A Shepherds Cry

Ephesians - Treasure Quest By Jeff Lyle Bible Text: Preached on: Ephesians 3:14-21 Monday, July 19, 2010

Transforming Truth & Meadow Baptist 1446 Calvin Davis Circle Lawrenceville, GA 30043 Website: Online Sermons: www.transformingtruth.org www.sermonaudio.com/jefflyle

Some of have asked, Jeff, why all the sudden have we started in the last couple of months to stand when we are reading the Scripture? Let me just say this. This is nothing super spiritual, but I am finding that the more I see the worldand unfortunately a lot of churches minimizing the reverence of the Word of GodI have begin to be inclined, lets do whatever we can to make sure that we know that this not any ordinary book. This is Gods inspired, infallible Word preserved for eternity. This is God speaking to us. And so the simple gesture of standing to our feet is just a reminder that we honor and reverence Gods Word. Look at Ephesians three and verse number 14 this evening and lets read through verse 21. The Scriptures say this. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.1 Father, we love your Word. We want to grow. We want to have a better grasp on things that we have begun to know. And we humble ourselves before you tonight because we know that on our own, Lord, we cannot properly understand the Word of God. It is foolishness to the natural man. And to one who is not given to the things of God, these things can be overwhelming. But we trust in the ministry of the Holy Spirit who will enlighten us and reveal to us through this passage the perfect counsel from your heart
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into our lives. And, Father, there are some that have gathered here tonight that have not yet experienced forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. I dont know who they are, but you do. And I pray, Lord, that they would find your grace, mercy, compassion and love so overwhelming tonight that the goodness of God will lead them to repentance. For those, Lord, that have received that wonderful gift of eternal life, may we hunger and thirst for righteousness, for a deeper, more full experience with you than we have experienced up to this place, from the youngest to the oldest in this sanctuary. Let us know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your work in us and through us is not yet finished. So give us a hunger in our heart in Jesus glorious name. Amen. You can be seated. Lets talk this evening about a shepherds cry. Paul had a lot of hats that he wore. He used to be a persector of the Church. He hated Christianity. He hated Christians. He hated Jesus Christ, until he met Jesus Christ and God saved his soul on the road to Damascus in an amazing encounter. From that point forward, Paul was primarily known as an apostle/missionary. He went bout the known world at that time and he planted churches, primarily reaching out to non Jews, reaching out. The emphasis of his ministry was to reach the Greeks, to reach the Gentiles, to reach those who he never would have given a second thought of, a thought towards prior to his conversion. And here in this passage of Scripture I see him not primarily as the great apostle, but we get a glimpse into his pastors heart. He had founded a great work in Ephesus. He had turned that work over to other men and now as he is writing this church he has literally filled their wagon with great and deep doctrine that, to Paul, seemed non controversial. To Paul it was as emphatic and clear as it should be to us. But by the time we get into chapter number three we are seeing him transition into a little bit more of a hands on pastor. He is taking away the lectern of his professorial teaching and is now getting on the garment of a shepherd. With his staff in his hand, he is saying, Let me tend to this flock while I have the ability, and he does so through inspired counsel that I want to share with you tonight. I am going to give the shepherds cry in four ways and they are all a prayer. There is a prayer for the family. There is a prayer for fire. There is a prayer for a firm foundation. And there is a prayer for fullness. And I am going to confess to you it starts a little slow, but by the end I hope you will be in there with me. Lets begin with lets pray for the family, verses 14 and 15. There is, first of all, the reality of the family.

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Paul has given all of the doctrine. He has shared with them the mystery of the Gentiles being incorporated into Gods plan of redemption and he says this. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father.2 Now, I am going to lift that out of there for just a moment and make some very clear and obvious statements here. The reality of the family is this. When I am talking about the family, I am talking about Christians. I am talking about the Church of God. I am talking about the people of God, the body of Christ and, in essence, we are a family united together because of this one reason. We all have one Father. Paul here identifies himself as a child of the Father. And that only occurs by way of faith in Jesus Christ. God is revealed in the New Testament as the God and the Father of our Jesus Christ. Jesus himself taught that nobody comes unto the Father except through him. So when we are reading our New Testament and we realize that the modern belief that we are all the children of God cannot be substantiated by Scripture. We are not all the children of God. We are all the creation of God. We are brought here by the sovereign decree of God, but we are not all children of the same father. In order to be a child of God, you must come to the Father via the blood of Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth and the life. But immediately when we do it doesnt matter how old you are. It doesnt matter what gender you are. It doesnt matter what race you are. It doesnt matter what your political affiliation is, you socio economic status is. None of that matters. What matters is this. For all of eternity you have been born the second time into a family that now identifies you for the rest of our existence. We are a family. I like the fact of a local church. Many in this generation no longer give any kind of primary consideration to the legitimacy of a local church. They have now said that the local church is flawed, that there is too much corruption, there is too much division, that there really isnt anything that we can come together on. So everybody is becoming a law unto themselves and they have abandoned the local church. But let me tell you what the local church reminds me of every time I get the privilege of gathering together. It reminds me that I am part of a family and that I am part of something bigger than me, that God has put me into something that he has ordained and the family goes beyond this local assembly, beyond the assemblies in Georgia or the southeast or the United States of America or this hemisphere, stretching over oceans. But we can even go further than that. The family of God goes backwards in time on earth and forward in time into heaven, that the family of God is so beyond our comprehension that one of the amazements of heaven is going to be looking around with a glorified set of discerning eyes and looking on all of the glorified saints and realizing what an amazing thing that the Father has done through his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Please remember. You need the family.
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I know some of you are super tough. I know some of you just thrive in your independence. I know some of you say, Well, I dont have to have the Church to have God. I used to believe that way. But I know this. When you get saved you start loving what God loves and God loves his family, his children. Well, the reality of the family gives way, briefly, to the unity of the family. Here we have the establishing of this. It is the whole family in heaven and earth. And some versions will say that all families in heaven and earth and it describes more of each individual family. But I am going to take it as my KJV says here. They will always get on to me when I say something negative about the KJV. Here I am supporting it. The family in heaven and earth. Do you know that you havent met the vast majority of the family of God, that we are united together beyond all of the boundaries that I mentioned earlier and also beyond the realm of this horizontal existence? You know, there are people in heaven literally right now. I mean, I want you to exercise your sanctified imagination, that there is a literal heaven that literally exists in some plain that we cant fully comprehend. And that place is populated with the saints of God that literally Paul is there. Peter is there. James is there. All of the saint of the Old Testament are there. King David is there. Solomon is there. Abraham is there. Jacob is there. Esther is there. Ruth is there. All of these saints that we have read about and plus countless more than we have never heard about, they are all there. But most importantly, Jesus is there. My friends, today Jesus is not some vapor like spirit that he is in heaven in a glorified, resurrected body in a perfect condition and he is active on point and riddling the cosmos by his authority. And we are united not only with him, but with each other. You know, I am not a big kumbaya kind of guy. I dont really get off on all the sappy sentimentality, but I dont want to dismiss the reality that I am one with you by virtue of what Jesus Christ has done. If you are female, I am your brother and you are my sister. If you are male, we are brothers. And we will be for all of eternity. And if there is a place on earth where I want to extend every effort that I have available to me in order to build bridges, it is with the family of God. I am not looking for a way to separate from you. I am not looking for a way to distance myself from you. I am looking for a way that I can come together with you and that we can be iron sharpening iron, that we can be a blessing together, that we can experience the glory of Christ, not in how we are different, but in this instance, how he has unified us, the whole family in heaven and earth. And the identity of the family is very simple, also. When we are talking about praying for the family we must remember the identity of the family.

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The whole family in heaven and earth, our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. This is very important when you go to work tomorrow. It is easy to feel Christiany in here, isnt it? Maybe not. It is easy for me to feel Christiany in here. You know, we have our own Christian garments that we wear. You know, the Christian foliage. We have a Christian pulpit. Hey. I am just touting the greatness of this book. This is a Christian book. We even have Christian restaurants. Chick filet. It is not open on Sunday, Amen? We have got so many different Christian things, but lets remember that our Christianity is not something we kind of put in our pocket on Sunday, pull it out so everybody will know with whom we are identified. But it is the characterization of who we are in our essence. Please remember this. You are named a Christian, but that name is the name of Jesus Christ. It is not simply a word. It is not simply an identifying mark of a religion. It is not a cultural thing. But it indicates this. That there was a point in your live where you viewed yourself as an unworthy, condemned sinner. You might have been a five year old not comprehending all the doctrine, but sensing the guilt. Or you may have been 55 years old and well acquainted with your history of sin. And God brought a refreshing, encouraging, enlivening message to you of grace through faith and salvation through the blood of Jesus. And in that moment where you believed in him, you were indwelt by his Spirit and from that moment on you are a Christian by position. My question is this. Do you identify with that position in how you live your life? It is a very important question. Now, I believe that one of the reasons why our churches, as a whole, in America are not growing is because there is not enough Christians in them. You say, Well, wait a minute, Jeff. I thought if you go to church you are a Christian. Well, I say boldly, You thought wrong. My friends, attending church doesnt make a Christian any more than standing on the dock makes you a boat. My friends, it is not about your church affiliation. It is not about your baptism. It is not about your work. It is about Christ living in you. And what makes the difference is when he is living you in such a display that when people think of you, they think of him. And I would say that we have a call on our lives as pastors to give a shepherds cry for the family that there would be more of an identifying, unifying and reality of who we are as Gods people. We want that to be displayed.

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Remember what Jesus said. He said, Let your good works shine that people can see them and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Your Christianity was not meant to be under a bushel. It was not meant to be hidden. It was meant to be put on public display for the glory of the one that made you a Christian. Now lets go to the second part. And here we get a little more cranked up. And I really have my heart on the last three verses, but lets get there in process. Lets not only pray for the family, lets pray for fire. Lets pray for fire. And when I am talking about fire, I am talking about Holy Spirit power. Some people call it anointing. Some people call it an unction. Some people call it a touch from God. I am not so much interested in the semantics of what it is called as I am in the desire of our hearts to possess that fire or to be possessed by that. You see, we are given, I believe, the specifics of the fire. When Paul says, I am praying for your Ephesians to be strengthened with might. Now this is an inspired Word from God. This is not something simply that Paul has an inclination towards. God the Spirit motivated Paul to write down the inspired words that would be preserved for you and me that it was a priority for those Christians in Ephesus and, by proxy, us, to be strengthened with might. Now that brings a lot of images up. You know, I think that we wrestle, really, with what it means to be spiritually strong. Because I remember when I first became a Christian. I had a clear understanding or a clear picture in my mind about what it meant to be strong. It meant to be verbal. It meant to be vocal. It meant to be bold. It meant to be courageous. It meant to be dogmatic. It meant to be all of the things that you would associate with a 24 year old guy who thinks he knows what Christianity is all about. And I will say that at times it may mean those very things, but I look back on those days and say, Yeah, there was a strength there, but I am not necessarily sure that is the strength that Paul is praying for here. Let me give you three aspects of what it means to have the fire of God, to be strengthened with might in your life. These are very practical. First of all, there is sanctifying power. Sanctifying power. I believe that before there is any other power really at work or displayed in your life, there must be this power. And that is the power that God provides to overcome sin. And the question for the Ephesians Christians was would they rely on it? Would they rely on Gods power, Gods might, Gods strength, Gods fire to overcome sin? My friend, if you believe that you have overcome all sin, you are probably sinning more than you know. There is no complete abandonment and overcoming of any sin whether
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we consider it a biggie or one of the little sins. There is no ability to overcome it apart from the fire of God. My friends, and you that are familiar with my testimony you know what gross immorality and sin and depravity God saved me out of. I wont go into detail. Dont feel like going there tonight. But I can tell you that sin owned me. I mean, it wasnt theoretical. I was shackled. I was chained. I was imprisoned. I tried everything to be non sinful. I mean, even as a lost person I didnt like the way I was living, but I couldnt over come it. AA didnt help me. Narcotics Anonymous didnt help me. Therapy didnt help me. Rehab didnt help me. Nothing I did helped me. But amazingly when Jesus Christ saved me on August fourth in 1994 fire came into my life. The fire that I had tried to produce in my own energy and always failed suddenly came from heaven and I was purged of those sins. But I would be lying to you to say that every sinful tendency disappeared in my life that day. No, my friends, I can tell you this. And you already know this, but I hope you will agree with me about yourself in the same way. I am not fully arrived, nor are you. You say, Jeff, you talk a lot about sin. You seen to be more sin focused than grace focused. No, friends, I am both. But I am learning in this day that it is a double task to convince people that they need help because they are sinners. Because we have got people I pulpits all around the land that will tell you, Oh, no, it is not that bad. It is ok. It is all good. Everybody is happy. Everybody is fine. Dont take that so seriously. My friends, I just cant get over the fact that my sin nailed Jesus Christ to the cross. And I dont want it in my life that the only hope I have is the fire of God enveloping my life to purge that sin. Any time you see fire in the Word of God it is primarily used as a symbol of judgment and purification. when the fire of God judges your sin in your life, it also burns to purify. And I want to tell you. Some of you in here tonight are wrestling with sin. Listen. Dont run from God with that. The devil will tell you, Run with your sin, because God doesnt want to have anything to do with you. Some of you have addictions. Some of you have besetting sins that continue to creep up in your life and you do penance. You flog yourself spiritually. You beat yourself up. You hang your head. You slump your shoulders and you walk around in defeat because you cant get on top of it. But what I want to encourage you to do is accept the fact that only the power of God is going to purge your life from the sin that defeats you.

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But I am going to ask you this. Are you still calling out, not only in confession, but in desperation for God to bring about that sanctification in your life? You cant do it on your own. You know, you dont sanctify your flesh. You know what you do with your flesh, right? You crucify your flesh. But you sanctify in the Spirit and through the Spirit and I want to tell you today there is not a single person listening to these words that has something in their life that intimidates God. God has seen it all, my friend. He has seen what you are dealing with. He has seen what you might struggle with and it is no match for the power of his Holy Spirit when that becomes active in your life. The question is this. Will you humble yourself, break yourself, make yourself contrite before him and not rest in your soul until he gives you that sanctifying deliverance? The second aspect of the power is sustaining power. When circumstancesthis is going to preach to you tonightwhen circumstances become a series of upheavals, your life doesnt have to. You have no control, very little control over your circumstances. I am tell you. This is a season. I have been in about an 18 month season where I feel like life is 90 percent what happens to me and maybe 10 percent of my own discretion, but most of it is just kind of waiting for me every day when I wake up. Now, I remember I wrestled with this thing and then I started realizing, wait a minute. Part of the fire that comes from God, part of the power of the Holy Spirit is sustaining power. And, my friends, you wont know the entirety of who God is by way of experience unless he entrusts you with some trouble. You cant know his strength unless you discover your weakness. You cant experience his presence until you find the absence of your resources. You wont know his clarity until you experience some of your own confusion. And so what he does is he allows these troubles. I would even go further. He ordains. He rules in our life to teach us that, Hey, I am the God who sustains you. I will tell you what, man. I love using my kids as illustrations. And I am going to start doing a better job of it. My wife has been very gentle with me, but I can tell. She dont like all these stories about her little baby boys. So I am working on that a little bit. Is she in here? There she is back there. She is watching. But this is something that every parent can identify with when your child is either sick or distraught or physically hurt and you are trying to help them. You are trying to comfort them. You are trying to remedy the situation. You are trying to get the medicine in them or get the bandage around them.

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But do you know what they do? They are in such a fit they fight and they move and you cant get them still. You cant get them calm. And do you know what you have got to do? You have got to wrestle them and show your power on them and hold them until they will sit still long enough where you can sustain them. And you can bless them and you can help them. You know, some in this congregation. This is no word of prophecy of big stretch. It is just reasonable that some in this congregation tonight, you are going through it. You are not imagining things. You are in a difficult place in life. You dont have answers. And God in the midst of your frenzied trying to work it out on your own, tapping out your resources, finding no answers, God wants you to do the most difficult command in all of Scripture which is to be still and know that he is God. Why? Because that is how he is going to sustain you. And then there is serving power, very briefly. The specifics of the fire. Sanctifying power, sustaining power and serving power. Where we learn that not one believer is without the ability to serve his or her Savior. Not one. Let me get a little pastoral on you. As a believer in Jesus Christ are you serving him? Well, Jeff, God doesnt need my service. No, he doesnt, but he does require it. He doesnt need it. God has no needs that he cannot meet within himself, but he has require service of us because there is an aspect of our relationship with him that is altogether incomplete until we know the joy of partnering with God. You say, Jeff, I just dont have gifts. I dont have ability. Hmm. I would say that if you have him, you have all of the gifting and all of the ability that you need. The question is: Do you have the willingness? And so I put this out there and it is not my focus tonight, but I want you to know if you are covenant member of Meadow Baptist Church and you are not serving, there is an empty spot here where God is not getting the glory that he could because you havent risen to the occasion yet. If you want help with that, please talk to one of us. Talk to your Sunday school teacher. Talk to one of the pastoral staff. Talk to a friend that you know is engaged in ministry and listen. You dont have to over spiritualize it. Dont wait for an angel to descend and play a song on a harp telling you what to do. Just do what you can do and if you are faithful in that, God will lead you to do what you are supposed to do. He may be waiting on you to make the initiative and take the first step.

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So this is the specifics of the fire. But lets look at the source of the fire very quickly. The source of the fire is declared when it says by his Spirit, To be strengthened with might. How? By his Spirit. Where? In the inner man. This is not human logic power. It is not human wisdom. It is not power or might or strength or fire that comes from an expanded intellect or some passionate emotion or some deep education. No, my friends, this is not the means by which God will give you the source of the fire. Where does it come from, Jeff? It comes from God. It is God the Spirit living in you and therefore working through you. It is an inner spiritual sometimes hard to define reality where yieldedness is the only qualification. Do you know who God uses? Those who yield to him, those who will depend upon him, those who will learn their limitations and at the back side of their limitations they will realize that this is where God must infuse what God will infuse and through Christ I can do all things. That is the key. Now listen. That verse, that chunk of a verse right there is enough to spend months on dealing with. And the reason is this. We have way too many alternatives to Holy Spirit power. Churches nowforgive the critical moment herebut churches now are being built on business success models rather than tarrying before the Lord and waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit to come from on high. Listen. This is extremely important. I find myself so out of place often and I am going to confess something to you. There are moments as a pastor where I am thinking, God, I dont know what to do to lead this assembly to the next level. And God, without fail invariably takes me back to the place and says, You do know what to do. What did they do in the book of Acts? You see, there were no church growth diagrams, no models, no success ministries, no movement of church growth and all of that stuff. Do you know what they did? They prayed? They gathered. They served. They fellowshipped, they prayed, they gathered they served. And they called on God. They waited until they were endued with power from on high and God took very simple, uneducated, non impressive people and did some incredible things with them.

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And I want you to know it is in my heart to lead Meadow Baptist Church even deeper into the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ where people have to ask, What type of Church is Meadow? We are able to say that we are a Jesus exalting, knee bending, Bible believing assembly. We lift up Christ. We bend our knees. We tarry. By the way, we are working right now with resurrecting a weekly prayer meeting. Not simply the Wednesday night Bible study but the Tuesday evening prayer meeting. And there is a gentleman in the Church who has also volunteered to lead one on Tuesday mornings where if you cant come Tuesday night, you can come Tuesday morning. Keep your ears open and we will give you details. But I want you to know. If God going to do the work that he desires to do through us, I believe that without a doubt that part of the equation is that this assembly humbles herself before the Lord and we wait on him until he gives us what we cannot produce any other way. My friends, listen. This is a wax fruit generation in churches. Wax fruit looks good, but if you ever made the mistake of trying to sink your teeth into it.... You see, I believe that when the world around us is looking for real, authentic spiritual fruit, unfortunately many assemblies are serving up bowls of wax fruit. And when lost people try to taste and see that the Lord is good, they are putting it back in the bowl and walking away. May God bring forth fruit in our lives. Third thing. According to the riches of his glory, praying for fire. The specifics of the fire, the source of the fire, the scope of the fire. How blazing can it be? How amazing can it be? How roaring can the fire be, the spiritual dynamite of God be through your life? Paul prayed big. Paul wasnt one of those guys that would pray and ask for a thimble full of prayer. Paul said, I want that power through Gods Spirit in the inner person to be according to the riches of his glory. So I have got to ask the question. How extensive is Gods glory? None of us are going to put a fence around it. And Paul had the spiritual audacity to pray that the Ephesians Christians would experience the power of God to the same extent as Gods glory is rich. Now you know what that makes me do? That makes me feel like I have never prayed a prayer in my life. That makes me feel like I have never asked God for anything.

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You know what we pray for? We pray for God to pay our light bill. We pray for God to heal Aunt Marthas gout. We pray for God to please let my coworkers not hate me so much. We pray in a very defensive posture. We pray really low. Paul didnt. Part of the reason was is that Paul had been caught up to the third heaven and seen some things that me and you have never seen. You see, he had a glimpse of the glory of God that revolutionized his life. And so when he is praying he is not surmising on how good it might be. He is literally behind the prayer is, I have been to the third heaven. I have seen things that I dont even have words to describe. And I am telling you. God is bigger than you could ever imagine. I have seen a glimpse of his glory. And Paul says, I am praying that you would be strengthened according to the riches of his glory. Can I encourage you to pray that for your family? Mom and Dad, I... And dont pray maintenance prayers for your kids. Dont. Pray some dynamic, soul humbling prayers for your kids. Pray that God would do something great in your child. Your childs most... the deepest satisfaction and fulfillment your child will ever have is when they are filled with God, which we are going to talk about in a moment. Dont pray maintenance stuff around your kids and your grand kids or your wife or your husband. I am telling you, may God move in a dynamic way where we start catching a vision of what could be in the kingdom of God and we pray accordingly. My friends, when we are talking about practical matters at Meadow Baptist Church like moving the property into [?] do you know how tiny that prayer is? Do you know how small it is? Yes, it is necessary, but if that is the sole compass of who we are and what we are doing, then we are serving a really small God. My friends, I tell you. I am praying beyond that piece of property needing to be sold. I am talking about a revival. I mean, listen. The revivals that we have seen historically that are recorded for our reading were done when people humbled themselves before God and called out to him and God answered with fire from on high. You say, Well, Jeff, those were different times. Well, it is not a different God. It is not a new plan. God hasnt given up. Why am I yelling? Lets pray for five. Verse 17.
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Lets pray for a firm foundation. Very quickly because I have got to get to verses 18 through 21. Paul said I am praying That Christ might dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love...3 Lets just pause there for a minute. Very interesting that Paul is praying on behalf of Christians and saying, I am praying that Christ would dwell in your heart. Wait a minute. I thought that Christ dwells in the hearts of all believers. Well then he must mean something more. Well, I think the key is found in a study of that Greek word translated here dwell in. It is a Greek word that indicates that Christ may settle down in your heart. I want you to think this way. Let me give you a word picture. Your heart, your soul, your spirit, the real you. It is a one room apartment. And that room is only big enough to fit one throne and that throne is only big enough to have one occupant. And that is the way that Christ is at home in somebodys heart. When that heart is not crammed full of all other things, but it is the prepared abode by faith where Jesus Christ can settle down in your heart to govern your life. You say, Jeff, what can interrupt that? Well, there is a whole host of things. It is not my place to give you a long list, but I reckon you know your own heart. I believe you know there is clutter in there. And Paul is praying for the Ephesians in a very pastoral way. He is saying, I want your heart to be the place where Jesus is at home, that there is no crowding out of the king. There is no up and down off the throne where you request an opportunity to rule your own life while you ask him to wait in the tucked away corner, but hat Jesus Christ is comfortably rooming in your life. Paul saw it as a necessity to pray that. And I think we all should. You know, the heart is a pathetic thing, a vacillating thing. Up one day, down the next, excited one moment, apathetic the next and you never know what your heart is going to want you to do on any given day, but I am going to tell you. When Christ is ruling there, it brings some stability to your life. It brings some sensibility, some reasonability, some power, some awareness of a different plain of existence, but it is not going to come naturally. You have got to be governed by faith.
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That means in every aspect of your life. How do you lead your family, sir? Well, you welcome Christ to rule on the throne of your heart and you do it by faith and he is at home in your family. How do you conduct your career, maam? Well, you do it with Jesus Christ on the throne of your heart and he gives you wisdom about your priorities. For those of us that are still raising children, how do we do it? Well, we can listen to a whole host of voices or we can be that rare breed that still believes the Bible and obeys what the Bible says and welcomes Christ to dwell in our hearts as he governs us through faith. Well, the second thing is that the believer should be grounded in love. He wanted them to be rooted and grounded in love. He uses two metaphors. I remember in English they told you never to mix your metaphors. Well, Paul didnt believe in that. I mean, he uses one of a blossom and another one of a building right there in the same phrase in verse number 17. He says, Being rooted. And that is an agricultural term. That you would be rooted down. I will never forget that Alicia, I remember her as a probably three years old and she would pick flowers out in the yard and she would bring them inside. I remember at one point she broke off a little branch that had a bud on it and she brought it inside and within a day or so she was so dismayed that the bud had wilted. And her daddy tried to explain to her, Sweetie, when you break off the contact with the root, you lose the blossom and you lose the fragrance. And Paul is here in wisdom praying, I want you to stay rooted. I want you to remain connected. I want your life to be fragrant. I want your life to give off color and a blossoming that brings glory to Christ. And then he adds this, Being grounded in love. That means that we would be astounded and leading our life upon the foundation of love. Very interesting. Scholars will debate. Does this mean our love for God or Gods love for us? And I have the answer. The answer is yes. It means both because being rooted in Gods love for us will affect our mind. I want you to know until you come to terms with how great the love of God is for you, you will really struggle in life. Some of us grew up in homes where either one or both of our parents didnt affirm us. They were sinners like we are sinners and they made mistakes. But for a lot of us, we had no concept of really being validated and loved.

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Now there is a proper validation that comes from parent to children and I have learned this in counseling adults that if mom or dad miss the mark when somebody was young, they had a really hard time believing as adults that God really loves them. And so much of the problems in the Christian life for people come from their struggle to believe the immense love of God toward them. They either feel like they have to perform and work and work to keep God loving them. Or they feel like no matter what they do God will never love them so they become defeated and they become apathetic and they become resentful. Or some people are even so far gone on this thing that they just dont believe in the truth that an infinite and holy God can love them in spite of their sin. But when you become grounded in Gods love for you, you will have a proper concept of you who you are, who other people are and who God is and you need that if you are going to function in the family, brothers and sisters. I want you to know that everybody that everybody you have hatred in your heart towards is somebody that God immensely loves. Do you know why I wont stay bitter with people? I cannot remain angry with people because I refuse... I think it was Booker T. Washington that said, I refuse to let any many narrow my soul by making me hate him. Dont give anybody that power in your life. Love what God loves. Also being rooted in our love for him will affect our actions. Not only his love for us, but our love for him. If we love him, we are going to obey him. We will worship him and we will serve him. If you love the Lord, you are going to love to follow him, obey him, serve him and worship him. Now we get to the last three verses and I dont have the ability to preach these appropriately. They are beyond my grasp, but I am going to have fun trying. Lets pray for fullness. Now, Baptists, I want you to hear me on this. Baptists are afraid of any mention of the fullness of the Spirit. Yeah, I didnt come into the kingdom of God very denominational. I mean, honestly, I didnt know the different between Catholic and Presbyterian and Baptist and Methodist and Pentecostal and I didnt know. And I remember early on making some statements about being filled with the Spirit because it is in my Bible. And I remember some people awkward with that because they automatically think, Well, this young Christian is going to turn into some fringe Charismatic. I thought you were a Baptist.

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Well, friends, please. Listen to me on this. And, again, this is from a pastors perspective. Maybe this is not something you understand that people struggle with. You cant live right without being full of the Spirit. You are commanded to be full of the Spirit. Now there may be differences in what people deem being filled with the Spirit is. But I believe the Bible is pretty clear and we will approach that passage in a little bit. But here is something that is very important. I think we ought to pray for a fullness of life when it comes to fellowshipping and walking with God. There needs to be a fullness of understanding as Paul prayed. He said, I am praying that you might comprehend. Remember, this is a prayer. He is saying, I am bowing my knees to the Father and asking him this on your behalf. What is one of those things? The fullness of understanding that you may comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christand then he addswhich you cant really know. This is what Paul is saying. I am asking God to enlighten you in a fuller comprehension of the multi dimensional love that the has for you. Now, I cant express it. I cant qualify it. This is all I hope to do in dealing with this verse tonight. Because when you take statements from Scripture such as God is love, therefore if you are trying to define biblical love, you are trying to define God. And you are not going to do a good job of that. No matter what you say, no matter how wonderful it is, you are going to come up short. But Paul did say this. I want you to comprehend it. I want you to experience the dimensions of Gods love. I mean, we think of Gods love as one vertical line up and down. Paul puts it in multi dimensions and says, Get busy finding out what Gods love is all about. And, friends, that is going to revolutionize some of your lives if you will just begin to believe what the Word of God says about how much he loves you. Gods essence is love. But we are too busy to dwell on that. It seems too elusive. We dont think about that. After all, we have got life to live. Yet Paul said, Now I want you to comprehend this. There needs to be a fullness of experience to match it. It is not just about knowledge. He says, That you might be filled with all the fullness of God.

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Now go and chew on that for about six years. That you might be filled, is one thing. That you might be filled with all of Gods fullness? Do you think he was just using hyperbole or do you think that Paul believed that there was a fullness of experience that eluded most believers? I am going to go with the latter. I believe that for you and meand may God launch this into some hungry heart, some willing heart, some desperate for God heartthat there is a fullness of experience in the life of the Christian that most, if not all of us, have never touched, that there is a plain of living that we have never either hungered for enough or been wiling to be ushered into because perhaps the corridor towards that fullness was fraught with pain and difficulty and we prefer the comforts and we never get ushered into the fullness. But Paul is saying, I want you to be filled with all of the fullness of God. I am not sure that there is a more staggering statement in all of the New Testament. I am blown away by that, that Paul dared pray on behalf of normal believers that their experience might be qualified as being filled with all of Gods fullness. And the only reason I even put that before you, I know this can be frustrating because I am not clarifying the how to, because Christians like how to. Well, give me five steps to the fullness of God and I will do it. No, my friend, it doesnt work that way. It is a precious and special prize reserved only for those who will hunger for it until they have experienced it. And let me tell you something. There is nothing stopping you from that. You say, Jeff, its been good. My Christian life has been good. Do you believe you have experienced the fullness of God entirely? Me, neither. So do you know what that tells me? Tomorrow there is something to shoot for. There is something to pray for. There is something to hunger after. Fullness of faith because we have time to get lost in verse 19 and Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit quickly adds, God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you ask or think. We say, Jeff, that is just not practical. We are not going to have that fullness. We are not going to experience that. I am just an average Joe or an average Jane. And that is not for me. Really? Well, Paul immediately comes and answers the objection. He says, No, God is able to do that and more.
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I can think of some pretty intense, crazy amazing things, sanctified things, of course, but I can think of some things. And the counsel of the Word of God says, Oh, God can do abundantly above that, Jeff. Some of you are, again, listen... I am praying that at least one person will get their prayer life revolutionized, that you will get into the presence of God and quit letting people and what they have experienced and what you have experienced define what God wants you to experience in the future, that you can just wrestle with this thing and say, God, I know they say that you dont do this anymore. I know that we have not seen this in our lifetime. Lord, I know that you are the God of the book of Acts and you are the God that split the Red Sea and you are the God that rained down fire on Mount... for Elijah. Lord, I know that you were that God, but, Lord, you are not that God anymore. That is the way we live. I know your theology would never agree to that, but, friends, that is the way we live. Listen. What are you thinking? What are you asking? What are you wanting God to do? Do you believe that he is able and willing to go beyond anything that you can ask or think? Well, lets pray like that and lets pray believing. And then verse 21 is the fullness of purpose. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.4 The fullness of purpose probably wont make the headlines. What is the fullness of purpose? That you and everything that consists, that your life consists of is proactively engaged for one purpose, to glorify God. Now, we hear that and it feels abstract. It doesnt have any legs on it. We dont understand it. But let me tell you. It is as simple as it reads, that you as a believer in Jesus Christ, as a son or a daughter of God so orchestrate your life, engaging your will that everything you are and everything you do has as its chief aim to bring God glory. Now that is not a thing that you are going to learn in the United States of America, but it is something that you will learn in your Bible. Psalm 115 verse one the psalmist cried out, Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory.5

4 5

Ephesians 3:21. Psalm 115:1. Page 18 of 18

Your family, your body, your words, your money, your gifts, your abilities, your acts of service, your influence, anything that comprises your life, all that you are purposefully lay before the Lord. And you say to yourself, I have placed myself as a living sacrifice upon the altar. Now, Lord, take me from this conformity of this world and fill me by your Spirit and spill me by your Spirit that you may thrill me by your Spirit and use me for your glory. Now maybe that is radical. But I am going to tell you. That is what this old boy wants. Give me some of that. Give me that life and if you dont want that, that is fine for you. But, brothers and sisters, let me tell you. I am asking God to raise up a handful of Christians at Meadow Baptist Church that will be satisfied with nothing less and I believe some of you are here tonight. Would you bow your head and close your eyes?

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Ephesians 3:14-21

A Shepherds Cry

preached Sun. PM 7/18/10 at MBC

I. Lets Pray For the Family (14-15) A. The reality of the family - For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father... We are all united by having the same Father, which makes us a family. B. The unity of the family - ...the whole family in heaven and earth... C. The identity of the family - ...our Lord Jesus Christ of whom the whole family...is named How do we represent the family name? In public? In private?

II. Lets Pray For Fire (16) (Force, Power!) A. The specifics of the fire - ...to be strengthened with might... 1. Sanctifying power - God provides the power to overcome sin. Would they rely on it? 2. Sustaining power - When circumstances becomes a series of upheavals, our lives dont have to. 3. Serving power - Not one believer is without ability to serve his Savior. Not one! B. The source of the fire - ...by His Spirit in the inner man... Not human logic, wisdom, intellect, or emotion, or education C. The scope of the fire - ...according to the riches of His glory... As extensive as His glory, so be their power!

III. Lets Pray For A Firm Foundation (17) A. The believer should be governed by faith - That Christ may dwell in {settle in} your hearts by faith... B. The believer should be grounded in love - ...being rooted {a blossom} and grounded {a building} in love...
1. Being rooted in His love for us will affect our mind Proper concept of who we really are, who others really are, and of Who God really is 2. Being rooted in our love for Him will affect our actions If we love Him we will obey Him, we will worship Him, & we will serve Him

IV. Lets Pray For Fulness (18-21) A. Fulness of understanding (18-19a) - ...that ye may comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. B. Fulness of experience (19b) - ...that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God Intimate knowledge & experience and allowing God to fill you with Himself

C. Fulness of faith (20) - God is able to do exceeding abundantly above ALL that we ask or think What have you been hesitant to ask Him for? What do you consider to be impossibilities in your life? D. Fulness of purpose (21) - Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages...