Good morning church and Happy official 4th of July weekend. We are incredibly glad to cheer with us this morning. And actually, if you are even online with us this morning, thank you for being here. We know that this is one of the biggest travel weeks of the year. And hey, thank God that we can have technology to still be a part of the church. I'm not really sure what is happening in this little section right here. Evidently, it's like SeaWorld, it's the spray zone or something to that effect. But we are incredibly, incredibly glad that you're with us this morning. Look, if you got a copy of scripture, we're going to jump in pretty quick today to Ephesians chapter three, Ephesians chapter three. We're going to continue in our series on this weekend of our summer series, where we're walking through the book of Ephesians and pulling out just some major, major themes that the Apostle Paul is passing to this incredibly loved group of people at Ephesus. And as a result he's passing it to us as the church. 

Now I know that summer is crazy. Everybody is in and out, family time and travel. So let me, as you're finding Ephesians three, bring you up to speed a little bit as to where we are in the series. Ephesians chapter one, Paul comes out really quickly and really gives these people at Ephesus a feeling of their stance before God, their reason that they can be confident before God, and that is because they were chosen to be His, to be God's people as we are, that they are adopted into God's families and possess the rights as children of His, that they are redeemed. That means they have been reached into and brought back to fullness of life and that they have the mark of Jesus on them. That means that for the rest of their lives that Jesus is theirs and in their lives. The second half of Chapter one, Paul kind of moves over a little bit and begins to pray that the eyes of their heart would be enlightened, that their spiritual eyes would be open. And he also challenges us that our eyes would be open to who God is, to the hope that He's called us into, to the promise that he has given us, and to the fact church, that we are God's inheritance. There was the treasure that He possesses now and forever. And as a result of that, we now have the full power of God in our lives. 

Chapter two Last week, we dove into Paul taking us back to who we were prior to knowing Jesus. Now, last week started off really, really heavy, but ended on an incredibly joyous note. Last week we looked at this idea that as a result of sin in all of our lives, that we were dead in our transgressions and sense that we deserved death, that we followed the ways of Satan, we followed our own ways. Therefore we deserved wrath. But then we got to this verse in Ephesians two, verse four, that I thought was worth putting back up on the screens again this week. Ephesians two four says, But because of God's great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ. Last week we celebrated the idea that those of us that know Jesus have stepped into a personal relationship with Jesus, that Jesus has reached into our lives, has forgiven us of our sins, and God has saved us, that He saved us, and he paid for our sins. He bore our wrath in our place. And we said last week from chapter two, the result is now we can walk in his confidence. That we can walk in his love. That we have the grace that has been given to us through faith, which now we can walk in the full mercy and love of Jesus. Now, this week I just want us to kind of look at this idea that we left off last week in chapter two, verse 11. But we're not going to pick up the message to the Ephesians until chapter three, verse 14 this week though. And I just I can't not tell you what Paul does between these two. Really quickly, let me just kind of show you how Paul goes from this idea of us being redeemed to the idea that we're going to look at this morning in chapter three. 

You can study it this week, but just real fast, I want to show you what Paul does in the Ephesians chapter two. Starting in verse 13, Paul goes back and reminds us who we were prior to knowing Jesus. And I think this is a rhythm that we as believers have to have in our lives, because when we lose sight of who God has brought us from being, then we lose sight of our salvation. We lose sight of the power in our salvation. In fact, Paul says this in Ephesians 2:13, he says, But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away, you have been brought near by the blood of Jesus. Verse 19 he says this Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but you are now fellow citizens with God's people, and you are also now members of God's household. Church, remember that. Never let that slip your mind that you are now His and you have been made full citizens of God's household. Watch this in verse 20, though you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. We just sang about that. Verse 21. In him, that's Jesus. The whole building has joined together and it rises up to become a holy temple of the Lord. And in Him you two are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His spirit. Now church, I want you to see this, because what God has done for us, when He redeemed us, when he saved us, what we talked about last week is he has now made us into a singular household. That is the church that he's talking about. 

We now have unique access to God that is through Jesus. And now listen to this. We have been united by grace. We are part of God's people. We are no longer second class citizens and we are no longer outsiders. No matter what your mind tells about you, what God has done for you now is He has reached into your life. He has taken you up. He has made you his. And now the goal he has placed in our lives is to have our lives as small stones stacked together on top of him, the cornerstone of our lives. So he's saying that we are individual stones built on him. He's broken down the other walls. He's formed us into him. And now he has called us to live and work in his spirit. Now, this is an incredibly profound statement. We don't have time to kind of go back all through the history of this. But why Paul said this is he wanted to make a distinction that, yes, some of these peoples were of Jewish origin. Yes, some of them were of Gentile origin, but all of them, now that they have been called into God's family, it's not that they had to lay down all of that and not know that that is part of who they are. But he's telling them they're above all of that now. Their primary distinct sin is that they're part of the family of God. And listen to that is who we are. Yes, we are American. Yes, we are individuals. We have families of origin. We have an ethos. But we all now, under Jesus, celebrate the fact that our primary distinction is that we are now Christ families. 

And now as a church, Paul says, as the church, we should work together as one. In fact, look at what he says, and Ephesians 3:10, he says God's intent or his intent is that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. So Paul says, Hey, you've been called from all these families, from all these distinctions, from all these people groups, but now you are God's church and as a result being God's church, the goal of church is to make known the name of Jesus. So it's church important? You bet it is. Paul's writing to the church in Ephesus. Is being committed to the church an important part of our life? You bet it is. Jesus died for Jesus. Set it apart as being the hope of the world, as the dispenser of godly wisdom. And Paul is speaking to us as the church. Now, remember this When Paul was writing this, Paul was in prison slides called the Pauline Apostles. Right? The prison epistles. And when he's writing this to the church, he knows that he can't be with them in person. But he also just has this incredibly big heart to show them who God is and what God wants to do. So Paul, in this whole letter, is encouraging these people. He's training these people. He's showing them how they are set apart to follow Jesus well. But then we get to the end of chapter three, where we're going to pick it up today in Paul in only the way Paul can do it. He goes from just encouraging them to now he moves into praying for them. So this morning, we're going to see Paul's heart for these people in his prayer. And as a result of God's prayer here, here's where I want us to kind of camp this morning. 

I want us to see some lessons on how we as believers in Jesus, how we are to pray. All right. How we're to pray. Remember this The first three chapters of this whole book is Paul telling them who they are in Christ. The last three chapters where we're going next week, next week, in the next week, or how we practically live that out. But Paul, right here, pauses right in the middle, and he prays for these guys to know the power and love of Jesus. Let's read this letter together. I want to read it all the way through. And then I also want us to dissect it for a few minutes and then we'll head to brunch. All right. That's our game plan. Here it is. Verse 14 says this: For this reason, I kneel before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of the glorious riches that he may strengthen you with the 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 the power together with all of the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and how long and how high and how deep is the love of Christ. And to know that this love surpasses knowledge and that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Verse 20. Now to Him who was able to do immeasurably more than we all ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, forever and ever. Amen. 

If you're underlining in your Bible verse 20 as a little bit of the key here, what I because the goal of all of our new lives in Jesus is to see the immeasurable power of Jesus working in our lives. And that power is more than we can imagine. It says more than we can think about. It is more than we can even dream of. That power that Christ has given us is more than us just eking out a meager existence or just trying to stay up for the day. That power is incredible. So how do we get that power? We get that power in the text here showing us we get that power from God, given us that power. And God gives us that power through how? What Paul was doing right here. Through praying for that power. So here's how I want to spend our time together. I want to show you three things in Paul's prayer that I believe are three things that every believer, redeemed, follower of Jesus should have in all of our prayer lives. All right. Let's read back to the text. We're going to use Paul's prayer as a model prayer. And this week, here's one that I'm absolutely praying that God would change how we pray from the text this week. Alright, go back to this and this pulls some applications. Ephesians three, verse 14. Watch what it says. It says this. It says for this reason. All right, Paul's connecting the statement back to the last piece is for this reason, I kneel before the father. 

Underline that word kneel. Why? Because the first thing I want you to see here is I want you to see Paul's physical and his heart posture of prayer. Paul says, I kneel, I kneel. So if I want God's immeasurable power in my life and I want to see God's power move, number one, write this one down. We need to pray with humility. We need to pray with humility. Isn't that exactly what we just saw Paul start this prayer off with? In fact, he said that in verse 14. It's pretty clear for this reason I kneel before the father. Paul's physical posture of prayer here was a sign to God of where his heart was. No, no. You got to know a little bit of context here, because when we think of kneeling before the father, we think of like historically, kind of like this is how it's always been done. But the reality is in the Jewish world, it wasn't how it was always done. Most of the time when you see Jews praying, they are standing as they pray. In fact, if you go with us next year and march to Jerusalem to the Holy Land, to the Wailing Wall, you will see that the Jews are standing at the wall even to this day, praying. So any time in Scripture that you see someone kneeling before God, you know that this is a moment of deep humility, deep emotion. Paul is in prison right here. He is on his knees. He is fully submitted to God. It would have been so easy for Paul to have this me first mindset or this woe is me mindset. But Paul understands that true power only comes from God and it only comes from God when we humbly realize that He is God and we are not. You see, I think we have this a little bit mixed up sometimes. I think sometimes I feel like we're doing God a favor when we're inviting him into our situation. WHen really and truly, it's the other way around. God has called us to humbly come before him. And Paul understands this. He understands where true power reigns is not from him, but it was from God. In fact, he shows us this in verse 15. He says, from God is the person that every family in heaven and on earth drives its name. 

Paul says in reality, it was God who created him. It's God who named him as God who defined him. And Paul knows that, Hey, I am just a servant that has been saved by grace. The creator of the universe has given me his love. Notice in Paul's prayer, there is no ego. There is no contest of who's in charge. Paul is fully submitted before God. In fact, in verse 16, he tells us in another way he says, I pray that out of his glorious riches. Whose riches is Paul praying in? Is it his? No, he's praying in God's riches, not his. Paul's not praying in his experience and his power and his pedigree, although he had all of these things right. Paul knows that when we come before God, if we want God to move in our life, that we have to come to him in a humble manner. That says God, I can't do it. And I need you to move. I need you to move. So I was thinking about this humble mindset this week. Three really quick words kind of came to mind as I kept reading this text. Let me give you three quick humble, I just call them humble applications. They're one word and maybe this can kind of reshape your prayer life. This sleep number one, write this down. Paul came to this, came to God with this humble gratitude. With this humble gratitude. What does that mean? Humble gratitude. Well, it looks like when Paul is starting this prayer off, that it kind of looks like that he's starting it in verse 14. But the reality is he starts it in chapter three, verse one, before he gets off on this tangent of his calling. So when he looks at this idea for this reason, what Paul is referring to is he's looking back at the incredible gift of grace that God has given him. In fact, Paul, even though he had been walking with Jesus, was still stunned at the level of grace, at the level of mercy and the level of love that God had put on him. 

And here's what happens when we truly reflect on the grace of God in our lives. That's why I keep mentioning this over and over and over and over. It changes us. It changes us because it makes us realize that I don't deserve what God has done. It always leads us to humbly get on our face before God realizing that I'm adopted and I'm redeemed and I'm set free and a mark from Christ to Christ. And in light of all this, here's what Paul knew. In light of all of this, all I have in response to God is just to be grateful. Just to be grateful. I mean, think about it. What can you give God that he doesn't already possess? It's his. Our first response in humble adoration to God is just to be grateful. It's gratitude. But let me ask you this. How much of your prayer life is just you being gracious and saying, God, here I am, Here I am? Second word I want to write down is just humble desperation, humble desperation. You said Matt, what does that have to do with anything? Here's what has to do with it. You see, when you kneel before someone, it is a sign of desperation. You see, Paul's posture here. Yeah, it's a physical posture, but it's also an emotional posture. When you are truly appealing to God for your rescue, for salvation, it moves beyond a casual request that you're inviting God onto the scene to you, realizing that God, I am desperate for you. I'm desperate for you. You see, Paul is no cold theologian that is just given an educational argument here. 

Paul is modeling a desperation of heart for all of us as believers. Paul knows that only through the power of Jesus comes a fulfilled life that we're about to see. But I wonder about us. How do you come before God? When you settle into your prayer moments of your life, do you come flippantly? Do you come with just this idea of just casualty of this God, Yeah, you're my homeboy, or are you coming before God with this idea of God without you, I am nothing and I need you to move in my life? See, Paul knows the only true power comes through Jesus. So what does he do? He comes with gratitude. He comes with desperation, and the number three. Watch this one. He comes with humble confidence, he comes with a humble confidence. You say, Matt, What? Why? Why would that matter? It matters incredibly much. Here's why. Because when we come before the king realizing who we are and that we possess the power of the resurrection in our lives as sons and daughters of the King, it changes how we pray. It changes what we ask God of. Paul shows us that we can come before God with confidence. We're not trying to beg our way to God. We are coming humbly. We are coming desperately. We are coming as sons and daughters of his who have been redeemed. Now, don't mistake this with arrogance. It's confidence. And here's why. It's not because of anything that I've done. It's because of what Christ has done. In fact, Ephesians 2:18 says this, but through him, that's Jesus. We both have access to the Father by one spirit. It means that the saving work of Jesus, the Union with Jesus, we now have access to God. Ephesians 3:12 says in him. That's Jesus, right. And through faith, we may approach God with freedom and confidence. I'm not sure you've ever walked before the King before and just say, God, I know that I'm yours and I know that you want what's best for me and God, I'm placing my requests before you as God. But you can. Why? Because you are his. He is giving you that right. This is also the reason, the New Testament. It's greatly so. The New Testament refers to God as the Father. Why? Because we can confidently approach the father. We can confidently approach the sovereign father who loves us Ephesians 2:18. The glorious Father who loves us Ephesians 1:17. The Father to all who loves us Ephesians 4:6. All of that is me knowing who I am in Christ. 

That's why every single week I've gone back to chapter one to show us who we are, because that is not until we realize who we are, then we realize that I can stand before the King and I can place the requests before him. Paul says Once again, our father. our father wants to give you life. And our father Once again, verse 15 From whom every family in heaven and on earth derives it's name. Church Listen, our father is rich. Our father is powerful. Our father's resources never run out and we have access to him. Why don't we use it? Why don't we stake our lives on it? So let's bring our requests before him with gratitude, with desperation, with confidence. Number one, Paul says, Hey, listen, pray humbly. Number two, he says, Pray for the fullness of God's power and love. Church I just want that to become part of our prayer language to God. I want this to become part of the things that we lift up to God on a very regular basis. God, give me your power and God give me your love and not just your power and love. Although those are the two requests that Paul is about to throw off. But God, show me your supreme power. God show me your great love. In fact, look at the next four verses. Watch what Paul says. He says, I pray that out of his glorious riches. Do you notice that? Which are unending right, they're never going away. Watch this. I pray that his glorious riches, that he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being. 

Now, notice, his first request is for power, right? But it's not just for any power. It is for an inner power in our lives. So let me ask you this question. How much of your life or how much of your schedule is spent on asking God for an inner power versus just having an outer power? You see, most of our culture focuses on the outside, but what God says in showing us here through this prayer is that our first response to God is to ask Him to change us from the inside to the outside. Until we get the inside right, walking in God's power, we can never expect God's power to flow from us. But we spend so much time looking at the outside, don't we? Listen how we fight sin, how we approach the gospel, how we view our identity, how we love people. It always starts from the power of God inside of me. It's where it always starts. But church, while culture puts the primary importance on who you are on the outside. As believers, we should see that our inside is far more important. Far more important. It is not happening on the inside. We can only fake it so long on the outside. But here's the solution to that. Look at verse 17. Paul says so, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now that we're dwell is the strongest word that the Greek language holds for you, for God, not just kind of hoteling in your life when it's convenient for you, but for God to come in, transform, place roots and be yours. 

That's what that word dwell means. Dwell is not just like, Yeah, I'm gonna go over to the hotel for a couple of days. Dwell is that God wants to plant himself and do work in your lives. Read it again so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you look. He keeps going even farther, being rooted and established. Those long term words constitute help and vitality that God may dwell. Watch this. That God may dwell in love. It may have power together with all Lord's holy people to grasp, watch what he says this, how wide and how long and how high and how deep is the love of Christ? Now Paul moves from talking about power to talking about God's love, but I don't think we can ever separate them wholly out from each other. Think about this description of God's love. Man, somebody needs to hear this one this morning. He uses four words right here, he uses wide, long, high and deep. Right. Here's what it means. God's love is wide enough to cover all people groups. That's what it means. His love is big enough for all of us. That's John 3:16 Right. God so loved the world that he gave us his son. It is long enough. Here's what long means. That means it is from the very beginning to the very end. God's love is an eternal love for you. That's Jeremiah 31:3 His love is an everlasting love for you. God's love is high. That's the next word that we're looking at in the text. God's word is high. The Bible speaks many times of God's love being higher than the heavens above. Read Psalm 103 this week and watch the description that Psalm gives us of God's love. Even bigger than the heavens we can dream of. And God's love is deep. When He speaks of the deep love of God, it is speaking of the fact that he cast my sins into the depths of the sea and he remembers them no more. Micah 7:19. 

So Paul, what he's doing here is say, man, pray for the love. Pray for the power. And I just want you to know these things, but I want you to experience these things in the fullness of who God is, in the length and the breath and the height and the depth, all of that. It's almost like Paul is stumbling over his words right here. Going, I don't even know how to say how good God's love is, how big it is, but I'm going to do my best to describe it. See here's why. Because when any of us really and truly realize the power and love of God and the fullness of what that offers, here's what it does mean. It secures us and it roots us. Why? Because every single one of us are really and truly just looking to be fulfilled. Isn't that why we chase after all the things that we chase after? It's because I want my life to be fulfilled. You see, all of life is us chasing a fulfillment of our hearts. Now, the reality is in a lot of places and a lot of ways we chase those and a lot of negative ways. But God is going, Listen, I want you to experience my full love and my full power. He keeps going in verse 19. Watch what he says. He says this, And I want you to know this love that surpasses knowledge and that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Church, I just proposed to you that all of our hearts are desiring God to fill us. But the problem is, we're just trying to find it in other places. So what is Paul saying here? Paul's saying: pray with humility and then he's and unashamedly as a child of mine, pray that your heart would be full of my power and full of my love. Here's the third one he gives us to pray. Man, I hope this shapes our prayers this week. Number three, he says, Pray with great expectations. He says pray with great expectations. 

Let me ask you something. When you pray, do you honestly trust that God wants to hear you and God wants to move in your life? Because listen closely to me. He does. He does. Or are you just walking through some religious ritual that you've been told to do? You see when God's children pray, we are connecting our hearts with his heart. We're connecting our lives with his heart. We are more than just communicating with God. We are communing with God. What does that mean? That means I am placing my life with his life and I am now asking him to move in me. Listen to me. As God's children, when you begin to come to God in prayer, you have His full attention and God wants to do more in you than you even know how to pray. That's the promise. Look at verse 20. Now to him, Now the God who is able to do immeasurably more than we all ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be the glory in the church. That's you. That's not a building. That is you. And in Christ Jesus through all generations. Forever and ever. Amen. 

You want to know why we can pray expectantly? And we can pray with great expectation? Because God wants to do more in you than you even know how to ask him for. Than you even know how to put it into words. Than you even know how to just place a huge request. God is clearly saying, If you knew what I wanted to do, it would blow you away. You know what Paul knows here? Paul knows that God can do more in one prayer than we can all do cumulatively in a thousand years. And what Paul is saying right here is God wants us to pray. God wants us to lift those requests. God wants us to humbly come before him asking for his power and his love. And he wants us to pray with great expectation that he would move. And when we do that, God moves not according to our power, but He is not for our glory. For Him. He moves and God can literally change eternity. Seen it. And that's what He wants. You say Matt, this is 4th of July. Aren't you supposed to preach on our nation or something? Right. If my people will humble themselves, how are you supposed to preach on that passage? Right? Yeah, but here's what I believe. I believe it all starts with prayer. I believe it starts with prayer church. When we understand who we are in Jesus and we understand the power that is available to us as his sons and daughters and when we begin to pray humbly, we begin to pray for God's power in his love to show in our lives. We begin to pray with great expectations in our lives. Here's what we begin to see. We begin to see our lives change. We begin to see this church's life change. And I promise you, at that point, we will begin to see our nation change. See, it's not about us trying harder. It's not about a Democrat or Republican or a fiscally conservative or a liberal socially conservative or liberal. 

It is about us as God's people knowing who we are and calling on his name to show us his power. That's the hope of our country. And Paul knew that was the only hope these Ephesians had. And I'll say this that's your only hope. It's your only hope to come humbly before the Lord asking for his power in love and saying, God, move. And when I say move, I mean do something immeasurable way more than I can ever ask. 

Lord Jesus, in his next couple of moments of invitation. God can show us that your power is available to us. It's available. God show us how we can connect to our hearts with yours. God, show us how we, as your children, have access to your throne and God move in our hearts. And God, as a result, move in our country. Thank you, Jesus, for bridging the gap and making us yours. It's in your name. Amen. 

Let's stand and sing together. And I'm going to invite you the same way I do every single week. If you need to give your life to Jesus. Today. I'm going to be standing right over here by this sign. Maybe today is the first time you've ever really and truly understood that Christ loves you and you want to walk in that. Maybe today is the first time that you've kind of really ever realized that man, I do need to come before the King humbly asking him for his love, his power, and I just need to expect him to work. And here's my prayer for you these next couple of minutes and not be about beat the traffic out of the parking lot. It will be about you doing business with the Lord. To say God, we're humbly coming before you for our church, for our community, for our nation. Move in power. God speak to us today, it's in your name.