TRANSCRIPT
I want to go back to our study on Ephesians and I know that we have had different people touching on different aspects of the book of Ephesians, but what I’d like to do today is just make a quick summary, a recap of what we have been reading and studying until now . But I’d like to concentrate on verses 14 through 21 of chapter 3 tonight, after I give that recap of the book until this point.
So, in chapter 3 verse 14 it says, “…..for this reason I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family, in heaven and on earth, derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
Now, when you read verse 20, it says “….Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power….”, etc. don’t you get the sense of something that is closing. I mean, usually this kind of expression accompanies the end of a letter. It is after the Apostle Paul has finished writing a letter, he ends with a word of praise and worship to God, and you get the sense that you know, in these two verses he’s sort of putting a closing remark to something. It’s almost like you expect the book to end there, with that great doxology, that’s what it’s called. You know, an expression of glory and praise and worship to the Lord.
So, one would expect almost that the book would end right there, but it doesn’t. It continues. The reason why that kind of language is because in the Apostle’s mind it’s almost as if he has completed something, and is giving a closing period to that something. And in this case, preparing to open up something completely different, not completely different of course, because they’re both related, but it is a change in tone, a change in content and certainly when you read the next three chapters, you clearly get that sense that something else has begun.
Now, what makes for that difference. And in order to understand the book of Ephesians you have to see that those first three chapters deal with almost, what I have said, I think I have mentioned this before. It is a kind of, I call it a back stage view of the saving work of God. A back stage view of the gospel.
It’s almost like we have been treated to a privileged perspective on God’s work in the universe, particularly as it related to the human race. And the Apostle Paul spends a lot of time in these first three chapters talking about all that God has done in the world and he takes us to the beginning of the universe almost and then to the ends and in between he shows us this glorious work that God has carried out on behalf of his church and he speaks about Jesus Christ, about the church, about the mystery of God’s work, vis a vis the church. And all this grandiose concepts that he takes time to develop and show us.
So, those first three chapters are a theologians, but not just any theologian really. You have a theologian who has had access to God’s revelation and he is speaking from the mind of God and giving an X ray understanding of what God has been doing in his church and through Jesus Christ and you know, to redeem the human race and on and on and on, and about the nature of Christ, the nature of the church, the nature of God’s saving work in the universe. All these big ideas are expounded in the first three chapters of Ephesians. And then, now beginning with chapter 4 it’s almost as if Paul says, well enough of these grandiose, these great ideas, these great revelations, now I want to get into the down to earth implications and consequences of what you have just been taught and given revelation to.
Now, I want you to meditate upon what are the consequences in terms of your behavior and in terms of your relationships as you ponder upon the great saving work of God. And you know, this is a theme of mine these days in my life and in the life of the church that I think the church fails, the church of Jesus Christ, that means me and you and us, we fail because often we are too spiritual, our mind is always thinking about the grand ideas, our language is too spiritual, our language is too grandiose, our language is too you know, ethereal and out there, too abstract.
And we don’t consider enough the ethical implications of the gospel, the down to earth implications for daily, mundane life, behavior, relationships, self transformation, self growth. And you know, the church needs to bring down the gospel to the level of behavior and of relationships and of inner life, the ethical. What I call the ethical implications, the behavioral implications of the gospel and that’s what Paul is going to do from chapter 4 onwards. He’s going to be showing us what that means. So, he’s going to be talking about how we should relate to each other, the unity that there should be in the church.
He talks about how husbands and wives should relate to each other, how children should relate towards parents, and how parents should relate toward children. He speaks about how, in the case of Greek, Greco roman society, how slaves were to relate to their masters. In our case it might be, how we must related to those who are in authority over us, whether it is our, those who are superior to us in our jobs, or whatever.
But, it’s the decantation, to use a big word, it is the distillation of that grandiose revelation that we have been treated to in the first three chapters, now coming down to earth in terms of behavior. So that’s what I want you to understand.
When you read the book of Ephesians see it as if it were two pieces, two pages: one page looks to the heavenlies and to God’s work and the other page looks to the earth, behavior. One is almost one could say vertical and spiritual, quote unquote. The other is horizontal and human and world related. Ok? So, that’s one big thing.
Because, you know, it is such a… it is that alone, for us to understand there’s a big, big pedagogical, forgive for using these words, I don’t find any better ones, a pedagogical asset to us, because we can now understand this thing that we need to live out the truths of the gospel. It’s not enough to keep them out there in our brain and in our spirit, and in our theological understanding. We need to live it, we need to live the gospel. We need to ask ourselves, this that I just read, what does it mean in terms of my self transformation, my needs, my flaws, my behavior, my relationship with others, my mental life. That’s the deep question that we should always be asking ourselves.
So, that’s one thing that I wanted to draw out before you. The second thing: let’s make a quick, quick sojourn, a journey through those first three chapters. And I’m going to try to just run right through it.
Let’s go to chapter 1. In those first 14 verses, we have the Apostle Paul showing us the choosing of the church, all the work that God has done behind the scenes to choose his select to call them, to predestine them, to adopt them, to prepare them. The key verse here is verse 4 “…. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance to his pleasure and will.”
And then he goes on about all that God has invested in order to make the church possible, to bring it into existence. And then, in verse 11 he continues: “…. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan”.
It’s all saying, these are the origins of the church. This is what God has done to bring about the existence of the church. These are your exalted origins in the mind of God and before even the creation of the world people of God. And Jesus himself is the essential element in that work of God. He has been created, or not created, but rather he has been established by God as the unifying element of all that exists in the universe. And God’s plan is that one day Jesus would become the chief cornerstone, the essential unifying element in everything that exists. Ok?
So, those are the first 14 verses. Then, in verse 15 he says “… for this reason…”, and here you have a Paul again going back to the down to earth, the world, you know, the life, human life, “… for this reason, ever since I heard about your faith I have not stopped giving thanks”.
And so now, up to verse 23 he’s going to speak about you know, when I heard that you guys were part of God’s grand plan and that you were emerging as a church, you, Ephesians I started giving thanks to God because his plan was coming into fruition through you. You were one more manifestation of God’s universal work. And so I give thanks, and I’m so enthusiastic about your emergence as a church that I’m also asking that you be able to understand how much power you have. You know, this is what he says here, “I pray -in verse 18- that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called, the riches of his glorious inheritance and his incomparably great power”.
So here, in these next verses Paul is saying, you know, now you know your origins, well, I want you also to know how much power has been given to you, how many riches, how much wealth, how many resources have been given to you as believers in Jesus Christ. So that’s the other part.
And then, chapter 2, he now goes from that great vision of the church, receiving all this power and asking that they be able to understand that power, he kind of looks at the condition that we were in before we became you know, that church. It is a description of what is the condition of a person who does not know Christ.
“You were dead in your transgressions, -chapter 2, verse 1- and sins in which you used to live”. You were under the kingdom of the air and you know, gratifying the cravings of your sinful nature, on and on, and on. And yet, he says, you know, but God in his love took you out of that and seeded you with Christ.
And then in verse 6 he says, “for it’s by grace you have been saved through faith and it’s not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”.
So, we have here then, a description of what we were like in the down to earth, in time and space before God’s saving work started manifesting itself in us, in this case, the Ephesians.
Now, in verse 11, from verse 11 to verse 22 of chapter 2, the end he continues talking about the condition now that the gentiles, all the world. What Paul is saying without the saving work of Christ, the whole world is divided. Jews hate Greeks and people who are highly developed intellectually hate the ignorant. And the whole world is divided without Christ.
Remember, in verse 12, that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners of the covenant of the promise, and then in verse 14 he talks about Jesus being our peace. Remember, Jesus is the element that makes harmony possible in the entire world. Jesus is what enables this broken, divided, fragmented world to come together and this is what he’s saying in that whole passage there.
And then in chapter 3, he begins talking about a mystery that he has been chosen, he, Paul, has been chosen to share with humankind, which is the mystery that Christ is, or rather that the gentiles have been chosen as well as the Jews to be part of God’s saved humanity.
Remember the Jews believed that only they were chosen, everybody else was destined to hell. The Jews looked at all the gentiles with disdain and even hatred. And they thought themselves as the only, the elect, and Paul says, guys, I have a revelation for you. There’s a mystery here, you’re not the only ones, but God has assigned me to tell you that also the gentiles are part of this thing.
In verse 6, chapter 3, “… this mystery is that through the gospel the gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Jesus Christ”.
And I want to use some of this water, I hope somebody doesn’t have any contagious diseases, but I’m going to use it. So, that part, that first part of chapter 3 talks about the mystery. And you know, it’s almost a digression because Paul says in chapter 3, “for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the sake of you gentiles….” Then it says, surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grade.
You know, he gets diverted. He’s going to say something but when he mentions, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the sake of you gentiles, he remembers about the gentiles being part of the church and so he goes on as Paul can do sometimes and just starts talking about his calling. I don’t think it’s to show himself off or anything like that, it’s not out of pride, it’s simply that he realizes how important this piece of the whole puzzle is, that the gentiles need to be considered an integral part of God’s saved humanity.
So, he goes off for several verses in talking about this mystery and what role Jesus plays in all that mystery. So that’s up to chapter 3, verse 13. And then he enters into verse 14 and on which I’ll just touch upon very briefly, before we go on later on to chapter 4 and all its ethical implications.
So, you know, see that in verse 1, chapter 3 it says “for this reason I, Paul, and he says, surely you have heard…”
Now, look in verse 14, he says “for this reason…” in other words, he’s picking up where he began and left off. Now, he’s back on track, now he’s back to his original intent, when he started writing this part of the chapter. So, he says, “for this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.”
What is the reason that leads Paul to kneel before the Father. Remember, it’s not going to be found in the beginning of chapter 3, it’s going to be found in all these verses, chapter 2, verses 11 through 22, where he is lead to ponder upon the fact that the gentiles have been grafted into the body that Jesus Christ is the unifying element that brings the entire human race together, that there’s no longer a need for people to hate each other and to be divided, or that now it is possible for all of us to be part on one humanity with Jesus Christ as the center. And that vision, that understanding leads him to do what? To worship God, to praise the Lord for his marvelous grace, his wisdom, his grand plan. And so he marvels at that, he is lead to kneel before the Lord.
Remember that the Jewish posture for praise was what? Standing up with the hands spread up. Here, Paul is so overcome with amazement and awe and admiration, and gratitude before the Lord that he kneels. Really, in the Greek original is I bow my knees, doblo mis rodillas, as it says in Spanish. I bend my knees, it’s even more expressive.
So, you know, when we consider what God has done in our lives, his forgiveness, his investment throughout the ages, his love, his forgiveness, his patience with humanity and with me. What can we do except humble ourselves and worship him and thank him, and say, Father, I don’t deserve that you would take so much time and so much energy to fashion this plan of salvation and to usher me so patiently through it, every time I fail you, every time I offend you and yet you still persist, and you have made this possible. So we kneel.
You know, worship, this kind of worship is so important in our lives. It is so important that we, every once in a while be overcome by this sense of awe at the love and at the greatness of God. There’s no shame in that. I wish that more of us, every once in a while with just a big Alleluia! would just come out of our lips and that would startle the pigeons in the park, because we are overcome by this sense of, you know, God you are so special.
Most of us, you know, we have this mundane understanding of God. We never go into those levels of worship. Paul could because he knew exactly what that meant.
So he says, for this reason I kneel before the Father, and you know, when he chooses that expression, he could have said, I kneel before God, or I kneel before the creator, or I kneel before the maker of heaven and earth, or before our savior. But no, he chooses at this moment to employ the image of God as Father, that tender image of a God who nurtures us and who invests in us, and who has done all this generous work on our behalf.
“… before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name”.
So, you know, when we think about all that God has done to create this church, that is the church of Jesus Christ, we need to see ourselves as a family. You know, this great God has invested all this time, all this love in putting together the saved humanity of which we are a part. And it’s so important that we see ourselves as a family, the church…
You know, we’re not just a conglomeration of individuals sitting down in a place like this, unified by some sort of abstract body of knowledge. No, we are a family. We are a people who are united by the blood of Jesus Christ, I mean, there should be all kinds of love and passion and feeling unifying us.
You know, when we come into the Kingdom of God is to love each other, to protect each other, to cover each other, to support each other, to be patient with each other, to lead ourselves through the struggles of life and of the Christian walk, it is that kind of journey. And we need to see ourselves as loyal to each other and absolutely and passionately attached to each other.
So, he says, “…I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family…” You know, and we are a family, not just human beings but also the angels and also all those who are in heaven before us, we’re all part of this big, redeemed family. And we derive our name, the church, or our identity from that fact that we have a common Father in heaven.
And it says, “… I pray that out of his glorious riches..” he goes now into another prayer, one more of those prayers that he always gets into as he did in the beginning. You know, as he thinks about it he says, I pray that out of his glorious riches, and he uses the same vocabulary that he’s used so often in Ephesians, this vocabulary of abundance. God has lavished upon us many things, you know, there’s a generous vocabulary that he uses it.
For example, in the beginning, in chapter 1 he says, “…God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing…”. And then in verse 8, chapter 1 he says, “… God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding”. And you know, in chapter 1, verse 18 he says, “… I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope and the riches of his glorious inheritance and his incomparably great power.”
He uses God has provided for us and he’s blessed us in a magnificent sort of way. This is why Paul is always using this very, very abundant vocabulary. The prefix uper which is hyper in English is very close to Paul’s vocabulary. Paul is always speaking in hyper terms because he knew the abundance of God’s love, the power. You know, when God gives he gives generously and most of us, unfortunately we live out of a tea spoon in our lives.
God loves us so deeply, God has blessed us so richly, God has empowered us so abundantly and yet somehow we are never able to attain to that abundant understanding of how much God has given us. We are always seeing ourselves as miserable and needy and minimal in what we have. And Paul again is saying, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you so that Christ may dwell in you and so…..” on, and on and on.
He does that again, as you saw in verse 18, chapter 1, “…. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope…” etc.
He’s offering a prayer that first we may be strengthened with power through his spirit in our inner being. Two, that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, and three, that being rooted and established in love, we may have power to grasp how wide, and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
You see, again, he’s saying, I pray, let me go the last one. It says, I pray that you will be able to grasp, to understand really how incredibly encompassing the love of Christ is towards you guys. Oh, I do hope that when we feel far from Christ, when we feel that we have offended, and that somehow we’re not so special for him after all. Or that maybe he loves us, yes, but you know, he’s so busy that he doesn’t have the time to give the attention that we would like to us.
Paul says, guys I hope that the spirit of God will enable to truly understand how much God, through Christ, how much Christ loves you. I mean, if I could understand that, life would be so much easier for me, if I could truly understand how much Christ loves me, and how impossible it is for anything to take me out of his love, as he says in Romans, chapter 8.
I pray that we tonight will understand you know, God loves you, God loves me. He passionately loves you and he has plans for your life. So, he says, I pray, we already have seen that we may be able to grasp the depth of the love of Christ. In verse 16, I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power… Remember the language of power is so prevalent in the book of Ephesians, it’s everywhere. You know, the language of power, as Christians we should be seeking power and that I think is the genius of the pentecostal charismatic wing of the church, it’s the emphasis on power, which also has its dangers if that’s all you think about. Remember, we’ve talked about that.
It’s not just power but wow, power is huge, it’s important and as believers we need to be seeking power in our lives. We need to be seeking the power of the Holy Spirit, we need to be seeking the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We need to remember that we have power to conquer the devil. We have power to overcome the defects and the flaws of our character. We have power to vanquish addictions and dependencies and oppressive spirits in our lives. We have that power.
We need to keep asking the Lord, Father, enable me to enter more and more into the use and the feeling, and the assurance of that power. We need to pray to the Lord and we need to seek all the sources of power that there is in the gospel, whether is the word of God, prayer, fasting, worship, association with the saints through collective gathering, service in the Christian walk. All of these things are sources of power, they increase our power and we should practice them. Because we’re like athletes, the more we exercise ourselves in those areas, the more authority, the more power, the more assurance of the presence of God we have in our lives.
So, Paul is saying, I pray that you will be strengthened through his spirit in your inner being. That’s an expression that Paul uses a lot. Where are we to be strengthened? It’s not in our mind, it’s not in our emotions. No, it’s in the inner, that’s where the seat of power in Christian, the inner being is what he calls the inner man, is that inner dimension of our personality, that spiritual dimension of our personality. It is there, call it the soul, call it the spirit, call it the will. But there is a part of us that is deep and spiritual that is the seat of God’s power. So, he prays, I pray that you would be strengthened there, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
You know, Christ is dwelling in us. Jesus says, if you open the door, I will enter and I will sup with you and you with me. There are many places where Jesus speaks of coming into us and dwelling inside of us. As believers the Holy Spirit, which is the spirit of Christ is in-dwelling us. We have the spirit of God in us, 24 hours a day. How do we make this possible? It’s through faith, it’s not emotions. You know, one day you may wake up and you’ve got a stomach ache or it’s Monday morning and you’re depressed because it’s raining outside and you’ve got to go to work and you don’t feel so much the presence of Christ in your life. You say, God, what happened? Maybe he’s taken a vacation or maybe he went to Florida because he didn’t like the cold here and I’m going to have to wait until summer when he gets back to Boston.
And you know, we cannot depend on emotions to know that God is in us, that Christ is in us. I learned, you know, if I feel depressed, that’s my problem, it’s not God’s problem. I know God is in me. You know, if I feel a little dark in my emotions, I tell my mind, hey, Christ has not abandoned me, Christ is not depressed and he’s not bored. He’s still with me because he said, I am with you every day until the end of time. And so therefore, I know that he’s in there. Maybe there’s a cloud covering him, but he’s in there, ok? Just like the sun, you know, clouds come and you don’t say, wow what happened to the sun? My God, I mean, we’ve got to call it back. No, you know that the sun is there, it’s just being covered by a cloud.
And it’s the same way with the presence of God. We have to accept Christ through faith. Christ is with me, I don’t care whether it’s in hell or in a rack which may be the same thing, or whatever, but you know, he’s with me and wherever I go Christ goes with me, and I can call him any time, and I can call upon him any time, no matter how I feel, no matter what I see around me, no matter what they tell me, no matter what the demons whisper into my psyche, Christ dwells in me 24 hours a day.
That’s so important that we keep that in mind. Because our emotions are going to betray, circumstances are going to betray us and we have to just learn to discipline our emotions and live by shear faith because of what God has declared. It doesn’t depend on me, on my convictions, it depends on what God has said, his faithfulness.
So, he says, I pray that….. so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and I pray that you being rooted and established in love. Ok, that’s important, you know, because what is the very foundation of our conduct and our walk as believers? You know, we have talked about power and I just said that it’s not absolutely and exclusively important. It is very important and as people who subscribe to the charismatic point of view, we believe the power is important, but I’m telling you people, what First Corinthians 13 says is absolutely valid.
If I have all the power in the world, and all the faith so that I tell mountains move and they move and they go into the sea; but if I don’t have love in my life, then it is worth absolutely nothing. Power is conditioned and balanced by love because without love power becomes dictatorial, oppressive, manipulative, controlling and absolutely grotesque. The only thing that makes power beautiful and attractive and God like is the love of God lubricating it and giving it bounds and life and vibration and moisture. Otherwise it’s just one big rock that breaks people’s head.
And we have to ask the Lord, Father, make me a person of love. You know, make a person of power and authority and truth, yes, but have all of that be penetrated and founded on love. You have to ask the Lord to balance our personality. Make me merciful, make me gracious, make me humble, make me accepting of others, make me tolerant, even as I manage your love and I move in your love and your firmness.
That’s what I see, that beautiful balance in Jesus Christ that I keep going to time and time again. Jesus was a man of power, of authority, of clarity, of absolute manliness. When I see him dealing with the Pharisees, when I see him dealing with his own disciples, when I see him dealing with the devil, when I see him dealing with …. Thread of death, I see a man who’s very sure and powerful and clear and unshakable.
But then, when I see him dealing with little children and I come to him, or with that woman who was caught in adultery, or with Zacaias, the sinner who’s looking at him and thinking, this guy is not going to give the time of day, and Jesus says, no, hey, I’m going to have supper at your house; I see the balance, so beautiful.
And we have to ask God, give us that balance, Lord, give us that balance. And so, you know, he says, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in loved. He uses two metaphors here, rooted is the metaphor of a tree, of nature, of agriculture; and established, the Greek word is like founded, like the foundation of a building, which are two metaphors that Paul uses continually: the church as a building and the church as a tree growing in a balanced sort of way, or as a body really.
So, one is out of life and the other is out of material things, but they all talk about our being established, rooted, founded. All that we do, the power that we wield has to be rooted and established in love. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long, and high and deep is the love of Christ.
You see, that is all these different things that he’s asking that we receive: power to live victorious lives, love to use that power correctly and with good intentions and for the benefit of others, and understanding of how great is the deep love of Christ for us. And no matter what happens his love is going to be there for us.
“And to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
I will leave it there. To know this love that surpasses knowledge, there’s almost a contradiction there. How can you know something that surpasses knowledge? Don’t you see the contradiction, the paradox? Well, yes, I can know the love of God that is impossible to know. Do you know how? In my spirit. I may not be able to process it rationally, my intellect may not be able to break it down and to understand it in all its manifestation, but I can experience it to whatever degree I can, just by feeling it, by wallowing in it, by experience it.
You know, it’s like you love someone. How do you describe the love that you have for a loved child or a loved woman or husband, whatever? You can’t describe it. I mean, you can break it down as the psychologists are trying to do and locate in one certain part of the brain and decide what hormones are released when you’re feeling loved and all that kind of stuff. But, does that explain love? Come on. Does that explain a nice candle light dinner in a great restaurant as you’re looking at that loved one through across the table and your heart is pumping at a hundred miles an hour and all kinds of endorphins are being release and you feel this joyful feeling? Of course not. It would be stupid to think that because you have described a certain dimension, the material hormonal dimension of love, that you understand love. But you feel it and it engulfs you. It saturates and baptizes you.
And you know, it is like that with the love of Christ. He says, I pray that you may know this love that ultimately, really surpasses all academic, intellectual, rational knowledge, that you may experience it as he could have said, you may experience and be convicted and convinced of it. Wow! I pray, Lord, help to experience de love of Christ. Help to be consumed and gulfed by that feeling of your love. I don’t want to have just an intellectual experience of the gospel. God forbid. I want my gospel to be full of emotions and adrenaline and sweat and good feelings because that’s what God wants for us, his people. No intellectual love for me, please. No intellectual experience although that’s an important part of the gospel. No, we want more than that, we want the experience. That you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Wow!
That’s what I want. No superficial gospel for me, please. I want to go for the gold. I want the whole enchilada, as they say, the whole thing, the emotions, the theology, the jumping around, the crying the tears, the scary moments, the up and down ride in the roller coaster, the whole thing, the fullness of God, his cross and his power, his joy and his tears, his suffering and his victory, the whole thing, the fullness of God. He’s all of that and that’ what we want as believers.
And only the spirit can do that for us, but if we want it, it can be possible. Do not ever be content with a mediocre experience of the gospel. I rebuke that in the name of Christ right now in each of us. No mediocre experience of the kingdom for me or for you, for this church. We want something that is consuming and enthusiastic and full of joy and full of whatever it is but give us the whole cup, Father, give us the whole revelation, the whole experience as we want. Amen. Amen. And to him be the glory.
That’s why he finishes with that great doxology. What can you do after you’ve meditated upon all this great plan of salvation? What you can do is just say, God we worship you, we glorify you, we bless you. amen.
Father, give us that complete experience. Father, may we go to the depth, may we go to the heights, may we always be possessed by this grand understanding of all that you have done for your people. May we have this noble, real, royal understanding of what it is to be your church here on earth and open our eyes, open the eyes of our understanding that we may know the fullness of the love of Jesus Christ for us in his name. Amen. Amen.