The Strength We Need - Part 2

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham. A little later in the program we'll tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's book of meditations on Romans 8. But first, here's his message, The Strength We Need, Part 2. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant to you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled, watch this, with all the fullness of God. And then a doxology of praise. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. And we all said, Amen.

We do. If I could put this sermon in one sentence, it would be this, all of God in all of us. All of God in all of you. All of God in all of me.

The secret of our strength is the power of Jesus Christ by His Spirit working in you. As I noted, this is Paul prayed. He's in prison. He is a wounded warrior, broken, facing the end of his life, and yet his spirit is free.

He is alive in Christ. He is strengthened in the midst of these terrible circumstances and he begins to pray. He hits a knee and he begins to pray.

He says, I bow my knee. Interestingly enough, bowing the knee, bowing in prayer is not mentioned that often in Scripture. The Scripture speaks of standing in prayer, walking in prayer, lifting up holy hands in prayer, but rarely kneeling in prayer. And yet it is this posture that speaks of our humility and surrender before God in prayer. It is our disposition before God and it's good to pray. Always you can pray singing, you can pray silently, you can pray walking, you can pray sitting, you can pray laying on your bed, you can pray laying on your face, and you can kneel before God. There's no one certain way to pray.

So it's not the posture of our praying but the power. We are strengthened in this prayer because of our wealth in Christ. Remember, Ephesians 1 through 3 is all about our wealth and our worth in Christ, your identity in Christ, who you are and what you have because you are a believer in Christ.

And chapters 1, 2, and 3, from eternity past to eternity future, all of these blessings of God that are ours. And he speaks here of being strengthened in the inner man with the riches, the riches of his glory. You are wealthy beyond your imagination.

Did you know that? Your net worth is much more than you thought. We are enriched in Jesus Christ. Think about the billions and billions of blessings that are ours and the billions and billions of years that we will have to celebrate him throughout all eternity.

It's hard to imagine just how great are our resources and our riches in Christ. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, then the Spirit of God lives in you. You are made alive in Christ. You have the Holy Spirit, and there's such tremendous strength in the Holy Spirit.

How so? Well, it is the work of the Holy Spirit that saves us. It is the work of the Holy Spirit not only to save us but give us power to witness. The power of the Holy Spirit gives us joyful hope. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to overcome our fears and anxieties. The Holy Spirit gives us power and provision for everything we need to live the Christian life.

It's all present because the Holy Spirit lives in each one of us. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the power of God.

And this power is abundant. It's the power of God, the very power of God through Christ by his Spirit. The Trinity is at work here.

You say Trinity, yes, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. All of the power of God. This is our wealth. This is our worth.

And it's an inner flow that comes from deep within. If you understand this, it is your position that will change your condition in life. Don't live beneath your blessings. Don't live beneath the privileges and the possessions that you have in Christ.

Begin declaring who you are and what you have in Him. You have a strength to overcome, to defeat the enemy, to defeat and destroy that addiction in your life, to overcome temptation, to live in victory, to rise out of the ashes of defeat in your life. You are not just a lowly worm. You are saved by the grace of God. The power of Jesus is in you. You are strengthened in Him every single day. And then we are strengthened in the inner being.

That's what He says here in verse 16. This is a great 316. There are many 316s in the Bible that you should know. I don't know John 316, but Ephesians 316 says that according to the riches of His glory that He might grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being. Now, your inner being, of course, is the soul, the spirit. Your body, your soul, you are spirit. Speaking of the innermost being, the part of you that is made for God, the core, the center of your life.

Everything else is circumference. When Christ is at the center, at the core of your life, controlling your attitudes, your dispositions, your directions, your decisions in life, the more and more you will become like Him and glorify Him. And that's the goal, is to be more and more like Christ.

You are not just a bunch of chemicals. You at the core are made for God, to know God. And if you are a Christian, He is in you. And that means though the outer man, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 460, though the outer man is wasting away, decaying, the inner person can be strengthened every single day. We are strengthened from deep within. This is the secret of our strength.

This is how you keep going and never quit. Because Christ is in you. Christ in you. The hope of glory. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, The Strength We Need, Part 2. As a follower of Jesus Christ, you have every reason to hope. And we want to help you experience that hope by sending you Pastor Graham's book of meditations on Romans 8 called A Hope and a Future.

In it, he shows you how you can experience freedom from confusion, doubt or fear. This powerful resource is our thanks for your gift today. And to thank you for a gift of $50 or more, we'll also include Pastor Graham's book, Help, Hope and Healing for Life's Challenges. So call now to request your resources. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131.

That's PowerPoint to 313131. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website again is Jack Graham.org. Now let's get back to today's message, The Strength We Need, Part 2. He says in verse 17 something very important. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

I like the way the Living Bible gives this. He says, I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust Him. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now, of course we invite people to receive Christ, to invite Christ into your heart. And certainly this expresses that idea that when you receive Christ, you are inviting Christ, that Christ would dwell in your heart.

It's true. Jesus said in Revelation 3.20, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in. So it's proper to pray and invite Christ into your heart. And while that is gloriously true, what this verse is actually speaking about when it says, let Christ be at home in your heart, let Christ dwell in your heart, it's really describing something of letting Christ be comfortable in your life. Let welcome Christ, let Him be at home in your life. In other words, your life is not a hotel where Christ moves in and out, but His permanent residence. Your heart is Christ's home.

He lives within. If someone comes to your house, you may say to them, make yourself at home. Now, that doesn't mean necessarily that you want them rummaging through your closet or your garage or your personal items and things. You know, make yourself at home means to a certain degree.

But you're saying, be comfortable here. My house is your house. Well, in a much greater degree, when Christ dwells, abides in our lives, He is to make Himself at home. Is Christ at home in your heart? Robert Boyd Munger wrote a little booklet called My Heart, Christ's Home. And in it, he was describing the heart as a home where Christ would be comfortable, where Christ would be Lord of life and Lord of all. He described the heart as a home that had a dining room where we fulfilled our appetites and a kitchen and a living room and a bedroom and all the rooms that you might have in a house, all the compartments and all of the closets and all of the crevices.

And Munger described this Christian life as allowing Jesus to take His rightful place of lordship, preeminence, not just a place in our lives, but preeminence in all of our lives. Does Christ have all your heart? Does He have every room in your life, including those secret places that nobody else knows about?

Oh, He knows about them. But you must be willing to say, Lord, come in and clean out this closet. He comes into our hearts, the home of our lives, and He cleans things up and He renovates everything. My heart is Christ's home.

Is Jesus the Lord of your life? He strengthens us in the heart by the Holy Spirit because He dwells within us. Then next, He strengthens us in His love. He strengthens us in His love. Verse 18, May have strength to comprehend with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ. The word know there means to grasp it, to experience it, to apprehend it, to understand it more and more.

The breadth, the length, the depth, the height. When you read the commentators on this passage describing the love of Jesus Christ, you're amazed at the wonder of His love. And it is this love that strengthens us every single day. You might describe the height, the breadth, the length, the depth of His love right out of John 3.60. How wide is God's love? For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. How long is the love of God? Long enough that He sent His Son Jesus into the world, left heaven, came to this world so that we would never perish. How deep is the love of God that whoever believes, whoever believes, you and me will have eternal life? And how high is the love of God that you would have everlasting life? It's been described as the cross, this height and depth and breadth and length of the love of God.

If you really want to know it, it's like measuring the immeasurable. It's like knowing the unknowable in so many ways and yet by the Spirit, we can learn more and more and more and experience more of God's love every single day. But the Christians of the first century often spoke of the cross in this way.

The vertical bar, the horizontal bar, the depth of the cross, the length of the cross, the width of the cross. If you want to know the love of God, then look at Jesus on the cross. For God demonstrated His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And it is the love of God, knowing that we are so loved, that strengthens us every single day of our lives from eternity present, eternity past, eternity future.

Never stop learning more and more of the love of God. When Deb and I got married in 1970, it was a nine-month romance and then a marriage like the birth of a baby, nine months. There was no baby, but there was a marriage.

There were babies later. But you know, that first love, college sweetheart, exciting, wonderful. But I can tell you that as our love has grown through the years, all these years and years that I love her more than I could have possibly loved her then because in the maturing of love, in the developing of love, there is a greater love and more and more. And my prayer is, you know, we have shared so much in life and shared so much in ministry and shared so much with children and now grandchildren.

This just increases the love that you have for one another. And as you walk with the Lord, as you experience His grace, His mercy, His goodness, His provision all through the years, you just learn to love Him more and more. And I can tell you this, no one loves you more than Jesus. No one ever cared for me or you like Jesus. There's only a few people in the world that really love you, family and a few friends in the love that I'm talking about. But I'm telling you above all others, Christ loves you.

Now how does that make you feel when you hear that? Do you dismiss it because you've heard it again and again and again, God loves you? You deny it? Do you deny it because perhaps you're living in sin and you've wandered away from God and His love in your life?

Do you just dismiss it? Do you deny it? Or do you embrace it, this love of God in Jesus Christ? When you embrace His love, you receive His power because the greatest power in the world is the power of love, God's great love.

It is inexhaustible, it is indescribable, it is incomprehensible, but we have a lifetime and then an eternity to experience this love. To be filled with His love is to be controlled by His Lordship. And then one last thing, for it says in verse 19, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. All of God in all of you. All of Christ in all of your heart. The goal of your life should be all of Christ, none of me.

Now, that's not just pious religious spirituality. It is the reality of someone who is in Christ. When we pray that we ask God to fill us, not just part of us, but all of us, all of Christ is in us. But when we pray like Paul prayed, when we pray a prayer like this, and empty our lives of self and sin, then God has all of us. He controls us.

He dominates us. He lives large in our lives. And He is glorified and that's the goal. The goal of your life should be to glorify God.

The ambition of every Christian should be, I want to be like Christ. And that happens when we are emptied more and more of self and filled more and more with Him. I can tell you that through the years, there have been times when I've just had to get alone with God and say, God, I've taken back some things.

I've done some things that do not please you. But Lord, I ask you now as I confess my need to fill me and use me and glorify yourself. I give you my life. I give you my wife. I give you my family. I give you our friends. I give you our church. I give you our ministry. I give you my reputation just to say, Lord, I take hands off and give you the control of my life. That's the powerful prayer that we ought to pray. And then do you know what happens?

That doxology. God is able to do exceeding abundantly above and beyond all that we could think, hope, imagine, pray, dream, desire. God will do so much more with your life, much more, when you are emptied of self and full of Him. You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and today's message, The Strength We Need, Part 2. When you feel like you're being tossed by waves of doubt, fear or confusion, the only way to stay afloat is by focusing on your true source of hope, Jesus Christ. Pastor Graham wants to help you experience that hope in all of life circumstances with his book of meditations on Romans 8 called A Hope and a Future.

You'll discover how God gives you perspective, protection, purpose and power to keep you from sinking in life's storms. A Hope and a Future is our thanks for your gift today to help boldly proclaim the truth of the gospel and the hope it brings to more people around the world. And as thanks for your gift of $50 or more, we'll also send you Pastor Graham's book, Help, Hope and Healing for Life's Challenges. So call now to request your resources and thank you for your generosity. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 313131. Text PowerPoint to 313131. Don't forget to visit jackgram.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional.

Our website again is jackgram.org. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? You know the blessings of God are available and they're abundant because we have confessed Jesus as our Lord and Savior and therefore He has given to us amazing, wonderful, incredible promises. Friend, do you know Jesus?

Do you have a personal relationship with Him? Maybe today you just stumbled across this radio station or God is speaking to you in some way through this message. Perhaps you've been listening for a long time now and yet you know that you've never really crossed the line. You've never truly determined, decided to follow Jesus as your Lord and your Savior. I believe that you are here by divine appointment, that you're listening, not by chance or accidents, but by His providence. This is a divine appointment with Almighty God. He is speaking to you.

He wants to get your attention and right now I want to invite you to open your heart and your life to Him. It could be that your life never seems to be in focus. Maybe you have habits in your life that you can't seem to give up or there are problems that are so overwhelming that you know you need something or someone beyond yourself to change your circumstances. What you need is the power of Jesus to change your life. What you need is the power of Jesus to get you focused and to get you going in the right direction, filled with purpose. And what you need is for Jesus to take away the weight and the guilt and the problem of your sin. What you need is eternal life through Jesus Christ. God sent His Son, Jesus, who lived a perfect life, He died on the cross for your sins, and He rose again from the grave victorious over sin, death, and hell. And if you will put your trust and faith in Him, He will forgive your sin, He will come to live in your life and give you a hope and a promise forever and ever that you will be with Him.

So right now, right where you are, pray a prayer like this one. Lord, I know that I've sinned. Thank you for dying on the cross for me.

I believe you rose again on the third day. And right now, I turn from my sin and trust in you. Forgive me, cleanse me, and make me your child. Thank you for giving me eternal life.

Thank you for coming to live in me. And I pray, O Lord, that I will live for you and the power of your spirit until you come for me. If you prayed that prayer and in your heart received Christ, then you are now, according to God's word, His child. The Bible says in 1 John 5, 13, these things are written that you may know that you have eternal life. You have been given eternal life in Christ.

Now, I want to encourage you to tell someone else. I want to encourage you to get involved in a Bible-believing, Christ-exalting church. I want to encourage you to spend time developing your faith and growing in your faith through Bible study and prayer. Let me remind you, the joy and the blessing of God are yours when you live your life to the glory of God.

And you can glorify God by living for Jesus and telling someone else just what He means to you. And that is today's PowerPoint. Well, on the next PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about the abundant life you can have in Christ. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.