Paul's Prayer for the Ephesians - 3

Well, good evening to you once again. I hope you've had a good day. We've had another full day. It's been good, especially to get together with our fellow pastors this afternoon.

That was a real, real treat. And I'm glad you're back for another dose of the book of Ephesians. My, we've come a long way. We're here in chapter 3 now. Our pastor read our text to us just a few moments ago, and we'll be back. We'll be dealing with this, what is actually the second prayer of Paul for the Ephesians that we have encountered in our study thus far. And I wanted to do just a little bit of review as we think back over where we've come, and I think maybe that'll help us grasp what's going on in this prayer and what it is Paul specifically is asking for.

And if you think back to our first session where we were looking in that first chapter at this huge panoramic view of what God has done for us in salvation. You've told, you've heard the story of the blind men in India that all got a hold of the elephant in attempt to describe, you know, one got a hold of the leg, and he said, well, an elephant's like a tree. And the other one got a hold of the trunk. He said, well, the elephant's sort of like a snake. And another got a hold of the tail, and he said, an elephant's like a rope. One got a hold of an ear and said, an elephant's like a leaf. And they were all right.

They were all correct as far as their experience went. But the problem is when you try to extrapolate their experience to the whole thing, right? That's when you get in trouble, that they've just got one piece of a much, much larger puzzle. I'm thinking that most of us at the time of our conversion, we had to have a piece of the puzzle. And it's true. I think back to my days I was converted when I was nine years old, and you say, well, did you understand back then all that you have been preaching to us this week?

Absolutely not. I had a hold of a little tiny piece of the puzzle. But in what we have been studying, we're seeing God give you His testimony You know what it is to give your testimony, to share your testimony? We're familiar with that language. We're seeing God share His testimony of salvation. You mean God's getting saved?

No. He's testifying how you got saved. And He is explaining something that most of us at the beginning of our Christian walk simply do not understand. And so we grow in our knowledge of Christ and of the grace of God that has come our way. It was some 15 years later before the Lord opened my eyes to what we call the doctrines of grace, to His sovereignty in salvation. And oh, my, I was talking, I think it was Brother Ken, wasn't it, just yesterday? He was telling me that when the Lord opened His eyes to the doctrines of grace, it's like He got saved all over again.

I wished I had a nickel for every person down through my life has told me that same thing. It's like I got saved all over again. Well, are you getting saved all over again?

I don't think so. I believe I was truly converted. I knew the Lord. I trusted the Lord. But oh, my, I had no clue to the extent of this vast, this ambush of my soul by the Trinity.

The Trinitarian God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ganging up on me, targeting me, stalking me, drawing me to the side of the Savior in saving faith and receiving Him into my soul. Oh, and then to go on. You see, this is the mystery. Remember, a mystery is something you cannot figure out on your own.

You've got to be told. And my sense is that most of us, when we are first converted, have no clue about election and predestination, that we were chosen and targeted for sonship and this inheritance in glory. And we were right as far as our experience went. Yes, we did choose Christ. I did, didn't you? I've not met a Christian yet who didn't make a free choice to receive Christ. You know, if you did it under compulsion, somebody holds a gun to your head, I don't really think it counts. You freely came to Christ. You freely wanted Christ.

Every Christian does. But that's like getting a hold of the tail of the elephant. Oh, there's so much more to the picture. And we then last evening sort of put how exactly all of this happened under the microscope there in chapter 2. Back in chapter 1 it was just, well, the Gospel got preached to you and you believe. You're in Christ now. But there in chapter 2, it's like Paul suddenly expands and enlarges, puts this under the microscope. And let's take a long, good look at this thing.

How exactly did this happen? And we saw the amazing saga of God's amazing grace, of by grace are you saved through faith. And this whole process, it's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. We're His workmanship. We're His project.

It's like a sculptor working on a statue. We're His artisanship. And so what has happened in our lives is not of us.

It is of God. And we need to remember, I was an Arminian for 15 years before the Lord opened my eyes to see a much bigger picture. And I think we sometimes have the idea that Arminians are our foe. They're our enemies. You know, we need to go out and sort of like David and Goliath, slay the Arminian Goliath with the five stones.

In our case, the five points. That's what really becomes our project is arguing and defeating Arminians in theological conflict. And what we ought to be doing is what we're going to see Paul doing here in this section of Ephesians, praying for the saints to have their eyes open to be able to comprehend what has happened. I said in the first prayer, it's like that frog in the hailstorm.

He knows something God, even if he doesn't know what it was or where it came from. But now as we go on into the second prayer, I hope you'll see this theme. That what has really happened to us when our eyes are being opened to a fuller depiction of God's grace is this expansion in the soul to be able to grasp more and more of our Savior.

So I hope you'll see that as we go tonight. Let's look at our text and I want you to look at the first four words of verse 14, for this cause I. And I want you to look back into chapter 3 verse 1 where you had exactly the same four words, for this cause I. And it's like Paul began to start a prayer back in verse 1 and then he sort of gets interrupted. And he gets interrupted by this other mystery. You think the doctrines of grace and God's sovereignty in your salvation that you wouldn't have known a thing about.

You wouldn't have known about your election had it not been revealed. That mystery is being unfolded to you here. But there's another mystery and it's the fact of your union with Christ, what that has produced. Now we haven't dealt a lot with this, but if you look back into chapter 2, and that's why I'm pointing you back there because obviously in chapter 3 verse 1, Paul starts this prayer.

He's thanking God for some things and if we're going to ask what things, we really need to look back what is just prior to chapter 3 verse 1. And it's this mystery that both Jew and Gentile have been brought together in one new man, one body, and both united to Christ. We've been reconciled, Paul says, to each other. And we think of the racial divisions in our nation today, but that's nothing like the divisions in our nation between Jew and Gentile. And yet that rift, that divide has been healed in Jesus Christ. He's brought us together, saved Jews, saved Gentiles in one body, and he's reconciled both of us to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. We share a common redemption, a common salvation. The same thing that happened to a Jew is the same thing that happened to me.

And then he goes on to describe the benefits and the effect of this in verse 17, 19, Ephesians 2, 19. He says, You're no more strangers and sojourners, aliens, but you're fellow citizens with the saints. Notice citizenship speaks of your national identity. You have been brought into a new kingdom, a new nation. You are now citizens of this new realm. And secondly, notice he says, You are now of thy house, household of faith.

Not only have you received a new nationality and citizenship, you've been adopted into a new family. And so we are now brothers and sisters through this union. And then thirdly, you're also all brought together in a building. Notice he says you're being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief cornerstone in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto, this is not just any old building, it's a holy temple to the Lord. Well, what's a temple?

What's different between a temple and an ordinary building? A temple is where divinity resides, where God resides. And notice that's precisely the point in verse 22. You're all built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. So notice the multiple ways that Paul is describing the effect. And once again, this is clearly speaking of what we call the universal church.

I want to emphasize that again. If you talk about the church that is Christ's body, that filleth all and all, the description we had right at the end of chapter 1, what other church can that be? It's not the Ephesian church.

It's not the church at Colossae. This is what we would call the universal church. We're familiar with organizations that have a national organization and then local chapters. In the same way, we have a local church that we're familiar with where we assemble in our respective geographical locations, but that is part of a much larger picture. The universal, this church that's being described over there in the book of Hebrews is up there in heaven where Christ is. It's a pretty big assembly up there, a host of angels that are innumerable and the saints who have gone on before us.

And we'll see a little of that tonight. Now again, does it feel like, when you were converted, when you put your faith in Christ, did it feel like you were being drawn to Him? I think most of us would say, well, maybe, but I really didn't.

I'm unconscious of that. Was I felt like that I had been lassoed and being drawn in to the corral of Jesus? No. Did I feel like I was being compelled? No. I felt like I was doing this because I wanted to.

Didn't you? In other words, had it not been for what I'm told, in other words, this mystery being unfolded to me, that would have been my perception. And it's right as far as it goes.

It's like the blind guy that's got a hold of the elephant's tail. It's true. That's a piece of it.

It's just not the whole story. In the same way, as you sit here tonight, you may be well aware of your membership and your fellowship here in this church. Are you conscious of a union with believers on the other side of this planet? Does it feel like you are joined to them in one body?

And I would say for most of us, no. That's why we call it a mystical body. It's not perceptible. We don't see it with our eyes. And the only reason we know that it's true is because we've had the mystery unveiled to us. And so as we go on into chapter 3, that's what he's concerned with. He said God's purpose is basically, how do I say this? To put the whole kit and caboodle in Jesus Christ. That everything is about Him.

It's about what He did and it's about His body. And that is the thing that we are being shown in this mystery as the gospel is being unfolded here. So now we come to this prayer. And I hope that sets the background for you.

Let's read it. In verse 14, he says, For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's first of all recognize to whom He is praying. Folks, down through my past, especially in my early days, I had a little exposure with the Jesus people movement, sort of hippies back in the early days. A lot of when I first went to Grace Bible Church in Memphis, that was the church where all the Jesus people wound up.

up. So we got a lot of these hippie types. I never really was part of the hippie movement, so it was a lot of things I didn't understand. But I started listening to how people prayed and a lot of folks were praying to Jesus. And I remember asking a fellow one time, I said, what, who do you pray to? And he said, well I pray to Jesus. And I said, well where is this Jesus?

And he said, well he's in me. And I said, let me get this straight, you're praying to Jesus in you? Your prayers are being directed inward? He said, yeah, that's how I was taught to pray.

Well my friend Paul has a different formula here. There is a certain economy as to how an order, an arrangement as to how we are to pray. Our prayers are to be directed first and foremost primarily to God the Father. Now that's not to deny that the Son isn't God or the Spirit isn't God, but notice the prayers of Paul is to God. And as we are taught in the Gospels, we're to pray to the Father in the name of the Son.

And what do we mean by that? I harken back to the days when you could loan your credit card to somebody and they could take it and buy gas and go buy groceries if they wanted to, and then bring the credit card back to you. And when you loan that credit card to them, you're loaning them your name. You're loaning them your credit. Put this on my account is what you're saying. In the similar way when we pray to the Father we come to Him and Jesus told His disciples, you hadn't asked anything in my name, I've been praying for you, but now you can pray to the Father and use my name. You can use my credit card.

Put it on my account. And that is how we are to pray and led by the power of the Spirit. So notice again all three persons of the Trinity are involved in prayer, but there is an order, there is an arrangement. And secondly notice here the stance of Paul as he prays. Now we've got a lot of different varieties of how people, for instance, some of them stand in prayer. We have cases of men raising, lifting up their eyes to heaven and praying. We have cases of people falling flat on their face and notice almost every time you see something like that the posture of the one who is praying gives you some indication of their perception of their need and of their position before God. For instance if I lift my eyes up to heaven and pray I'm acknowledging that God is where?

Our Father who art in heaven. He's above me. On the other hand if I bow my head it is acknowledgement of His sovereignty. If I'm flat on my face it's acknowledgement of my helplessness before God.

And notice here what is Paul doing? He is kneeling. Well when do you kneel? Well in their culture you kneel before your king.

You kneel before your sovereign. And so we here see in the very posture, the stance of Paul in his praying, his acknowledgement that he is coming before the sovereign God of the universe and he's bringing these petitions. So we see who he's praying to.

We see his posture. Notice the father here is also identified in verse 15 as the one of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Now there's a lot of controversy about what exactly this whole family business. Some say if it's talking about both heaven and earth then it's talking about both angels and men.

I have a problem with that on two levels. Number one it doesn't make much sense to me to speak of families of angels. I mean we have families in human generation. Notice we're not all born at once. We have kids. We have generations and so we're familiar with the concept of a family, a human family. But angels don't have, they're all born, they're all created at the same time apparently. They're not having kids.

All right? And number two, the family that we have already had introduced to us here back at the end of chapter 2 is there in verse 19, the household, the family of God. So for that reason it seems to me that what Paul is addressing here is God as the father of all the saved, all the redeemed whether they are in heaven, whether they've gone before us and are with Christ or whether they are on earth. The old theologians put it whether the church triumphant in glory, the church militant left here on earth. That's the whole family.

At least that's my best understanding. Okay so we've sort of set the stage. We know how Paul is praying. We know to whom he's praying.

Let's get around to his petition. What does Paul ask in prayer? And here I just want you to stop. I want you to think for a moment. When you pray, what do you ask for? What is the nature of your petitions when you come before God? And I want you to realize how different this prayer is than the typical prayer we hear in our prayer meetings. In our prayer meetings typically we're praying for Aunt Sally's her toe. We're praying for this one recovering or this person having financial difficulties, this person needing a job. And don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with praying for those things. When I have a her toe, I want you praying for me.

Okay so I'm not critiquing or criticizing that. I just want you to notice how different Paul's prayer is. He's not praying for Aunt Sally's her toe. He has something bigger on his mind and I'm afraid that we let the her toes of the world sometimes crowd out this bigger agenda, this greater need. So I'm not saying you need to quit praying for that her toe, but perhaps we need to focus a little more on what it is exactly Paul is praying for right here in this prayer.

Let's look at it. What does he ask for? Verse 16, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit.

Man that sounds good. I mean this is Samson's stuff. You know the Spirit came upon him and he ripped that line to shred. I mean this is, yeah I want that. I want to be strengthened with might by His Spirit. I want that six pack. I want to be buff.

I think I got the keg instead of the six pack. But anyway but notice he goes on to add these little words that sort of pops our bubble here. Strengthened by might by His Spirit in the inner man. There is an outward man. Remember he says in 2 Corinthians 4 the outward man perishes day by day. That's this one. And every time I look in the mirror I'm convinced yes it's little by little.

It's wasting away. But the inward man renewed day by day. We have an outward man and we have an inward man.

We call that inward man our soul. And notice that Paul is praying that his objects of his prayers might be strengthened with the power of God. You remember in the Old Testament when the Spirit of God fell on somebody big things happened.

I mentioned Samson but he's just one of many. That usually meant an empowerment of God for something. And notice that what Paul is praying for is not that your body be strengthened but that your inner man your soul be strengthened or we might put it this way enlarged. Now most of us are trying to keep our outer man from being enlarged. Right?

The Battle of the Bulge. But in this case we're talking about big in here inside. Enlarged soul, an enlarged mind, an enlarged heart. The enablement by the power of God to grasp something in here. And what is that? He says that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

Now we use that language don't we? That Christ dwells within us. It's biblical. But notice it's not like my friend says when he talks about praying to a Jesus in him. There's some little Jesus inside there. We're not talking about bodily that Christ somehow lives in here. We're talking about the Spirit of Christ indwelling us. Hold your finger here.

We'll be right back I promise you. But Romans 8. Romans 8. Remember last night I told you there's some cannots that speak of our inability.

Well here's one. Romans 8 verse 8. Paul says, So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

He's speaking of two realms here. The flesh and the spirit. The lost man is over here in the flesh. He cannot please God.

Impossible. The saved man is over here in this other realm and notice how he describes it in verse 9. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit of life is life because of righteousness. Notice he has three descriptions here. He calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of God. He calls it the Spirit of Christ. And then he just used shorthand notation if Christ be in you. Now that's not talking about three different things.

It's talking about exactly the same thing using three different expressions. So when we say that Christ indwells us, we're not meaning somehow bodily Christ is roaming around inside here. We're saying that the Spirit of Christ has invaded our souls and this is the Holy Spirit of God who has come into our life. Now I just want to make that clear before we go on.

Let's go back. So when he says that Christ may dwell in your hearts, he's talking about the Spirit of Christ invading our soul. Now again I said if my dog starts going meow and you ask me what's going on here I could say well you know the Spirit of a cat has invaded my dog. I'm getting it backwards here.

But you know what I'm saying? What happens when a spirit takes over, invades your life, you start manifesting the behavior connected with the Spirit. And so what do we mean when the Spirit of Christ indwells us? We start acting like Christ.

We start manifesting Christ-like character in Gondar. We call it the fruit of the Spirit but it's really just the characteristics of Jesus. That's what it is because it is His Spirit that is indwelling us.

And how does that happen? Well it happens as we saw last evening by faith. It is through faith that this union with Christ occurs. And so notice not only is it by faith that Christ indwells us but it's in proportion to our faith that Christ indwells us. As our faith grows, as our comprehension of Christ grows, more of the Spirit of Christ invades our soul to the extent that we might say be filled with the Spirit.

That's a plug for tomorrow night. That's our text, okay? But you see what I'm saying? Not everybody is filled with the Spirit. But notice that we are to be invaded by Christ and that invasion is going to happen in proportion to our faith, our ability to know truth and grasp truth and to believe in truth.

That's how it happened in the birthplace. And now as that apprehension grows, so will the reality of Christ indwelling us grow. And He says that not only that Christ would dwell in your hearts by faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love that you may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, the length, the depth and the height and to know the love of Christ.

Now notice what's going on here. He's describing what we might call a big cube, the dimensions of this cube-like structure. He uses four expressions. That's what cues us to this, the breadth, the length, the depth and the height.

You say, well that's four things. Yeah, but depth and height are just the same dimension, vertical dimension, right? Just different spot on that vertical dimension. So He's describing a three-dimensional cube, three-dimensional structure.

And notice He doesn't give you a substantive here. He doesn't tell you the breadth of what, the length of what, the height of what. But I want you to see that bracketing verse 18 is the idea of love, that you would be in verse 17 rooted and grounded in love. And obviously the context here is not your love for Christ but His love for you.

And immediately following in verse 19 that you might know the love of Christ. Do you see how the word love brackets this four dimensions, four descriptions, okay? So in other words, though He does not tell you the breadth and the length of what, we are to put on our thinking cap and figure it out. We're talking about this huge cube that represents the love of Christ for our soul. And He's asking that you and I be strengthened in the inner man that we might be able to comprehend, get our minds wrapped around this thing as we say.

Now let's think about those four descriptions, four things. Number one, when we talk about the breadth of something, let's talk about the breadth of Christ's love. You remember Charles Wesley, the wonderful hymn, there's a wideness in God's mercy as the wideness of the sea.

I don't know if you have seen that or not, but a wonderful thought. When we think of who it is that Christ offers Himself to, how wide is His love? You'll notice that that is His love, the fact that an offer is being made to you whether you take it up or not. You may hate Christ, but the very fact that there is an offer is a demonstration of Christ's love.

If you'd like to do more study on this subject, get ahold of D.A. Carson's little book on the difficult doctrine of the love of God, one of the best things I've ever found on the subject. And Carson shows in that little book that God's love is a complicated thing. It's a multi-level thing just like our love. I mean I love strawberries, but I don't love strawberries like I love you. I love women, but I don't love women like I love that woman.

I better not. I love kids, but I don't like every kid like I love mine. Do you understand? Our love works on different levels. We may love our fellow American. We may love our fellow citizen of Burlington.

This is Burlington, right? Yeah, okay, wherever we are. But there's another sense in which I love my own. I love my own family, and I love my church family. We don't love in exactly the same way, and Carson shows in that little booklet that God's love works like that too. There's different levels of love. There's a sense in which there is a general love of God for all men and all His creatures. We call it common grace. Remember in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has just told us that you're to love your enemies.

You say, what? Love my enemy? Why should I love my enemy? Because He says God sends rain on both the just and the unjust. He sends the sunshine on men that love Him, men that hate Him. There is a universal love of God to every man that walks on this planet.

Now it's not eternal, it's temporary, but it is a true love. I mean He doesn't deserve it. He ought to be roasting in hell. And yet God is giving Him manifestations of His love. When Paul dealt with those pagans that wanted to worship Him over there in Asia Minor, what does He tell them? You don't think of God like this, but remember God is the one who's given you seasons and food and He's given you good things. That's the God I'm telling you about. Even Jesus when He's dealing with the rich young ruler who goes away very sorrowful in Mark's account, He says Jesus beholding Him loved Him.

Here's a man who's going to reject Him. He was going to turn his back on the gospel. But there is nevertheless a love of Christ for his soul. How wide is the offer? How wide are the doors of mercy thrown open? Well it's big enough to let me in. It's big enough to let Paul in who said he was chief of sinners. And notice that as we go deeper into the love of God we begin to learn that election is nothing more than a demonstration of God's particular love for us. It was God's choice to love us in a special, peculiar, particular way. And so how wide?

What Paul is saying I just want you to stand back and get a glimpse of how wide. Is it just for white folks? No. Ever race? Is it just for Americans?

Every nation? Just for men? Men? Women? Slaves?

Free men? Is there any group that is excluded from the offer of mercy? Do you realize just the offer of mercy is God's love?

You didn't deserve it. It wouldn't have ever come to you except that Christ died on the cross. There wouldn't have ever been an offer if Christ hadn't died on the cross.

Whether or not you take Him up, whether or not you are the elect. There had to be something underlying that offer to make it genuine and real and valid. So it took a Savior to go to the cross if to do nothing more than to give you the offer of salvation.

Or unless God is just being fake and phony. But yet as Carson goes on to show there is that narrower look at the love of God. That love of God which oh my the song says oh love that will not let me go.

And so first of all Paul says get a glimpse of the breath. What about the length? I remember the old Linda my first wife she was from New Orleans so I had all these Cajun jokes you know. We always had in the back my back pocket about her family. But the old story was old Cajun boy went to the lumber yard and he said I need a two before his brother his brother said we need two before you go down there and get two before. So he went down he asked the guy for two before and the guy said well how long? And he's I don't know I have to go ask my brother. So he comes back a little while later and he says oh about 30 years.

Notice long can indicate a spatial dimension or it can indicate a dimension of time. And as I think of this I'm not sure what was running through Paul's mind but I'm sort of thinking that this might well be it. That when Paul wants you to be able to grasp the length of the love of Christ that he's telling you do you realize that this love is not a temporary like the daisy he loves me he loves me not.

This is not like love Hollywood love you know married today divorce tomorrow. This is an unending everlasting love. What is it John tells us in John 13 those that he loved he loved them to the end. This is a love that's never going to run out and all we keep thinking about oh how could Christ love me I failed him today I fell flat on my face but remember he knew all about that when he said his love on you in the first place. There is nothing and that's what Paul is saying at the end of Romans 8 I don't care what it is life or death angels principality nothing can separate you from the love of Christ the love of God in Christ our Lord. It's a long one get an idea of how wide it is get an idea how long it is and then notice these other two expressions they speak of a vertical dimension notice he speaks first of the depth and then he speaks of the height and and that again in and I maybe I'm reading way too much into this but in my mind what that's telling you is the position of the observer of the speaker let me give you an idea of what I'm talking about if I'm standing at the base of the Empire State Building and I'm looking up I don't say man that's deep I say man that's high right if I'm standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon I don't say man that's high I say man that's deep right whether you describe the vertical dimension it by height or depth depends on where you are and notice that using both those words indicates something to me that whoever is saying that sees themselves as somewhere along that vertical dimension they are no longer down there but they are not yet up there you see the difference they do look down and they see the depths to which God's love in Christ Jesus has reached to save our worthless rotten sinful soul how far down did he reach did election work like this that God just sort of skimming the cream off the top the best of the best the star students know salvation worked like God reaching down to the bottom of the barrel and lifting us up with the dregs that he has exalted in Jesus Christ that's the depth of this love and how high will this love go all the way to glory I still marvel about that statement in Hebrews that he's the captain of our salvation bringing many sons to glory and he's not ashamed to call us brethren that this Savior is a Savior who just doesn't take us part of the way he takes us all the way to glory and so as you stand back now do you get a sense of what Paul is describing here and perhaps now you get a sense of why you need this might this power in the inner man you need help to be able to comprehend this to grasp it let's see how Paul describes here you like you like oxymorons I I do I'm thinking you know jumbo shrimp I'm a mathematician so I like random order you know it's like contradictions impossibilities well you like them you'll like verse 19 he says I'm praying that you might know the love of Christ which passes knowledge you see the oxymoron I want you to know what you can't possibly know I want you to grasp what you can't possibly grasp I want you to wrap your mind around something that is so vast so huge you can't possibly do it but that's what I'm praying for and oh yeah I believe I need a little help for that I don't believe I have the capacity to wrap my mind about the around the enormity the immensity of the love of Christ for my soul oh I get part of it I'm able to comprehend some and and you no sooner get through that oxymoron that you get another one here notice the second half of this verse that you might be filled with all the fullness of God we're going to take this little teapot that you your capacity and we're going to try to pour the Pacific Ocean into that teacup I mean here you are little infinite you and why won't you filled with the infinite God you see what he's praying for do you see why we need help do you see why we need an expansion of our mind other words this ought to be our quest in the Christian life this is what it's all about I love the the motto of the Navigators to know Christ and to make him known that's really our project here on planet earth to know Christ I love how Paul puts it in the Philippian letter after he talks about how once he was the old proud fellow he's proud of his circumcision proud of his law keeping now all that was gained to him he's throwing it away counts it as a handful of manure that's his words well what do you want to do now Paul that I may know him and at this point he has he's been a Christian product for 20 years and it sounds like he doesn't even know him at all but he says I have this quest in my life I want to know him I want to know the power of his resurrection I want to know the fellowship of his suffering I want to know all about him here's the Apostle giving you his heart's desire I want to know more of my Savior my friend that ought to be our project in life and to do that you need some help you need some help by the Spirit of God enlarging your capacity to wrap your mind around what God has done for you in Christ Jesus we mentioned coming to know the doctrines of grace and what I truly believe happens to many of us it's like all of a sudden what Paul is describing here at least another stage along the way is happening yes we knew Christ I did I knew the Lord I knew of his love for me but oh my friend when my eyes were open to sovereign grace I saw the love of Christ in a way I had never seen it before I was blown away and there are certain things in life that you see them you can't ever unsee them and for me that was something that I have never been able to get over I've never been able to get beyond I just say Lord give me more I want more I want more of the knowledge of the love of Christ my Lord now let's think about these things you're supposed to know the love of Christ which can't be known you're to be filled with the infinite God what were the chances of that happening slim I have somebody explained to me the difference between a fat chance and a slim chance I'm not real sure but we have the expression slim to none you know come on brother come on Paul get real you can't be serious that puny finite people like you and me can be filled grasping the love of Christ filled with the fullness of God Almighty but listen to how he ends this wonderful doxology now unto him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think his confidence is not in your in my ability to grasp these things but in God's ability to enlarge us to enable us to do it and he's saying oh I haven't even asked I haven't exhausted the possibilities here anything I can possibly grasp and notice this is not talking about every area of life but in this arena to know Christ whatever you would desire whatever you would ask for God can do that and more and notice there's no mention of Aunt Sally's her toe here this is the primary thing that you and I as believers need to be overwhelmed awestruck by the amazing love of Christ for our soul because as you go into chapter 4 there's a pretty noticeable division here that all of a sudden we shift from this doctrine that we've had all this wonderful teaching the unveiling of this mystery from chapter 4 to the end it's all about our conduct our Christian walk and our Christian walk grows out of our comprehension of the love of Christ for our soul we live as Christians not trying to earn Christ's love but because we have been loved with an everlasting love that's why this is so important you say well preacher can't you preach something practical there's nothing more practical than what we're talking about tonight because your life as a believer walking in holiness walking in truth walking in thankfulness to God everything your sanctification flows out of your comprehension of this and and then if we're minds not blown away so far notice that he's able to do this he says according to the power that work within us and he goes on to say unto him be glory in the church what he's describing is that this process of bringing the Saints into this fuller knowledge of Christ is something that happens through the Saints he's going to go on and talk about the gifts in chapter 4 that Christ has given to his church apostles prophets pastors teachers it is through the ministry of the church that the answer to Paul's prayer is realized you see what's going on yes he's able to do this and a whole lot more and he's able to do it through us not me singular us plural through this church in heaven and earth we have the benefit of these gifted men down through history in our in the church to enable us to be able to grasp these things we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us they're the ones that God often uses to open our eyes to these truths perhaps a book we pick up and read I don't know how many people I've talked to over the years that the Lord opened their eyes through reading a WP the sovereignty of God it might be through the preaching from this pulpit but God is answering the prayer through the ministry of the Spirit in his church enabling us to grasp more and more of the person of Christ well I leave you there is your mind spinning I hope so I hope you're blown away I hope that you are overwhelmed by what we have talked about again I got a hold of part of the elephant I want to know the whole thing you see God has given you his testimony of salvation he's explained to you from his perception perspective how this thing works it didn't start that one day somebody came along told you a story and you believed it that's your experience brief limited that's all you know that's the tale what he has done is open our eyes to the big picture I said last night he's the one up on the high ground he sees the whole tamale he's able to explain the whole thing now let me ask you you would you rather hear my testimony of how I got saved or would you rather hear God's testimony of how I got saved let me ask you which one you prefer which one you want I think I'd like to hear from him wouldn't you I mean because you you know me I've got this little narrow window into what I experienced and what I knew and here is God who sees the whole picture which testimony would you rather trust mine or his I believe I'll put my faith in his may God give us this expansion of soul to be able to grasp the enormity of what he's done for us in Jesus Christ let's pray father thank you for these words and for this wonderful prayer and how that ought to be our hearts cry to know Christ and to make him known may you use us father to answer this prayer of your apostle that we might be assistants and helpers to the faith of our fellow brothers and sisters may we support each other may we be faithful in spreading the good news from pole to pole across this planet and blow us away with what you've done for us in Christ Jesus in his name I pray amen