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Ephesians 3:14-21
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family1 in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
[1] 3:15
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Alright. If you would, open your bibles to Ephesians chapter 3. And, actually, before before we we look at Ephesians 3 together, I've I've been feeling the need to do this actually for a few weeks now. And and so I wanna go ahead and and just talk about something. I realize the time right before the message is probably the time that you you most have people's attention.
Joel Brooks:And so, I wanna use these times wisely. But, I get asked a lot as a church from different people, where are we going? What's our vision as a church? What's next? We're at 3 services.
Joel Brooks:Often, 2 of those, We have a full overflow room. Sometimes we need a overflow room that needs an overflow room. And, we've grown by about a 1000 people in the last 3 years. And what's next? I I get that question so much often.
Joel Brooks:I run away from that question because, honestly, I don't know the answer to that question. I do think that healthy organisms grow. I think that's just healthy churches grow. Growth isn't necessarily an the indication of growth. You can have a cancerous growth, but I do think that if you are a healthy organism, that you are going to grow.
Joel Brooks:So, the question is, what do we do? Do we do we get a larger building? You know, do we go multi site? Do we, you know, beam my image to some other place, You know, and grow a congregation there. What do we do?
Joel Brooks:Do we become a megachurch? What's the vision for who we become? And I want you to know that I need your prayers as we are, as a elder team, just wrestling through this. I do know this. This is this is what I desire.
Joel Brooks:This is where I really would like to see us heading is is I view us being a model and not a magnet. And by that, I mean, you know, a magnet is an attractional place that just kinda pulls everybody from all over and you just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You're a magnet, And that's not my hopes, my personal hopes for this church. I hope that we become a model. That we become something that is duplicated actually over and over again throughout this city.
Joel Brooks:I hope that we begin to plant more and more churches like us everywhere. I'm not so concerned about our seating capacity. Really my concern is our sending capacity. That's how I'm gonna judge the success of this church is not by how many people can we sit in this place, but how many people can we send from this place. And that people would fulfill the great commission.
Joel Brooks:Because hear me, when you accepted Jesus as your lord and savior, you did not just accept his forgiveness, you accepted his mission. That you would go and you would make disciples of all the nations. You don't just get one and then ignore the other. And so when we all came to Jesus, we've laid down whatever agenda we would have for our lives and we have said, we have we're on board with this mission. Send me however you want to send me.
Joel Brooks:And so I want us to be a church in which we are consistently sending people. Sending people to plant other churches very much like this one. We've already done that in Homewood. We planted Grace Fellowship there, which is a beautiful church. They're doing really well.
Joel Brooks:We sent an elder, some deacons, a lot of our members there. And it's been neat to see that church thriving. And we wanna do that again and again and again. And something I want us as a congregation is to begin praying is, Lord, should I be part of that? Should I be part of the next sin?
Joel Brooks:I mean, I love it when you read through the gosh. I'm gonna just start preaching here. I love it when, I love it when you read through the book of acts. And, you know, all throughout the book of acts, Paul, he's he's wanting to get to Rome. He's like, I gotta get to Rome.
Joel Brooks:I gotta plant a church in Rome. I gotta preach the gospel where it's never been preached. And he's just I mean, the guy's shipwrecked. He's been beaten. He's, he's literally bitten by snakes.
Joel Brooks:I mean, everything could that could happen to Paul has been happening to him as he's been trying to get to Rome to plant a church. And it says when he arrives in Rome, the believers there greeted him. They were already there. I mean, all along, he's saying, I got to get there. I've got to plant a church, and the church had already been planted there by just ordinary Christians.
Joel Brooks:People fulfilling the great commission. You have the greatest missionary church in the 1st century, the church at Antioch, the one that actually sent Paul out. I love it when you read how Antioch came to be. You don't read about some apostle coming and planting Antioch or some great saint. It just says some men went to Antioch.
Joel Brooks:Some unnamed people just went and they started, this the greatest missionary church that we have. And I want you to begin praying by, is that me? Like, is that do I wanna be a part of that? Once again, it is not our seeding capacity. It is our sending capacity.
Joel Brooks:And so there there's a few things. I mean, these I don't know what the Lord would have for us. You know, we we have architects looking at, you know, what can we do with the space? One of the things I was pretty adamant about was, I don't know what we could do, but I know I wanna have eye contact with the farthest person away. I don't want people looking at an image of the image of God on a screen.
Joel Brooks:I want us to connect image to image. I believe that's very important. I think we lose something if you get past that. And so as we're growing and we're trying to figure this out, I invite you to pray for us. And really just pray about what's my mission.
Joel Brooks:I accepted you, Jesus, as my Lord and Savior, and I've accepted your mission. Where am I to be sent? Now for the college students who are here for however long that you're here, I pray that as you're here in this time, we will help you, find whatever skill you can use to the glory of God. And then when it's time for you to graduate and be sent, I hope we can strategically place you. That you would be open to going to not just a place where you get the best job, or move into the best community, but Lord, where can I strategically fulfill the great commission?
Joel Brooks:And we wanna help and come alongside you as a church to see where we can send you. And not just our college students, but everybody. So that's where we are. That's my vision, if you will. My convictions personally, But I invite every one of you to just begin praying.
Joel Brooks:To keep praying for us as a church. And have an open posture to where the Lord might use you or where the Lord might send you. All right? So that's my introduction to Ephesians 3. It's actually shorter than I thought.
Joel Brooks:Ephesians 3. I wanna begin reading in verse 14. 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 you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. So the 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.
Joel Brooks:And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 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 the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations. Forever and ever.
Joel Brooks:Amen. If you would pray with me. Father, for us to understand the words that are before us, it's gonna take a supernatural work. It's gonna take your spirit coming and opening up dull minds, hardened hearts for us to receive your word. And so I ask that your spirit, he would come.
Joel Brooks:He would he would blow in this household of God. That he would have his way in us. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. I've preached on this text multiple times over the years. And every time I have failed. The depth that's there is is just too too much. It's beyond my ability to communicate.
Joel Brooks:And I felt that all over again this week as I began diving into it once again. And so I I wanna just begin by asking a question. What moves you to pray? What are the things that move you to pray? What are the things that that leads you, that stir up in you the need to to intercede for others?
Joel Brooks:Now I know all of us in here, know we should pray. And there's a good chance that many of us in here do pray. But the question is, what drives us to pray? At the start of this letter, Paul, he gives us one of the most gorgeous prayers in all the Bible. It's really rich.
Joel Brooks:That was chapter 1. Now in chapter 3, he he prays once again, and this time he's interceding on behalf of the Ephesians. Later, he's gonna talk to the Ephesians and say, you need to pray at all times in the spirit. You need to make supplications for all of the saints. He's gonna keep mentioning how we need to pray, pray, and pray.
Joel Brooks:So Paul, he is praying in this letter consistently. He's urging us to keep praying all throughout this letter. This this letter is literally birth, in prayer. It bleeds prayer. And the prayers that Paul is praying here are not like those little prayers, Lord, heal my tennis elbow kinda prayers.
Joel Brooks:Help me with this test, Lord kinda prayers. These are big, deep, rich, moving prayers. I mean, look look again at chapter 1. I mean, or or just listen to these words when he says, I do not cease to give thanks for you. Remembering you in you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.
Joel Brooks:Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints? What is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us? And he keeps going on and on and on. Now now why is it that I struggle, I personally struggle to pray like that, and I bet I'm not alone.
Joel Brooks:I bet you struggle as well. So so the question for me is, what what drove Paul to pray like that? And as you begin to study Paul, as you begin to really study his prayers, you begin to realize that the reason the reason that I personally, and probably we, don't pray like Paul is because we are not moved to pray the same way that Paul is moved to pray. The things that moved Paul towards prayer are different than the things that move me towards prayer. You see, my prayers are so often arise from need.
Joel Brooks:I feel a neediness and therefore I pray. And so I need money. I need food. I need encouragement. I need hope.
Joel Brooks:I need health. I need deliverance. And so I pray for these things. And it's good to pray for these things. There's nothing wrong with praying for these things.
Joel Brooks:We should pray for those things. Can I ask this question? Be honest. How many of you are bored bored praying for those things? I mean, when you're just kinda asking God to take care of all these things, how how many of you are honestly bored with those types of prayers?
Connor Coskery:Do you
Joel Brooks:remember when you were sitting in Sunday school, for those of you who grew up in church and it came time for the prayer request? And you're like, oh gosh. And So here everybody, you know, they're talking about, you know, I got a huge exam this week. Could we just pray, pray, pray? You know, my great aunt is sick, is in the hospital.
Joel Brooks:Can we can we just pray for this? And, you know, I'm feeling kinda bad. Could could you pray? I think I might be getting sick. And and and you have all of these requests, and then you have, you know, the the unspoken request, which which who in the world knows what an what an un spoken, request is, but I can guarantee you what it is not.
Joel Brooks:The the unspoken request is not that the the Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and a revelation and knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened. I mean, that's not the the unspoken thing there. The difference between all our prayers and Paul's is that instead of rising out of a a desperation of need, or some circumstance, or some depravity in the human condition, Paul's prayers arise from the riches of God. It's from him thinking about the riches of God. I mean, when we think of intercession, we're thinking of praying for someone who needs something.
Joel Brooks:That's intercession. Political leaders need wisdom, so we pray for them. People need healing, so we pray for them. Someone's had the death of a loved one and so they're grieving, so we pray for them. That's how we intercede for people.
Joel Brooks:It flows out of a need. But here I hope you see Paul is actually opening up an entirely new door, a new platform for us to launch into prayer. And it it's not starting from a place of need, it is starting from a place of bounty. As he just thinks of who God is. So in his prayers, he's always talking about things like the riches of God's glory, the greatness of his power, how he's immeasurably great, how we could be filled with all the fullness of God.
Joel Brooks:He's talking about the, you know, the height and the depth and the length and and the breadth and all this of the love of God. He he's he's captivated by his bounty. And keep in mind, Paul's in prison. He's in prison, yet this glorious prayer is not arising out of need. God, I'm in prison here, so I'd you know, first thing I'd like to pray for is maybe deliverance.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't he doesn't start with need, he starts with God's bounty. And when you begin to focus on God's bounty, you begin to pray like Paul. That's what drives this prayer. Eugene Peterson, he shares a illustration. It says, he thinks of this every time he reads through Ephesians 3.
Joel Brooks:He had a couple at his church that he was going to and they adopted a child from Haiti. This child was a 5 year old girl whose parents had died in a car wreck. And even though this family already had 2 teenage boys, they went ahead and they adopted this girl and she came back. And their first night together as a family, they're eating. And the parents have put out, you know, quite a spread.
Joel Brooks:And, and this this Haitian girl is just looking at all of this food. She's probably never seen so much food in her life spread before her. And And she's probably never seen it disappear so rapidly either, as these teenage boys are like, they're just cramming it in, and like, you you think it couldn't be exhausted, but they end up eating it all. I mean, she was full, but like, she couldn't believe the amount that these teenage boys were eating until it was all gone. And the mom said she was just watching this 5 year old girl, and this girl just got very very quiet.
Joel Brooks:She she could see fear in her eyes. She's wondering, what's going on? And then it kind of hit her and she said, you know, come up here. And she went and she opened up a pantry. She said, look at all the food.
Joel Brooks:And she went and she opened up all of the doors. She slid out all the food and she just had this little girl look at it. She opened up the refrigerator and she went through every single shelf. And the girl's countenance changed and and she realized she had guessed right. That girl had thought all the food was gone.
Joel Brooks:It was fine. It was all gone. But she couldn't comprehend such a bouncy, and this is what Paul's doing in Ephesians. He's literally walking through and he's opening up door after door after door after door, and he's saying, look at all the riches. Look at all of it here.
Joel Brooks:He keeps putting it before us, and now we get here. He's saying, now you know what it's time for? Taste and see that the Lord is good. I've been telling you all about this. I've been showing you about it.
Joel Brooks:Now it's time for you to taste and for you to see that he is good. And that that's the prayer here. The heart of his prayer is that we would come to experience God. Let's look at the posture at which he starts this prayer. He begins by saying first, you know for this reason for this reason I bow my knees before the Father.
Joel Brooks:If you, I guess we have to pick up there. If you remember a couple of weeks ago, we started talking that for this for this reason, he says this, and then he mentions the word gentile. You know, the word gentile to Paul is like the word squirrel to a black lab. I mean, he hears that and he's just gonna go off. Alright?
Joel Brooks:And so he's he's going here for this reason. He's about to break into it. He says Gentile, and he just goes all over here for 13 verses chasing that Gentile thing, and now he's back for this reason he launches into the prayer. And and the reason is this, because of all the cabinet doors I've been opening for the first two chapters, because of all the food we've been seeing, the glories of the gospel, the lavishness of the grace, the greatness of the church as he's been describing all of these things for this reason. Now he turns here.
Joel Brooks:God, help us eat. That's where he's going. Alright? For this reason, he says he bows his knees. People in this day typically stood for prayer.
Joel Brooks:Bowing your knees was a sign of intense emotion. It's a humble posture. When when you bow, you're making yourself defenseless. You're making yourself vulnerable. You can't run away when you kneel.
Joel Brooks:You're saying, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not defending myself. I'm making myself vulnerable. Often now, we we do things like we, you know, we also fold our hands in prayer. I I remember, like, growing up, I think I was I was told I would had to fold hands in prayers.
Joel Brooks:I wouldn't hit my brother or sister during family devotions. And that was true and it was needed. But it it has a great Christian origin. That goes way back into the 2nd century of why people would fold hands. It's when the Christians were being arrested.
Joel Brooks:And when the soldiers would come to your house and ask if you were a Christ follower, you literally You'd fold your hands and you'd offer them. Say, go ahead. Bind me. Bind me. And as we pray and we we we fold our hands and we're kneeling, we're saying, Lord, this is submission.
Joel Brooks:I'm yours completely. Do as you will. This is an intense prayer of Paul. And so he prays. That's the posture in which he prays, and he prays for a number of things.
Joel Brooks:He prays that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith, that we would know the love of Christ, and that we would be filled with all the fullness of God. Those are the things he prays for. But, here's the thing. When you read through this prayer, I hope you noticed something unusual. I hope something kind of disturbed you a little bit as you were reading this, or settled uneasy in you as you were reading this.
Joel Brooks:Something's odd. And it's this, that as Christians, we already have these things. A matter of fact, he's already described us having these things in the book of Ephesians. Christ already is in our hearts dwelling by faith. We already know the love of Christ.
Joel Brooks:You can't be a Christian and not know something about the love of Christ displayed on the cross. And we are filled with His Holy Spirit. He he actually ends chapter 1 talking about Jesus who fills all and is in all. Like, these things are present realities to us as Christians, and Paul is writing this to Christians. So the question is this, why is he asking for things that they already possess?
Joel Brooks:Why why is Paul telling us or is he praying for Christians? He's praying for us to actually have things that we already have. That's the question. The answer is simply he's talking about experiential knowledge. Experiential knowledge.
Joel Brooks:We all know that there's a difference between knowing and knowing. Experiencing. He's praying, taste and see that the Lord is good. He he knows he knows that every every Christian to some degree has experienced these things, but he's asking for more. Now I realize that when you start talking about experiential knowledge, if you grew up Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anglican, or something like that, you get all squirrelly.
Joel Brooks:I mean, it it makes it makes me feel a little nervous, but Paul is not talking about emotionalism here. That is not what he's talking about. And I know I feel far more comfortable praying prayers like, Lord, may we know your gospel more deeply. May I know your scripture more richly. And those are good prayers.
Joel Brooks:Paul would agree with those prayers. But how about saying, Jesus, can I just know you? Can I experientially know you? That's what this prayer is. Now I I had fully intended I actually have it here all in my notes that I was gonna describe some of these experiences that you we have seen throughout history.
Joel Brooks:People like Blaise Pascal, he writes of it. Dwight Moody writes about it. John Piper writes about this. But I actually don't wanna talk about their experiences. And the reason is Paul doesn't talk about his experiences here.
Joel Brooks:There's a temptation when we hear about different people's experiences. Man, you know, whatever the quiet time they had, you know, it's like, you know, doves were flying. You know, light was shining down. I saw a unicorn. You know, different different things like that.
Joel Brooks:It's like, you're like, woah. I want that. And you start looking this way, and you start thinking, I want that experience. Paul could have easily here said, 13 years ago, 14 years ago, I was taken up to the 3rd heaven and it was quite an experience. So let me describe it for you, but he doesn't do that.
Joel Brooks:He doesn't describe his own experiences here because once again, what he's praying for is that they would know chapter 1 and chapter 2 all of the riches, all of the wealth that he's been describing. This is experiences that he's praying for based off scripture. He's been diving into the mysteries of God and the word. He's been pouring over it. And as he's been pouring over these things, he sees wealth.
Joel Brooks:He sees things that are immeasurable. And then he realizes, I need that. We need to know it. We need to taste it and to see it. That's what's Paul's praying for here.
Joel Brooks:And I believe this is why Paul's actually struggling for words. He's struggling for words. He he can't quite communicate what he really is trying to say. I mean, how could you? So he says nonsensical things like, that we would know things that are unknowable.
Joel Brooks:That we would know things that surpass knowledge. I'm like, really? If you can explain that to me, I will explain to you what the sound of one hand clapping sounds like. Alright? It's just like you you can't you can't make sense of it.
Joel Brooks:But it's the best Paul can do. He's like, can we can we know this that's unknowable? He prays for these things. He knows it's unknowable. So to four times, he's praying, God, give us your power.
Joel Brooks:Give us your power. Give us your strength. Give us your strength. He he's praying he's praying these things repeatedly because he knows he needs a supernatural work in his life to actually know these things. And he prays first that we'd be strengthened with the power through his spirit in our inner being.
Joel Brooks:So that's the first thing he prays for. Spirit, come. To my inner being, like, come. Come and and wreak havoc in my life. Do what you have to.
Joel Brooks:Strengthen me. Verse 17 says that he prays that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. The word dwell there is oikio in Greek, but it's not just oikio, it's cat oikio. It's intensely dwell. It's the word that's used here.
Joel Brooks:It's not just dwell, but intensely dwell in our hearts. Paul is describing here, he's not asking Jesus to come for a visit, but he's asking Jesus to come and to make his home, to start rearranging furniture, to start putting things up on the wall, to to what Jesus would say, abide. Jesus, come abide with me. Make my heart a place where you truly feel at home. You know when you get married, you no longer get to make decisions by yourself about the house wherever you're living.
Joel Brooks:I can't just go home and move the couch, you know, from the living room into the dining room. Not unless I want to be sleeping on that couch later. You can't just make those decisions because somebody's living with you. And so I I've gotta take that person into consideration, as I'm making my decisions. And so Jesus, he's now living with us.
Joel Brooks:We don't make decisions by ourselves anymore. Jesus is always invited and we're always asking Jesus, what do you think I should do? Jesus, where do you think I should go? And we're taking Jesus in room by room into our home or into our hearts. You wanna know the love of Christ?
Joel Brooks:Take him room by room in your heart and unlock the door. There should not be a room in your heart that you keep locked. You can't tell the Lord if you want to experience his love. Really experience it. Hey.
Joel Brooks:I've got all these rooms here. You're welcome. You know, in the kitchen here. You know, you can bathroom, living room. It's it's all yours, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:There's just this one closet right here. It's a small closet. Don't worry about what's in there. I just I just rather prefer keep it in there. If you do that, then you're never really gonna know the love of Christ.
Joel Brooks:The love of Christ can't fill the home, can't fill your heart. We give Jesus the key. It's to everything. You say, Every room, come in. Turn the lights on.
Joel Brooks:Do whatever you would will. This is your home. It's your home. That's why Paul's praying for strength, because you have to have strength to give God the key to every room of your heart. Paul then prays for more strength.
Joel Brooks:Verse 18. Verse 18, he says this, may that we may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth. And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. This time, we need strength to comprehend something that's really incomprehensible.
Joel Brooks:Paul doesn't He's struggling, but he's he's trying to explain this. And once again, Paul here, he's he's starting at a place of bounty. That's his starting place, not need here. When he says that we need to be able to comprehend something that's incomprehensible. He starts with God's bounty, which let's confess here, that's the opposite of us.
Joel Brooks:Because what do we so often ask God to explain to us? What do we often struggle to comprehend? God, I'm in a dark place. I don't know why you would allow this to happen to me. I'm struggling to comprehend why I would no longer be in this relationship.
Joel Brooks:God, I'm struggling to comprehend why my friend died or my why my mom has cancer. I'm struggling to comprehend that. I'm struggling to comprehend why I still don't have a job. Those are the things that we struggle to comprehend and we're always asking God why. That's not what Paul's struggling to comprehend.
Joel Brooks:He starts at the bounty of God. It's like I'm struggling to comprehend just the vastness and the immeasurableness of it. Can you help me with that? Who cares about this other stuff when I have that? So that's where he's coming from in this prayer.
Joel Brooks:They it start it starts at a different place. He doesn't just pray that we might know the love of Christ. He prays that we would know He goes through the breadth and the length and the height and the depth of the love of Christ. And I don't know about you, but I kinda get the feeling that as Paul is writing this, he's beginning to experience the very things he's praying for. He doesn't just say, oh, may they know the love of Christ.
Joel Brooks:It's like, may they they know the love and and it's it's The love is starting to fill a space. It's starting to become immeasurably big before him. So how wide is the love of Christ? Psalm 103 says, as far as the east is from the west. That's how far he has removed your transgressions.
Joel Brooks:That's how wide his forgiving arms are. How long is the love of Christ? Well, you were chosen before the foundation of the world. That's how long back it goes and it stretches all the way into eternity. The length is no beginning or no end to his love towards us.
Joel Brooks:How high is the love of Christ? Well, Paul's already said, it is seated in the heavenlies. And there we we sit with Christ by faith. How deep is the love of Christ? Well, the Psalmist says, if I were to go into Sheol, behold you are there.
Joel Brooks:Even if I were to go to the depths and Jesus went to the depths on the cross, He did go there. You struggle to understand. You're struggling. It's immeasurable. I think as Paul's beginning to pray for this though, it's breaking into his life.
Joel Brooks:He ends with this great benediction verse 20. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly, Not just abundantly more, but far more abundantly than all we ask or think. According to the power at work within us. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.
Joel Brooks:I I don't know what I can add to this other than saying, something that should be plainly obvious to us. We don't ask the Lord for enough. We don't ask the Lord for enough. Right now, I want you to think of the most extraordinary way that the Lord could use you in your life. The most extraordinary way he could use you for his glory.
Joel Brooks:Think about that right now. Try to imagine it. And when that picture comes in your mind, I want you to say, more. More. Because I can actually imagine that.
Joel Brooks:I can imagine seeing a 1,000 people come to know the Lord in the next year. I can imagine us planting churches all throughout the city and throughout the world in the next few years. I need to say more. More. He could do abundantly, exceedingly more.
Joel Brooks:That's how we need to live our lives. Paul is describing something here that I know little of, but I wanna know it. Don't you? Let's pray towards that end. Father God, I pray that you would put our eyes on your riches and your bounty, not on our need.
Joel Brooks:And as we look at the unsearchable riches of Christ, that would lead us into prayer that we might know, know it, that we might experientially taste it in our lives. I pray we would spend the rest of our lives asking great things from you, and then asking more. More, Jesus. More. All for your glory.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.