God-sized Dreams - Ephesians 3:20-21 - Mercy Hill

Well, amen church. Across all of our campuses, man, we don't take for granted the fact that we get a chance to worship freely.

Man, I've been to a lot of places in the world where people can't do that, and we get a chance to do that because there are many people who have served, who have laid down their lives. We know the freedom that we have isn't free, so we really are celebrating this weekend and really praising God that we can come and break open the Word of God, which is what we're gonna do, all right? So Ephesians chapter 3 is where we're gonna be today, and I'm really excited about today's sermon. As you guys are finding Ephesians chapter 3, I want us to, man, really get excited about this. Church, this weekend we get a chance to kick off that, well, this past week we got a chance to kick off our summer project, city project, with our college students. Hey, can we welcome them across all of our locations?

All right? Hey guys, over 20 students and interns, and they've given their summer over to make a massive impact, and we're praying that God is gonna do big things in their life, and it segues really well because actually what I want to talk about for just a minute in Ephesians 3 is the fact that they're, you know, I understand the whole Bible is inspired by God. We believe it's an inspiration. We believe it's an errant, but that doesn't mean that there aren't certain passages that mean a lot to you, that God has breathed the fresh Word sort of in in terms of just giving you, it awaits in your life, and it kind of can become like a bedrock sort of verse for you, and that is true in our personal life. That is certainly true of our church. If you have been around our church at all for very long, you're gonna probably know this, but there are just some passages that we go back to all the time. We go back to Psalm 127, raising kids in a certain way, shaping them like arrows. We go back to Romans 12.

Everyone is spiritually gifted. If you are a believer, we are called to use them. In that vein, we go back to Ephesians 3.20 a lot, that God can do abundantly more than we can ask or imagine, and that's the verse that we're gonna land in today. Y'all, this church was sort of built a little bit on that idea, that what God wants for us is full of His fullness to dwell in us. He wants to capture our hearts. He wants to turn us inside out.

Man, He wants us to be a people that are running a hundred miles, hair on fire, for His glory because we love Him that much. And as we're doing that, we're realizing He also can do more than we can ever imagine. He can do more than we think. He can do more in us. He can give us more of Himself in terms of our awareness of Him.

He can do more things through us. At the 10-year mark at Mercy Hill, okay, we had, you know, kind of our 10-year anniversary, and we brought back our entire launch team. It was awesome. Man, some of these, our launch team, okay, they were absolutely the heroes of our story.

I know God's the hero, okay, I understand that, but I'm just saying in terms of, it wasn't me. I mean, I moved to Greensboro for a job. How many of us have moved for a job? Okay, there are a lot of people that moved here and they had to get new jobs. They went from being a teacher to being a teacher's aide.

Man, they had a chance. We had 10 college students that moved with us to come and plant this church. There was a team of 30. A third of them were college students. Now, you see how God works some of these things down the line. You realize 10 years later, one third of the people that we have sent from this church, guess where we met them?

On the college campus. A third of that team was college students and some of them had job offers all over the country. They turned that stuff down, came here.

They jumped into landscaping or whatever, even though they had job opportunities in their major that they had just graduated with. And they came here and painted houses or whatever they had to do to be part of the mission here. So we honored them. Man, we brought them back.

We brought everybody that would come back together. We honored them on this stage. And here's what we gave them. We gave them a brick that is symbolic.

It's not being used in the new facility, okay, or anything like that. But here's what it says. Mercy Hill Church Launch Team, Ephesians 3-20.

We built that team on the verse that I want to talk to you about today. That whatever we can imagine, God can do more. You understand, our minds are little boxes of limitations. That is what they are.

All of our college students know this. If you've ever taken an intro to philosophy class, Intro to Philosophy 101, at some point the teacher will tell you, try to imagine a shape that you've never seen and is also not influenced by one that you've ever seen. Try to hear a song. Try to make a language that you've never heard or is not influenced by one that you've heard.

Here's my point. All our minds do is create a little bit of a bigger box and a little bit of a bigger box. And what I think the passage is gonna try to get us to see today is this. What God wants for you is the fullness to dwell, the fullness of Him to dwell in you. And it's gonna sort of raise the bar. It's gonna raise the lid. Here's the big idea this weekend. God wants more for you than you want from Him.

He wants more for you than you want from Him. You know the best illustration of this? Man, we all did this as kids. All we are is little grown-up versions of them, okay? But I see this in my kids. I see this in children, right? Children, they're, if you talk to a child right now and you say what do you want from your parents, they can name an endless amount of things. It will never end, okay? And you know this, right?

If you just said start naming the things that you want. They want a snack. They want a game. They want you to take them somewhere. They want to go to Starbucks where they can get a double frappe, two pumps, caramel, macchiato, whatever, no classic with light whip.

Whatever all this is, okay? And it's like they, and here's what I want you, and then it gets, man, they get older, they want permission. They get older, they want a car, they want, I mean, here's my point. Them wanting things from a parent is not bad. That's not a bad thing. That's part of the relationship of being a kid and having a parent that's taking care of you.

I fully understand that. What they want is not wrong, it's just small compared to what we want for them. They want a snack, I want a godly spouse for them.

They want a coffee, I want character formation in them, right? We want a lot more for them than they want for us, than they want from us. Man, I want them to learn to be generous, I want them to learn to love the Lord, I want them to build a life that is filled with mission for God's glory. I want them to experience the John 10-10 life, abundance in all its facets. See, we want more for them than they want from us, and our God is the same way. Y'all, desiring and requesting things from God is not wrong.

What does, what does Jesus say in Matthew chapter 7? He says God desires to give good gifts to his children, all right? So you're not gonna find a church here that tells you never to pray for those big dreams that God's putting in your heart.

I would tell you to circle them and pray for them regularly, but I will say this, they're not the biggest thing. And if we can get the biggest things right that God wants for us, it reframes our ambition for the other things. And all of a sudden we become people who are requesting things of God from fullness and for his glory. That changes our requests.

It changes the way we talk about marriage, children. We're asking God maybe for a home and experience, even a possession. You're asking God for something like that and you're like, man, is it right, is it wrong? Okay, is it from fullness and for his glory?

Okay, then, then I, you know, if it's not that, it can crush, it can take away, you know, it can take away from the main thing. But y'all, God wants more for us than we could ever ask of him. It's about the fullness of God dwelling in us.

Look what it says in Ephesians 3-14. Here's what we're gonna do this weekend, guys. I'm just gonna walk through this passage. I have done this before at Mercy Hill. I'm gonna do it again.

I will do it again sometime in the future. Okay, it's very important. So let's just dig in and make sure that we understand this important passage in our church. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven on earth is named. Now that's an interesting way to harken back.

He's actually going back to chapter 2. Jews, Gentiles, all the nations from which every family in heaven on earth is named. That according to the riches of his glory, not our glory, the riches of his glory, 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. Now we'll stop there for just a minute and kind of start breaking this down. One of the things that you've got to understand, I've got to have everybody's attention in this or it's not gonna make sense, okay, because I don't have time to go all the way back. When he says in verse 14, for this reason, most of us who are Bible readers would assume that the reason that he's referring to comes in verses 1 through 13 because that's for this reason. Well, let me look at the previous verses and we would be wrong, okay? Verses 1 through 13 are an aside.

Here's what happens. There's two phrases in chapter 3, for this reason. One is in verse 14, one is in verse 1. So actually in verse 1 in chapter 3, he says, for this reason, and then he goes off on a tangent, okay?

It's like the little kid sees a squirrel or whatever, right? He kind of goes off on the tangent and in verse 14, boom, he comes back. Verse 14, for this reason, is hearkening back to verse 1, for this reason. Now if you're in verse 1 and you say, for this reason, we would say, well, where's the reason?

Yes, that's right. The reason is all of chapter 2. So if you want to know the code to this, it's understanding Ephesians chapter 2. Paul is having an ecstatic religious experience. He is falling down on his knees. He is praising God.

Why? Because there is glorious truth in Ephesians 2. And here's the glorious truth.

You ready? The glorious truth is not just that the Jews can be saved, it's that anyone can be saved. That's the glorious truth. The glorious truth here is not just Ephesians 2, 8, 9, that by grace you are saved, it is that by grace anyone can be saved. That Jews and Gentiles can come underneath the grace of God and be born into his family. That God is making one great people. You get to Revelation and what do we call it? The multi-ethnic multitude.

It is a people made up of every tribe and tongue. And that is the thought, I think, that is in Paul's mind. He's saying for this reason I bow my knee and he's gonna utter a very deep prayer for the church, I would by extension say us, okay, the church down through the generations, to know and understand, listen, and chapter 3 is about feeling the truth that is revealed in chapter 2. Chapter 2's truth, anyone can be saved. Chapter 3, can you imagine the love of this God? And let me try to pray for you, not that you would know it here, but that you would know it here. And that all those limitations, man, our mind is a box of limitations, our heart is a box of limitations, that it would be blown up and that by the Spirit's kind of awakening us to what Jesus has done for us in the gospel, our love for God would supernaturally grow because of who he is and what he's done.

It's very deep. Look what he says in verse 14. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth is named. Every family is named for God. I think this is sort of a reference to, like I said, that multi-ethnic multitude. Listen, every family on earth is stamped with the image of God. There is a naming, there is a humanity in the image of God. And what the Bible is getting us to see here is that anyone, the Bible says, whosoever will may come. And so here's my first little takeaway here, okay, and I'll move on. But I know this, sometimes it's easy for us to have our gaze over the magnitude of God just stolen from us because kids sports are ending but then another sports beginning and you got summer practices and now we got a new project at work and I'm starting this side hustle and I don't know how that's gonna go or somebody's sick in the home with little ones or whatever it is.

And I'm not, listen, I'm not saying this is, you know, this is pretty common to humanity. It takes sort of an intentionality to remember how big God is and how awesome his salvation is to us and that's that's where this whole thing begins. Paul is hitting his knees about to say a great prayer for the church and here's what his prayer basically is. Paul prays for an awareness of God's love. He prays that we would have an awareness of God's love for us. That we would stand under the avalanche of God's grace and that we would be blown away over what he has done, yes in our life, but also just the magnitude of a God who is doing this for both Jew and Gentile, you know.

We want snacks and games and as we get older that turns into houses, trucks or vacations or whatever it is and God wants us to be aware of him. Paul's prayer is that we would live in an awareness and an ever-growing fire of passion for God in us and so he gets into his prayer that according to the riches of his glory, remember this is not from your storehouse of glorious riches, it is according to God's riches that he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit and your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. He prays that we would be strengthened for really a couple of things.

Number one, that our inner being would be built up, that the power of the Spirit would come into our life and we would be strengthened in our inner being and that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith. Now if you're a believer Christ already dwells in you. Think about the prayer here. He's praying that Christ will end well those he has already dwelt in. That he will come upon them, okay. Not that you lose your salvation, gain your salvation, lose your salvation, gain your salvation, but even a saved one would have a growing idea of the presence of Christ in our life.

That's the heart here. Look he prays for the inner being. What is the inner being? You know the inner being is very simple. The inner being is the deepest seat of personality in your life. It is your heart, it is your inner being, it is that moment where you go beyond some kind of knowledge and you are moved. The inside, the guts of your life are moved. And to know and to experience God and to feel his warmth, it's not about just knowing something here, it's about knowing it here. It's funny you know I think in my life I knew Anna before I really knew Anna.

You know what I mean? Like I knew her in terms of I often refer to Anna as the wife of my youth. I did meet her when I was 19. But I started dating her a little while after that and I got to know her. I knew facts about her before that. Like I knew I knew she had a great reputation on her campus. I knew she loved the Lord.

You know I knew all those things. But then once I got to know her right it wasn't just my mind but my heart began to fall in love with her. I was moved in that way. There was an inner being kind of idea that was starting to to think about marriage and a life together and all that. Now any analogy breaks down but the idea here is sort of that way.

This is more than just head knowledge. This is our heart, our passion being ignited for God. This is his prayer for us so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. The inner being being strengthened and Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith.

I don't think they're two different things. I think he's trying to get, he's gonna say more than that. He's gonna end up saying that you would have knowledge that surpasses knowledge, that the fullness of God would dwell in you. I think he's trying to grasp for words.

I don't think it's three, four, five different things. I think what he's getting at is like, man there is just this, man I want this for you. I want your heart to swell for God.

And that's his prayer for the church. That you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the Saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth. I want you to see it all, man. I want you to see all of it and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.

What kind of sense does that even make? Think about it. What kind of knowledge can you have that surpasses knowledge that you can have? I want you to have the knowledge that surpasses knowledge. I mean it's almost like there's just this, you know, he's hitting it different ways to get us to see that, this is really the point, that you would be filled with the fullness of God. That whatever God wants for you in terms of your response to him that you would have it. That you would see in God something that you are responding to, not only to be strengthened in the inner being, not only that Christ would dwell in your heart, not only that you would have knowledge that surpasses knowledge, but the fullness of God would dwell in you. I think what he's praying for is very simple.

It's this idea. And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, Paul is praying for a supernatural love. I want you to listen to my words. He is praying for a supernatural love to be produced in us.

If it's supernatural, you don't muster it on your own. Humans don't muster a love like this, they respond to a love like this. We've got to see something in God that awakens our heart, that awakens our affections. You know, I think he wants them to have an experience here that they would know in their inner being, that they would be passionate, their world would sort of ignite for God in a supernatural way. My question for you is this right now.

Listen, I don't know how to say it. Is your heart set on fire for God in his kingdom? Man, is your heart swollen for God in his kingdom? Are you passionate like this for God in his kingdom? Not more facts, not necessarily more theology, although I really believe that theology can awaken our affections and emotions, I know that.

But I'm just saying it's, I'm not talking about more head knowledge right now. What he's talking about is, man, are we sitting under the avalanche of God's grace and beholding something? Man, is it changing us? Have we been run over by the grace train and never gotten over it?

That's, I think, what he's getting at here. You know, the Psalms do a good job of reminding us of some things here. Man, are we consumed with zeal for the house of the Lord? Do we long for him like the deer pants for the water? Can we say together today, better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere and that God and your presence is the fullness of joy and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore?

You can't get fuller than full or farther than forever more. That's what he's getting at here. Passion ignited, fully given over. You know, God wants more for us than we want from him, just like our kids. I mean, we come to God and this is not wrong.

We want a new workplace. God wants a new worldview that is obsessed with him and his glory and for that to come into your life and for you to be continually changed and shaped by that. He wants you to be possessed, man, taken over by him. You know what's funny about this? Paul, who is never one to shy away from a little bit of a weird analogy, okay, that maybe in the proper church we wouldn't want to use.

He uses stuff like this all the time. What does he say in Ephesians 5? Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. Now, what is the actual, I mean, think about that for a minute. Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.

Ephesians 5. What is he getting at? What he's saying is don't be drunk with wine, okay, which we need right now because of the Shaboozy song, okay, tipsy tipsy bar and all this, right? All the college students know what I'm talking about.

You know, it's like, it's like pour me a double shot of whiskey and now everybody's drunk. Okay, I get it, all right? We get that picture in our mind. Okay, there's the picture. What he's saying is you don't want, don't do that, okay?

Side note, don't do that, okay? That's not what he's saying. He's saying be like that, but on the Spirit.

Okay, if you're gonna get tipsy, not that, get tipsy on the Spirit. Obviously in full control. My point is be given over to it. You know, be given over like that.

That's what he's getting at here. Now the question, of course, and this is where I hope I have led you, because this is the biggest question, guys, for some of you guys at our campuses today, for some of you here today, this may be the most important question somebody asks you in your life. How do you get that kind of love for God in your heart? Because some of you are here right now and you're like, man, I think I want that.

I think I want to grow. I want to love God. Okay, how? I don't know, I don't know how to do it. Alright, well then you need to really listen up here because the reality is that most people say, well what I'll do is I will muster up that kind of love by trying to be a really good person. That's what I'll try to do. I'll muster that love on my own and I'll try to prove to God that he's very important to me.

And man, it's ill-fated from the start. What you need to hear today is this, we need the Spirit to pour out love for God in our hearts. It is a miraculous thing that has to happen, but here's the thing, man, it happens when we see the love of Christ for us. When we begin to see, this is what he says, verse 19, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, what we're talking about here is, man, he's wanting something to be produced in us, but how does it get produced? It gets produced by knowing something that is produced in Christ for us. Our ability to love God is actually kind of hinging on our ability to understand how much he loves us. How much Christ loves us. That Christ's love for us precedes our love for him. 1 John 4 19 says it like this, y'all we love him.

Why? Because he first loved us. If we want to grow in a supernatural love for God, we need to sit under his grace and be amazed. The height, the length, the breadth, the depth, there is a fuel for the Christian life, and it is not the pride that comes from works. The fuel of the Christian life is the heart that is swollen with passion.

It's ignited for God, but the way it gets there is by seeing God's love for us, despite our sin. I mean what did you and I deserve because of our sin? Man, we certainly deserve death and separation from God for all eternity, and yet because of what Christ has done, because of his love for us, now you and I are ushered into his family forever?

Man, what do we actually deserve? But yet this God has covered our sin as we sang earlier, our sins have been washed by the blood of the Lamb, and Christ on the cross takes the death that we deserve, gives us the life that he deserved. There's a resurrection for us, yes in our spirit now, but one day ultimately and we will live with him forever in heaven? We need to see his love for us, and then our affections begin to stir, and then we begin to be moved. Man, our Christian life is fueled by remembering the gospel. There is a fuel that the Christian life runs on, and it is not fear and works, instead it is understanding what God has done for us, that he has run to us in all of our sin and in all of our weakness.

Man, here's what I think we have. Sometimes, guys we feel this sometimes, we feel like, especially if you've been in church for a long time, and I know that some of us in here right now, okay, some of us at our campuses you've been in church, you know that God has to save you if you would put your faith in him, like you know that. Jesus has to do this because, you know, he's, and here's what we think, we have this thing in our mind where we're like, but I know Jesus, you know, he has to love me, I'm just not sure he likes me. Here's what we think in our mind, we think, I think, you know, sometimes it sneaks in, man, I'm broken, I'm sinful, and I know Jesus had to come because of all the story of the gospel and all that, but you know what, he probably came on a reluctant mission that he didn't really want to do to save the people that he's secretly annoyed by. And what I want to tell you today is this, no, no, no, in your sin and your brokenness, the love of Christ abounds, the love of Christ is drawn toward you in your weakness, in your brokenness, even in your sin. Jesus is standing ready to lavish his love upon you, to cover that sin, and to call you the sons and daughters of God.

I think sometimes we want to, we think, man, God's got this kind of, he's got this scowl on his face kind of pointing because of our brokenness and sin, and maybe he's drawn toward us because he's helping us with those things and he's covering our sin with the blood of his son. You know, I think about this in my daughter, Faith Ann. So some of you guys know Faith Ann.

Faith Ann came to our family through adoption, and Faith Ann has some challenges. She has Down syndrome, she's very small, there may be some other things going on with her. She's awesome, but things are slower.

I mean, they just are, right? She's very small, you know, it took her a long time to learn how to walk, she's not, she doesn't speak, she has learned how to jump though, which is really awesome. Okay, very cute. So, you know, she's just, things are slower, and that's just the reality for us. Now, what kind of father would I be if the things that she struggles with, she doesn't color like the other kids do, she doesn't read, she doesn't, right now she doesn't speak. Like, what kind of father would I be if my posture toward her and those weaknesses was, why can't you get it together? What's the matter with you?

Man, can't you see you're annoying me here? I mean, what kind of father would I be? And yet, sometimes we think that about our Heavenly Father. We think that's the way he sees us, right?

And what I want to tell you today is this, no, no, no. God is running to you in your brokenness. He is running to you in your weakness. He is standing ready to lavish his love upon you and wash your sins away with the blood of his Son. His love is deeper than all of our sin.

Jesus died to pay the penalty of our sin and offer us life in his resurrection. Look at verse 19, and to know the love of Christ. The thing in this passage is saying, wait a minute, I'm not calling you to muster love on your own. I'm calling you, and hopefully supernaturally, to become aware of Jesus's love for you. That's how you become filled with the fullness of God. It's that we become aware supernaturally of what God is doing in our life.

And then here's how he finishes. Now to him who is able, this is on the brick, right? Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all 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. Amen. Now here, this is a little bit shocking when you actually go through it, right? Because here's what he's saying. Verse 20, to the God who is able to do far abundantly more, well wait a minute, more than what? More than what?

We want to fill in that blank. We want to say, well more than whatever, more than more than what we've seen here at Mercy Hill, or more than the blessings in my life. And God is certainly able to do more in those areas. But what's the passage actually saying? What he said is, to the God who is able to do abundantly more, more than what? He can even do more than giving, this is this is what I think he's getting at, alright? He just asked that the fullness of God would dwell in us.

What more could there be? And yet he ends by saying, and God can do more. So here's my deal, wherever you are today, man you're just starting this journey, you're just getting into the Bible, you've been on it for 20 years, wherever you are in terms of your awareness of God's love for you, the prayer is through the Spirit that he would make you more well, more aware, and that the fullness of God would dwell in you in a deeper and deeper way.

And then you know what happens? Man we live for his glory. Look what it says. I mean this is what he says, to him be glory in the church. You know the church ain't a building? You know buildings are tools for that we use in the West for advancement of God's kingdom.

That's all they are. That's not the church. The church is the people.

It's the saved ones who have covenanted together in local church. This is who the church is, okay? And so what I think the Bible is trying to say here is, wait a minute, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, amen.

God is a jealous God. Man he has created us that we would recognize his fame and live for his renown and we do that. We're standing in the awareness of Christ's love for us and we're filled with the fullness of God.

And so let's do this, kind of more by way of conclusion than anything else. Y'all, I'm gonna call you to live from God's fullness for his glory. Live from fullness for his glory. God wants more for us than we want from him, right? It's like the kid who wants a new Nintendo Switch game and God is saying, no I want you to live obsessed with my glory, life on fire, ignited with passion. I want more for you.

The Nintendo Switch game, that ain't wrong, alright? The other things that we asked for God, that ain't wrong. We need to reframe that stuff and say, wait a minute, is it from this fullness that he's talking about and is it for God's glory? So the first thing I want to say is this, in terms of application, you know, for some of us right now, right at our campuses, you're like, man I don't even know if I'm a believer.

Well that's what we need to nail down today. I mean today is the day where we ask God, man I pray that you would come save me, fill me with your spirit, put me on this journey of awareness of your goodness and your glory in my life. And I pray you'll do that today. You can do that our prayer time right after this. You admit your sin, believe what Christ has done to save you and confess that he is the Lord of your life and you will be saved, okay? And so I pray that you'll do that, come talk to us about that. But for others today it might be that we're a little bit like, wait a minute, I am a believer but I want to grow in these things.

Okay, well it's not about your bootstraps and mustering something up. In what ways are you living in the awareness of God's love for you? Because sometimes is what we do and this is the exact wrong thing. We do this in all of life, man. We do it when we're working out, we do it when we're trying a new eating plan. The day comes where we don't feel like it and because we don't feel like it, we stop, right? And that's like, it's like the death nail of anything we're trying to do.

It's like, no, anybody who's ever really kind of accomplished the thing that they went after, they know there's gonna be times where you don't feel like it and in those times that's maybe when you got to get after it even more. Here's what I want to call you to do today. Are you filling up your life with the Word of God, the people of God, the sermons that we preach here at Mercy Hill?

Y'all we've been preaching for 12 years, that's like thousands of hours. What are you listening to when you're driving down the road? Go back and hear some of these things. I mean, how are you filling your life? Stop focusing on the feeling and start focusing on the filling up of your life with these ideas. How can I remember God's goodness to me? Journal, read the Bible, get around godly people, be in a group, make sure you don't miss a weekend, right? These are the easy ways that we can stay in an ever-present awareness of God and what he's done in our life.

I want you guys to know, we're gonna deal with this card in a minute, if you guys want to jump this card out real quick, I'm gonna finish with this. It's in the chairs at all of our campuses, but you know, I want y'all to hear this. I pray every Monday, my prayer time is all about, God, I pray that you allow me to go through life today, go through my ministry today, motivated by your glory alone. I want to start my week like that, because here's the deal, here's the deal, if you're like me, man, I'm gonna be asking God for stuff the rest of the whole week. I mean, I've got big dreams and stuff for the church and all, I mean, I'm gonna be, I mean, it's gonna be petition, request, but that's fine, okay? But what I want to do first during the week is I want to pray, God, I pray that my singular motivation for ministry, life, parenting, being a husband, is gonna be your glory. Man, I pray, God, give me greater love for you, and I try to sit underneath the gospel, I try to say, God, I know that there is nothing I can do today that would make you love me more, and there is nothing I could fail to do that would make you love me less. What a glorious truth, fill my heart, it's gonna take your spirit to do that. I want to remember that in you is everything I need for an everlasting joy, you know?

Those are the types of things I'm talking about. Are we doing that somewhere during the week? I pray that you are. Alright, that's getting at fullness for God's glory, fullness for God's glory, so here's what I want to do, alright? Okay, so here's what this says, we'll close with this. It's Ephesians 3 20, written artistically, okay?

So, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly, all that stuff. Okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to turn around in the back, and I got a little phrase written here that you can't see, but I'm gonna tell you what it is, okay?

And here's what I've done. On the bottom, on the bottom of this, I wrote dot dot dot, from fullness, for glory. This is an interactive exercise, okay? So if you got a pen, okay, get a pen. Seriously, seriously, everybody at the campuses, this is what I'm saying, at the bottom, alright? I know it's hard to see. Alright, I'll go through it again. Alright, so everybody's got a pen, okay, the very bottom of this card.

Now remember, what's on the front of this card? Ephesians 3 20, God wants to do more in your life. More than what? I mean the fullness of God, right? Like, He wants my life to be filled with Him. Okay, alright, now here's what we say, dot dot dot, from fullness, for His glory. Alright, now we're not gonna do the rest of it here because it's gonna take some time. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to stick this in your wallet or in your, in your, in your Bible or whatever it is in your, in your bag, and here's what I want you to do. Hey, let's write some God dreams on here this week.

You understand? It's like, oh, you're like, what are my dreams? I'm talking about your dreams, man. I've got dreams. I'll tell you right now, I want to speak two languages at some point in my life. I've got a fixed number in my mind of the amount of money that I want to give away over the course of my whole life.

I would love to have property in the mountains one day in my life. I've got a thousand other things that are that way. Pray for God, pray God would give me these things, pray, I circle them. Stuff for the church. Man, we're praying five thousand five hundred, five thousand baptisms by 2032, five hundred missionaries sent by 2032. Big dreams like that, two hundred adoption and foster families raised up by the end of next year.

I got stuff like that all over the place. You do too, okay? Here's my point. Can we write those down and say, God, they're from fullness, for your glory. It reorients our ambition. God's saying, I want fullness of me in your life does not mean we don't have other dreams and desires.

It means that they're reframed for him. God, I want to take that next step in my career. Okay, great. Why? Is it for influence and for the generosity that's gonna come with more money? From fullness, for his glory. Maybe it's something as practical as a home.

Okay, great. How are we gonna use that for City Project? How are we gonna use that when it comes to community group? From fullness, for his glory.

I mean, people might say, well is it okay? My dream is to have this car. My dream is to have a pool at our house or whatever it is. Okay, from fullness, for his glory.

How many middle school and high school students are you gonna pack in that pool just when we're doing Bible studies with them and all that kind of stuff? You get what I'm saying? It's like, man, the dreaming is great. Read the book of Proverbs. We're supposed to have desires, but they come after the big one, the fullness of God. I would say they're rooted in that.

They grow like a tree out of that, right? So that's what I want you to do. Think about those dreams from fullness, for glory. Let's pray. Father, we come before you right now and we ask God that you will move in our congregation. Lord, I pray that this would be a people that I pastor that are dreamers. Do we have massive things that we're asking you for, for your glory in our personal lives, for our church? But God, I pray they would come after the biggest desire. Lord, that we would live in an ever-growing posture of love for you in Christ's name, amen.