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If you would, go ahead and get one of those yummy snacks that Carolyn's lovely group brought. It's so yummy. So grab a snack and take a seat, please. We're gonna go ahead and get started. Quick announcements.
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If you do not have a group which I think I caught everybody coming in, definitely see me so we can get you plugged into a small group and the second thing is, if you don't have a Bible, if you forgot your Bible today and you will need it during small groups, there are Bibles up here and up here, grab a Bible for sure and if you don't have one at home, let us know because we have a whole bookshelf of Bibles that we would love for y'all to take home with you. So, just let one of the leaders know and they'll grab you one off the bookshelf to take home. We will just pray and get started. We're going to have worship today before and then speaking and then a little bit more worship and then small group. So, Deborah, you want to pray
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for us this morning?
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Lord, thank you for this glorious day that you made. We just love living in your beauty and thank you for your word and how it encourages us and I just thank you for these ladies who offer their time for praise and worship. And bless our morning. Bless our small group. Bless the teaching.
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And thank you for just loving us so much. In Jesus' name, amen.
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We are going to start out today with your great name and I just want to read And I want you if you feel led, just saying really loud. Every fear has no place at the sound of your great name. The enemy has to leave at the sound of your great name. If you'll stand and sing with us, that would be
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when darkness seems to hide his face I rest on his unchanging grace When he shall come with trumpet sound, all may hither
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Father, we thank you that you are the cornerstone, that you laid your life down. And it's by your blood and your blood alone that we have such a rich, rich inheritance. We pray over the teaching today, and that the Holy Spirit just moves through every heart today. It's in your holy, holy name we pray. Jesus, Messiah, Yeshua,
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amen. Power button helps. That's why it's there. Okay. So I was just saying, don't be overwhelmed with the homework because from now on, it's just one week.
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Yay. I have the great pleasure of introducing Ms. Becca Block to you today. I met Becca for the first time before our family was even going to First B. I think it was more than five years ago.
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I came to First B to do a precept study that she was teaching. And I said, uh-huh, that girl is a good teacher. And I think for three years I've been after her. So thank God, God's timing is now that she can teach Ephesians for us. So I just want to say you're in great hands.
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She loves the word. She was actually a religion major, fun fact, from Baylor University. So let me just pray for you. Father, thank you for just gifting every single one of us in this room with a spiritual gift. And thank you so much for gifting Becca with the spiritual gift of teaching.
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And we just can't wait to see what you have for us today. Bless these women. May your words through Becca penetrate our hearts and change our lives. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.
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Thanks, Deborah. I just wanna thank you guys for being here today and showing up. Deborah's a hard act to follow, I will say that. And just thanks for giving me this opportunity to talk and I'm really excited God has showed me a lot through just being in Ephesians just digging in the last month and I'm really excited to share with you what I've been learning and I was just kind of wanting to recap from Deborah's week last week because we learned so much just about who God is and what he's done for us and just a few highlights from her talk she talked about the way that God's blessed us. We are chosen by God, we've been adopted as his children, he's accepted us, we have redemption through his blood and forgiveness of our sins, We have an inheritance which is living with him forever in heaven and he has sealed us with the Holy Spirit so we can never lose that.
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And I just thought that was really powerful and really cool. And this is all such good news and I feel like this is such a positive book that we're studying and just to see what God has done for us. And our text this week is from just right after that Ephesians one fifteen through 23 and I want everybody to turn there in their Bibles and there's Bibles in the back I think Dancey mentioned that if you don't have one. This is a prayer and this is a really powerful prayer and we're just gonna read through the whole thing first and the thing that I want us to be thinking about while we're reading this is, well I'll read second Timothy three sixteen. It says, All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness.
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So it's just really cool to think about that this is a prayer that Paul was praying but it's the word of God. So this prayer was inspired by God. So I just think that that's really powerful to think about that if we pray this prayer of this is how God would want us to pray because it's praying scripture, it's praying a prayer. So that makes it even more powerful and I also want to encourage you to put this prayer in your lives. So let's just read through it first and then we'll we'll dive in.
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It says, For this reason I too having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints Do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and of 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 are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power to us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church which is his body the fullness of him who fills all in all.
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There's a lot there it's really rich. I like at the beginning I was struck by the fact that Paul says ever since he heard of their faith he said, did not cease praying for you. And so I thought that'd be interesting to look up do not cease because I think it's kind of hard to think about if we were constantly praying even as we're doing our job or talking to our children or whatever we're doing throughout the day. So what does it actually mean to do not cease praying? And I found out that not cease is the opposite of not cease is random or occasional or sporadic intermittent.
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So being in constant prayer is making it habitual or disciplined. So what we could do is like treat it like sleeping or eating it's just something that's a part of our lives that we've built into our lives it's not something that's sporadic or something that we do every now and then. So we're gonna study this prayer. So Paul's gonna have two requests and then the second request he's gonna say there's three things that I want from that. So his first request was that they would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.
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Well this was Paul's passion, knowing God. We see that in his letter to the Philippians. In Philippians three seven and ten, it says, more than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For whom I have suffered all the loss of all things and count them but rubbish that I may gain Christ that I may know him. That's his passion that he would know Christ and he's passionately praying for believers to know him.
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John Piper says that our deepest need is to know God. Just as humans, our deepest need is to know God as to know our creator. Do we know him? Do we know about him or do we know him? Are we getting to know him more?
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Some other translations actually say that you would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him better. In Colossians one ten he he's praying again and this is for the Christians in Colossae. He's praying, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. We're going to talk a lot about walking in a manner worthy of the Lord and that's coming later in Ephesians. But right now we're focused on increasing in our knowledge of God and and I think that's really cool that we're already all doing that because that's why we're here.
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We want to know God more and through just being with other believers and studying his word. I spent a little bit of time overseas after college and some time within the Muslim world and so I had some really good friends that are Muslims and we would kind of share the differences between our faith and just get to you know share what their faith was and what our faith was and the differences and one of the biggest differences that we just couldn't agree on was the fact that God wants us to know Him. They were very offended by the fact that we thought God could be known by man. They they hold they say, He's too reverent, He's too high, we can't personally know Him, He can't reveal Himself to us. And so I'm just that became more precious to me after that just the fact that He wants to know us and He wants us to know Him.
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In John seven thirty seven through 38, it says, on the last on the last and greatest day of the festival Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. And this literally, the first part of that verse literally says, let them keep coming to me and let him keep drinking. So are we doing that? Are we coming back to him in prayer habitually in a disciplined way?
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Keep returning to him, getting to know him better. I know some of you probably are like, how do I do that? I don't really know where to start and I would encourage you just to pray this prayer first of all. Pray that God would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know him better or you can just say, God I want to know you, I want to know you more and start with praying and asking him to know him more. And another way that I like to do when I'm studying about a passage of scripture or when I'm studying Ephesians what I like to do is I go through the Bible and as I'm reading like in chapter one I would make a list about God and just write down everything I learned about God and it's really neat to actually just look at that and take that away from everything else and just look at who God is and who you see God being.
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And so I did that for just the first 14 verses of chapter one and we see this is who I learned God was in chapter one. He's gracious, he is kind, he's loving, he's a redeemer, he is father, he's a blesser, he's a forgiver, he's a giver, he's a revealer, and he's a willful planner. That's a lot there that we could just focus on that and on one of those things and learn so much about God. So the most cool part about this is first Corinthians thirteen twelve. Now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face.
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Now I know in part and then I will know fully just as I have been fully known. So one day we will know him fully which is mind boggling and now he knows us fully and he's encouraging us to know him more. So are we praying like this? Are we praying to know him more? Are we praying This is a prayer that we can pray for our church, for our believers in our lives, for our family, for our kids, for our nation, just passionately praying that people would know God and know him more.
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Okay so Paul's second request says he says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. And Warren Weirsby in the book talks about our heart having the same faculties as our bodies. So our heart has ears and eyes and it's able to touch and to smell and all of these things that our bodies can do too. And God is the one who gives us those eyes to see and those ears to hear. So we pray that we would have the eyes to see God's glory.
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Someone mentioned today that beautiful sunrise I didn't get to see it but Psalm 19 says, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech, night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they have no words, no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their world their words to the ends of the world. So we see God's glory every day in his creation but why don't why don't people see it?
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And I think that that's because their eyes are not enlightened. So when Jesus walked the earth in Matthew thirteen fifteen Jesus is speaking and this is actually from the old testament as well but he says, for the heart of this people has become dull with their ears they scarcely hear and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they would see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and I would heal them. But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear. So we need to pray that we would have those eyes to see him and that our eyes wouldn't become darkened that they would be full of light.
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Romans one eighteen has always been kind of a sobering verse but so true. Romans one eighteen I think it goes through 25. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident within them for God made it evident to them. For since creation of the world his his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen. Being understood through that which has been made, the heavens declare his glory so that they are without excuse.
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For even though they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks but they became futile in their speculation and their foolish heart was darkened. So Paul's saying people know about God but they don't honor him and they're they're suppressing the truth that they see. They see his glory and creation but they choose to suppress it and it their hearts are darkened and I feel like that's the alternative to having eyes that are enlightened that can see his glory and I feel like praying that continually for ourselves and for others is what keeps our hearts soft and our eyes open to see him. Psalm ninety five seven says, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts.
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And he goes on he's talking about the Israelites and these are the ones that he rescued out of Egypt out of Pharaoh's hand and he says, when your fathers tested me, so he's talking about the Israelites, they tried me though they had seen my work. They had seen God's work. He got them out of slavery through 10 plagues, the Passover. They got to the Red Sea, they didn't have anywhere to go, Egyptians behind them, Red Sea in front. He parted the sea, he's taking them to the promised land.
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And he said, for forty years I loathed that generation and said, there are people who in their heart and they do not know my ways. That whole generation didn't get to go into the promised land. They had seen God work and yet they erred in their heart and they didn't. They lost that privilege of going into the promised land. All except for you know their two Joshua and Caleb who trusted the Lord.
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Numbers fourteen twenty four says, but my servant Caleb because he has had because he has had a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring him into the land which he entered and his descendants shall take possession of it. So they were in the desert for forty years while that whole generation died away and only Joshua and Caleb entered because they had a different heart that trusted God and that remembered his works. So today if we hear his voice let's not harden our hearts. Even if we're only one or one or two of us that remember what he's done. Okay so now those are two requests and he he prayed that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened so that, and there's three things that he's praying that our eyes would be enlightened.
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That eyes of our hearts would be enlightened so we could see. Number one is hope. The hope of our calling. The word hope here means joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation. So this doesn't mean I hope this is gonna happen, this means we have the assurance of eternal salvation with him, it will happen.
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I know a lot of people think that it's kind of hard to put your hope in heaven because we really can't see it and it's out there and it's eternal but we really need to just be living here on the earth and focusing on our lives now. And they find it hard to actually long for heaven. The c s Lewis in mere Christianity which is a really good book and I really couldn't put it down when I read it. He talks about us having everyone in the world has a longing in our hearts that nothing in this world can satisfy. And he argues that that longing is our desire for heaven and that longing for something better and for perfect that this world can't complete.
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And I thought this was really interesting because he broke it down into three reactions that man has for this longing. The three things that we can do with that. The first way is the fool's way and this person puts the blame on things themselves. So he thinks it'll be like the next thing that's gonna fulfill him. It's the next this marriage didn't work so it's the next marriage and the next marriage or the next vacation or the next perfect job.
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And he goes from thing to thing to thing always thinking that the next thing will be the mysterious something that gives us satisfaction. And he always ends up disappointed. So I thought of this song, I can't get no satisfaction. So, number two is the way of the disillusioned. So this is the sensible man.
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This is the man that says, there is no satisfaction so I'm going to suppress my longings and just go through life and not expect too much. And c s Lewis said, what a shame. I mean that's a much maybe a happier life than the first one but suppose there is infinite happiness waiting for us and to only find out too late. So the third third way is the Christian way. And I loved how he said, he said creatures aren't born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exist.
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A baby feels hungry, well there's such a thing as milk. And he says, a man may have a sexual desire, well, there's such a thing as sex. And he said, if I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, The most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. He says, earthly pleasures aren't bad. They're the things that are They're never meant to satisfy us.
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They're just They're meant to arouse a desire in us for the something more for the real thing. And we were we were made for another world and that's where our hope lies. So I wanted to think about Ephesus and Deborah talked a lot about the Ephesians and it was a beautiful port city. It was the home of the Temple Of Artemis and that temple was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. So it was a beautiful amazing temple.
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Artemis was the most sought after God in the whole Asian world. Ephesus was the fourth largest city in the Roman Empire and by the time of Paul, they weren't using it as a center of trade anymore because the port had become unnavigable. And so the worship of this God had become their means of making money. Tourism became their way to make wealth which is kind of I guess we can kind of relate. So I wanted to Oh, Amy did put up the slide.
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So this is this is the Temple Of Artemis today. And I was really struck by that when I saw this picture because this is where all of those people were putting their hope in in the money, in this God, in practicing magic, everything centered around that and it's completely gone. And all of those people are completely gone. And remember last week when Deborah talked about the believers in Ephesus in Acts 19. So Paul spent three years sharing the gospel and many people were coming to him and giving up their practices of magic And they had come together and burnt a bunch of books, their magic books, and they had totaled that mount up and it was somewhere between a million and $6,000,000 that they just burned.
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And I just thought that was amazing it's precious those believers where are they today? They are in heaven with the Lord, their hope is fulfilled and the people who put their trust in those millions of dollars in that wealth and in those gods, it's gone. Proverbs ten twenty eight says, the hope of the righteous is gladness but the expectation of the wicked perishes. Proverbs eleven seven, when a wicked man dies his expectation will perish and the hope of strong men perish. So where do we want to put our hope?
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One day I think those Tetons will probably be laid flat. There'll be nothing left of the things that we're going after today. Where should we put our hope? And I think it's in our eternal inheritance and our hope is in God. Okay.
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So inheritance would be So point two that Paul wants us to see with our enlightened heart's eyes is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And when I was studying this I had to say that like 20 times just to wrap my mind around it because it's so there's like too many prepositions in this sentence. I'm like the riches of the glory of his inheritance and saint. And even my husband was like, I don't know. That's too much.
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But Warren Wearsby in the book says that that little word in the saints, God's inheritance in the saints actually saying that we are Christ's inheritance. So that's amazing and Warren Wearsby says, this is an amazing truth that God should look on us as part of his great wealth. Just as a man's wealth brings glory to his name, so God will get glory from the church because of what he's invested in us. And I thought that was a cool way to look at it. So when Christ returns, we shall be to the praise of the glory of his grace.
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I mean the world will look at us and see God's grace. They'll know we didn't deserve it. We'll be on display for the world to see and hopefully we are now. Jesus prayed that we would be with him in heaven. In John seventeen twenty four Jesus is praying he says, Father I desire that they also whom you have given to me, that's us, be with me where I am so that they may see my glory which you have given me.
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For you loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh righteous father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you. And these have known that you sent me, and I have known your and I have made your name known to them and will make it known, so that the love which you loved me may be in them and I in him. So there's that knowing God again. We're knowing God through Christ and he wants us with him.
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In the Old Testament, inheritance was super important and it was important who it went to it was the oldest son and if it wasn't him then it was like the next brother and if that didn't exist it was like the uncle and then it went on and on. Was all these laws centered around who the inheritance went to. And another word that they used a lot was portion. What's my portion of the inheritance? Psalm seventy three twenty six says, My heart and my flesh may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
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I think that's beautiful because yeah we are his inheritance but he is also our inheritance. And when we're with him we will know him fully and will be fully known. So point three is, this is the last thing that Paul's praying that we would know that our eyes would be enlightened so that we would know the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. And he goes into a great deal of effort to explain how much power that is. This is the same power that raised Christ from the dead, created the universe, seated Christ above all power and rule and authority and dominion forever.
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He's above every name that is named now and forever. There's never gonna be another power greater than him. And God has this power for us. And I was just like, why? What is this power for?
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Why would he give us this much power? So second second Peter one two through four. It says, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God again and of Jesus our Lord seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and excellence. So his power gives us what we need to live this life on earth, to live a life that's worthy of him. I'm gonna steal a little bit of Deborah's thunder sorry we're gonna Ephesians two six so this is her part so I'm just gonna just a little bit.
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Ephesians two six, God raised us up with him, Christ, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And that is amazing because he is above all power but we're seated up there with him. So that means and it goes on to talk about how we are his body so we are seated with Christ above all power. So none of that has any power over us. He has given us the power.
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It says the power for everything pertaining to life and godliness. So we're able to live undefeated by sin over our circumstances. We're able to live that life that he's called
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us
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to. The phrase in Christ is a big phrase in Ephesians and I loved I think I can't remember which chapter it was in but he talked about how does where you live affect how you live and I thought about that and I was like, well Jackson, I mean that greatly affects how we live because I mean my friends back in Oklahoma aren't you know hunting for wood to prepare for winter and you know getting elk and preparing for the seasons and building fire you know, they're just sitting in front of the TV or I don't know what they're doing but it's so different. Our lives that we live because we live in Jackson And I thought about like, well what if we lived in Ethiopia you know or somewhere else that greatly affects the type of life that you lead like where you are. And he said that being living in Christ should affect our lives even more than our geographical location. So are we experiencing God's power?
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Are we living like we're seated with Christ in the heavenlies above everything, all power? Or are we still being defeated by sin? Because we don't have to be, we have that power that he's given us. So and we're going to talk a lot more about our walk in how we can walk in a manner that's worthy of the Lord and that's coming later in chapter four and we get to talk about the things we were formerly we were formerly dead but now we're alive in Christ and and I do think about, example of the disciples and who they were they were kind of you know Peter denied Christ through times there was just they ran and hid and they were afraid and then when the power of the Holy Spirit came they were completely different men. Peter was the rock that Christ built the church on, and you know we know about Paul and his amazing life when he had his encounter with Christ and that power enabled him to live a powerful life.
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So, and then I just wanted to close by the last part I think was so precious I talked a little bit about us being his body and it says at the end it says, God gave Christ. He's the head over all things he gave him to the church. So he gave him to us so he's he's our inheritance and we are his body and it says we're the fullness of him who fills all in all. I think that's pretty pretty powerful. He is the one that fills all in all.
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Romans eleven thirty six says, For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. He from him and through him everything exists because of him and we are His body so we need to live like that in the earth. So I think that's
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it. Thanks.
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This is a new song that Carrie Job just put out, and we chose this. We chose this song because it is such a heart cry. And I wanted to go through the lyrics as we're getting ready here. It says, when I walk through deep waters, I know that you'll be with me. And when I'm standing in the fire, I will not be overcome.
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Through the valley of the shadow, I will not fear. I am not alone. I'm not alone. You will go before me, and you will never leave me. So I'd invite you to stand or just soak it in, and sing loud to him, unto him.
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When I walk through deep waters, I know you'll be with me When I'm standing in fire you will never leave me I'm not alone I am not alone you will go over for me and you will never leave me in the midst you will never leave me I am not alone I am not alone you will go for me You're my strength, you're my defender, you're my refuge in the storm. Through these trials you've always been faithful.
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And he says to us,
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You're my beloved, you're my bride To sing over you is my delight my child because you're beautiful to me to So beautiful to me I sing over you my song of peace Cast all your cares down at my feet Come and find your rest in me I'll breathe my life inside of you I'll bear you up on eagle's wings and hide you in the shadow of my strength I'll take you to my quiet waters. I'll restore your soul. Come rest in me and be made whole. You're my beloved, you're my bride my love.
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Thank you, father. Yeshua, I thank you. We thank you, father God, for taking us out of the kingdom of darkness and bringing us into your kingdom of light, of truth. Father, I thank you that you sing over us, that you delight in us, that you join your inheritance, your people, us. Through the blood of your precious son, we are redeemed and counted yours.
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We thank you. We thank you. Oh, that we delight in you as you absolutely delight in us. Thank you that we are counted as your beloved, set apart for you. We thank you for this time that we have, father.
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Will you inspire our conversations as we continue to study the book of Ephesians? Father, thank you for the good word that's been ministered through Becca this morning. We just thank you for all the goodness you absolutely overflow and overwhelm us with in you. So we dedicate this time for you, father, our conversations in this next hour. May you be glorified and honored and praised.
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It's you that we wanna know, and it's you that we're here to meet with. We thank you in your glorious holy name, Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus, the anointed one. It's in your name alone that we pray.
