow citizens with the saints. And he he goes into a building analogy. We'll talk about a little bit where Jesus is the cornerstone and we're all being built together to be God's dwelling. And then he says in in chapter three verse one for this reason, k, and in and which is what Ray preached on a couple weeks ago, but he kind of Paul takes a rabbit trail and doesn't really finish his thought until now in verse 14 for this reason.
So they're connected. What reason is he talking about? Pretty much the whole letter. We we can just preach all of it again so we really fully understand for this reason. No.
We won't do that. But Paul is is teaching how before we were excluded from Christ, we're we were children of wrath, but now we have been brought near by his blood. Both groups, the Jews and Gentiles have access, fellow citizens, members of God's household, and then in chapter one, he says, in love, he adopted us. We are adopted into his family. We were dead and then he made us alive together with Christ.
Right? So it's all of these themes, all these reasons, and this is cool to think about. He's he's given us all this info, all this knowledge. Right? But without prayer, what power does knowledge have?
Right? So he's he's praying for us right here that we would receive this knowledge in a big way. He prays for so much here. And he says, so I kneel before the father. I love that posture.
Now if you're if you're driving down the road, you can't really kneel when you pray. Right? So am I saying, oh you must always kneel when you pray? No. That is not what we're saying.
But there is value to physically kneeling and having a posture of prayer as as it makes sense for you. For me, it's at night often, I will kneel at my bedside and pray, pray over my wife, pray whatever it is. And it just helps me physically to have that posture of prayer. So he says, I kneel before the father. So cool.
He prays for his brothers and sisters, us in the church to the father. Right? Like, the father from whom every family in heaven on and on earth is named. Like, it's a big deal who we're praying to. Like, it's God the father who named all, made all.
There's nothing made that he didn't make. Right? And then also just to point out before we get into each sub point, it's very trinitarian. This Paul, this this letter from Paul is trinitarian which means he's talking about. He's praying to the father.
He's praying about Jesus, the son. He's he's praying for the spirit to do work in us so that you see all three parts of the trinity in the prayer. Alright. So Paul prays for a purpose. He prays for our inner being.
He prays for our inner being. For this reason, I kneel before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. What is your inner being? What is that? And later in chapter four, says, don't lose heart.
Our outer self is wasting away. Our outer self is wasting away, but our inner self is being renewed day by day. So that and you remember Paul says, you know, physical training, working out, doing power cleans, that has some value, right? Has some value. But where is the priority in this prayer?
The inner being. He's he's more concerned for our inner being than our outer being. So much so, and there's folks in this room right now whose inner being I mean, sorry, whose outer being is wasting away. And it is so sad. Right?
But we don't lose hope when our outer being is wasting away and failing. In fact, I have been so encouraged by some of the people in this room that their outer being is failing, but what's their inner being doing? It's being renewed. It's so much so that they are like sharing the gospel with doctors and nurses that and it makes no sense because they're they have bad news about their outer being, but they're rejoicing about their inner being. Right?
So cool. What an opportunity that we can have with our inner being that the Lord strengthens. Strengthens. So according to what? There's this neat pattern.
And I won't I won't try not to spend too much time on this, but when he says according to the riches of his glory. So he's praying in accordance with the riches of his glory. That's limitless. There's this pattern all the way through chapter one and chapter two where he uses that language according to. He says in verse five of chapter one, according to the good pleasure of his will, huge.
According to the riches of his grace in verse seven and eight, that he lavished on us. Do you all love that word lavished? Like, when I hear the word lavish, I think about and there's gonna be food analogies in the sermon and some building analogies. So just to get you ready.
This is a
food analogy. Lauren and I, early in our marriage, we got to go on a on a date to this place called the melting pot. We all heard of the melting pot? The melting pot, you get there and there's appetizers. It's like a eight course meal.
And they have these bowls of cheese in the beginning and you're dipping all of the the food, this really great food into this cheese, and you're eating it, and they're just lavishing more food and more cheese. And then my favorite part is the end, and they bring out a fountain of chocolate. And it's literally like flowing it has a waterfall of chocolate, and you're putting your desserts in there, your strawberry or whatever, and you're just it's just lavishing this goodness all over your already good food, and you're eating it. So like, he God lavishes grace on us. He lavishes so many good things on us.
Yeah. Yes. And then at verse 11 of chapter one, according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will. That sounds huge. According to this, according to this, according to this, verse 18, he mentions the immeasurable greatness of his power.
The measurable greatness of his power in the next verse, which he exercised in Jesus raising him from the dead. Right? And then in in chapter two verse six, he mentions the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. There's an there's a pattern of this according to that Paul's praying and teaching. According to a limitless source.
A limitless source. He prays for our inner being to be strengthened with power from God by the spirit, through the spirit. Without his power in us, we can't do anything pleasing to God. Right? Yeah.
We need his strength to love him and understand him. Right? We need his strength to carry us through dark valleys. Like when our outer self is wasting away, we need his strength. We need his strength and his power to love our enemies.
That's that's not natural. We need his strength to do that. We need his strength in our inner being to be his instruments for righteousness. We need his strength in our inner being to overcome trials and temptations, to recognize where we've let the enemy have a foothold in our life and to flee from that. Right?
We need his strength to speak his word, his truth to each other and to the lost. We need his strength in our inner being for endurance in this lifelong journey to be more like him. So that's our inner being. Now he also prays for our faith that, and according to the riches of his glory, limitless, 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. By faith, he prays, Christ may dwell in your hearts.
But wait a second, That's funny. Because I thought when you're when you become a believer, he dwells in you right then. Right? So what's he praying for? He's praying for a more powerful presence in us and and somehow is tied to faith.
In Galatians two twenty, over the hill, we've been studying Galatians in chapter two verse 20. Paul says, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live, which is confusing. Right?
He just said he was dead. Now he's saying he's alive. The the old self has passed away. The new self lives. Right?
So, the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the son of God. That's Galatians two twenty. Where faith is dead, where is the presence of Christ? There's this connection between faith and our living of the life of Christ in us. Right?
There's this direct relationship. Remember back in school, you learned about the different types of relationship like a direct relationship is as this increases, this increases. Right? Yes. So y'all are with me.
Right? Alright. As faith increases, more dwelling, more of Christ in us increases. It's direct relationship. And then there's also when he speaks of this dwelling that Christ may dwell in your hearts, there's the link back to chapter two to that building analogy.
Right? Jesus is the cornerstone. All of time before and after is all pointing to Jesus. It's all about him. In verse 21, it says, in him, the whole building being put together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
In him, y'all are also being built together for God's dwelling in the spirit. A friend of mine this morning or last night, I don't remember it was dark. First Corinthians three sixteen, he just shared it with me. Just just totally random. He didn't know what we were preaching today.
First Corinthians three sixteen, do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you? Great. Yes. By faith, he powerfully works in us. We must have this great relationship so God.
We're going talking about the strengthening relationship with of our inner being. Right? And Strengthening of our inner being by the spirit. So you have that, but it's there's a connection between that and this prayer for Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith. Both of them are happening.
Both of them are being prayed for, and it makes this complete total transformation on the inside. Alright. So dwelling, a building analogy. Before Lauren and I bought our house that is back home, that's being rented out to some really lovely people. We were looking at, and she was not on the same page, but I was looking at like getting an old nasty foreclosure.
Like when you drive up and look at it, you're like, that is nasty. You know? Like a horrible house. And I went with the realtor and looked at one and I almost didn't want to go in there. It stunk.
It's it had foundation problems. It need it had moisture issues. The sheetrock was gonna need to be torn out. But I'm in construction like it just looks like another project. Right?
But when we buy the house, we need to dwell in it. So there is a conflict there. Right? Like I could manage, but you know for the betterment of my marriage, we chose not to go that route. But think about just just walk down the road a little bit with me here.
If we bought the house. K? Maybe if we weren't married. If it was just me, we'd no. We're married.
We got kids. We buy the house. We purchased it with cash. We didn't we couldn't afford that. But let's just pretend.
Right? We pay cash, and we own this nasty house. Yes. Yeah. There's a deed, it says, William Van Jones and Lauren Elise Jones own this house.
It's paid for in full. And we move in. Like, we take nasty things out and just we're in one of the rooms. K? Are y'all with me?
It needs foundation issues. You know, it needs repair on the foundation. So we start there and get that squared away, and then we we clean out, get some nastiness out of there. We start tearing sheetrock out and start hanging new sheetrock and finishing and painting and it's starting to become something. Right?
The whole time we own it. But it's starting to become something and and over a lifetime you know we have kids and we start moving into different rooms that haven't been renovated. You know, they're put on the back burner. If you're if you like to renovate yourself, you know, it might take a lifetime. So that's the analogy.
Right? In the same way, we as it is talking about him dwelling in us. Right? He purchases us day one. Boom.
He owns he the deed, if we were a house, would say covered by the blood of Jesus, redeemed. We are saved right then. But it that's not the end of the story. There's a renovation project because we look like that house, right, when we are purchased. And so as he works in us and as we pray these prayers over us that he would be in us and strengthen us, and he would just take over our inner being, and that he would dwell in our hearts through faith.
And he's working on rooms that you hadn't let him in yet. Right? Are we concerned for our personal holiness, our sanctification process as much as we're concerned for that outer being, our looks, and how much weight we can pick up. I know I keep saying that. That's obviously my struggle.
Our our our wealth or whatever the thing is, our outer being, are we concerned for our inner being as much? Are we praying for God to clean out our inner being, which is a temple? Are we praying for him to come in that temple and start flipping tables? Whoo. That sounds rough.
The tables of lust and envy misplaced priority, the love of money. Are we praying for him to do those things? I'll let you answer that. Not just to yourself. Alright.
So he prays for our knowledge. He prays for our knowledge. Verse 17, 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 length and width and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. Great ball. So you're you're praying that we can understand something that's not understandable.
Yeah. It's another building analogy too. What is the length and width and height and depth? But it's immeasurable. His love is immeasurable.
We've already talked about it. He's limitless. But the good news is, you know, it's to comprehend with all the saints. Like it's a group project. If you are like me, when you hear group projects, gives you some comfort.
You're like, oh, man. I just need to find a really smart guy or girl, and I'll just ride in that wave on the group project. That's horrible. I'm not saying you should do that, but we're all in this together. We can learn from each other.
We can see how others are strong in their inner being, and we can talk to them about that and learn from them, and we can love them, and they can love us. Like, that's that's why we meet. That's why we're a communities. We're it's all the saints. It's collective for the church.
You can't measure the love of Christ but as we grow, as he grows, our inner being by the strength he powerfully works in us, gives us, he gives sorry. As he dwells in us more powerfully by faith, we can comprehend more and more of his love as we love him and love others like he does. Right? Like there's this it's all kinda starting to build together. Right?
And then he says we're rooted and founded or rooted and grounded, rooted and founded in love. There's I was watching John Piper talk about this last week, and he pointed out rooted is like biological, a biological term. Founded is like a structural term. And we've already talked about the the structural analogy that Paul has already given with the temple and how we're all being put together. Jesus is the cornerstone.
He's dwelling in us. We've got that analogy. But what about the biological one? Jesus gives us a great analogy in John 15 when he's talking about how he is divine and we are the branches. Remember, this section is really talking about knowledge, not just not like knowledge of his love.
Okay? So in John 15, he says that he's the vine and we're the branches. We can't produce any fruit unless we remain in him. In verse five of John 15, Jesus says, the one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit because you can do nothing without me. And later in verse eight, he says, my father is glorified by this, That you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
I'm not, you know, going too far off of of love here, knowledge of love. We're getting to it. But he's saying that he's glorified, that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. And then verse nine, he says, as the father has loved me, I also have loved you. So remain in my love.
Remain in my love. And then in verse 12, there's a call to reciprocate his sacrificial love. He says, this is my command. Love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this to lay down his life for his friends, which he did for us.
We talked about it extensively last week. Right? This is my command. Again, verse 17, love one another. So again, think about this.
This is one small section scripture where we can gain knowledge about the love of God and see of an analogy, a picture of how Jesus loves us and how we can love others. There's there's endless opportunities for us to gain knowledge about his love and how we should love others. Right? But when we hear this and and have this knowledge of his love, like James says, we don't wanna just be hearers who hear. We wanna be we wanna let that change us, like bring us to action.
We want to do something about it. Knowledge that leads to action. So we must know him and abide in him to glorify him. Alright. And then for our filling, it's the fourth part of this first section.
And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Filled with all the fullness. What does that mean? I can't help but think. I I must just be all about food when I was prepping.
I can't help but think that old American pastry that's wrapped in plastic, that's yellow, it's a Twinkie, and it's what is it's filled. It is filled with this cream that is so yummy. Right? I haven't had one, I think, since I was 12. But when literally when you bite into it, I still remember.
It is filled with all the fullness. Like, it's it's just a fun picture to think about. This whole prayer is is leading to this section of fullness. Right? And we talked about all these different ways.
All of these different ways. This this length and width and height and depth of God's love filling us in every dimension with the limitless love of Christ to be filled beyond knowledge, beyond comprehension, to experiential and tangible comprehension and immersion of his love. Strength in our inner being, increasing in our faith. And then we see in back in chapter two, this this grace and love aligned. It where we have this undeserved favor and he lavishes this grace on us.
All of the goodness, this power, this knowledge, and wisdom, all of these things come from grace. Like our cup is overflowing from grace. And in chapter four of Ephesians, it's not on the slide light today. We see that there's like a maturity that's measured in the fullness in our life. So what what purpose?
It's for God to be glorified. That's the purpose of all of those things for God's glorification. Verse twenty and twenty one, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. So he's talking about Paul being glorified in our prayer and in the church and in Jesus and for eternity.
He says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think. And he here we go according to again. According to the power at work within us. This is so crazy. We don't pray or think enough, like, to even come close to what he can do for us.
Remember, he is limitless. Limitless. But we we limit ourselves. Why? What are we limiting ourselves by?
What holds us back? A lack of faith, a lack of knowledge, a lack of prayer, a lack of his dwelling in us because of the junk that we have in us. What are we lack why are we lacking? He prays for God to be glorified in the church. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.
We first be and the big corporate church exist to glorify God. So may we abide in him and bear much fruit like it says in John 15. God is glorified in his son and in his dwelling in us, the members of his body. We, the church, his bride, whom he loves, are purposed to glorify his name, to make his already great name great. That's that's our purpose.
And he prays for God to be glorified for eternity. To him, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. The third first thought that comes to my mind is for all of you in the room who take part in the children's ministry downstairs, in the youth ministry on Wednesday and Thursday night, You are taking part in these generations. Like, you are doing this.
Thank you. That's awesome. Like, you're living this out in that service. Anyone discipling someone younger than you is taking part in this. And if you don't have someone that you're discipling this younger, get after it.
Like there's so many people in here that that would love to to receive that wisdom from your life and for you to pour into them. So, find somebody to pour into that next generation. I love this church is so, we've got the whole thing. We went to a church back home and it was all young people. Yeah.
That he sent his son to provide redemption by dying for us. Amen. And in his resurrection power, those who put their faith in him are adopted into his household and we, his creation, can glorify him for all eternity. Right? Like, praise be to God that that is the reality.
Okay. We are going to shift to communion. It is communion Sunday. Go ahead and invite the elders come forward. Florine, if you wanna hit that piano.
We have the opportunity right now to glorify God and remember him in his death and in his resurrection. Right? We are gonna do things a little bit different. First, communion is for those you don't have to be a member at this church. But if you have put your faith in Jesus and follow him, this is for you.
Okay? Second, we're gonna do this a little bit different today. It's gonna blow your mind actually. We will hold the bread plate and the cup plate at the same time, and we're gonna pass it down the aisles. You will receive your bread plate, and you will take a piece of the bread and pass.
And then you can hold your bread like this or or put it on your knee, and you'll take the cup. Okay? You will receive both elements, and then we will meet back at the table and and partake. So don't partake until we all get back. Alright.
Go ahead. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took the bread, broke it, and we had given him thanks. He broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he also took the cup after supper and said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Resulting as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Let's pray. We we got one more song. Lord, thank you for giving us your son.
Lord, thank you for letting your choosing to let your body be broken for us, for our trespasses, Lord. You have paid for them. Thank you for shedding your blood for us, Lord. We remember you and we love you, and we need your fullness in our life. Amen.
Stand with us. Sing one more song. We're gonna sing a song called Your Words. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord stands forever.
Receive this benediction. Now, to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Go in peace.
