Stewards of the Revealed Mystery - Ephesians 3:1-13

to see you this morning on the end of July. It seems like summer has finally decided to show up. So I hope you like the hot weather, 'cause it looks like we're in for it. But we're excited. The summer is going on. My wife and I are actually expecting our fourth child in August. So we need all the prayers you can offer. We can hardly hang up with three. So, I mean, with four, we're gonna figure it out, right? You know, we've been outnumbered for a little bit, so it can't be that much worse. Right? It's going to be great. But one thing that's so great, about being in a church family, about being plugged in is the power and support that you get from those that are close to you in your church family. You know, in those early stages of having a baby, or maybe even, like, a wedding, or a marriage, anything like that, man, there's something just amazing and it's called a meal train. Anybody ever benefited from a meal train before? They're just, they're wonderful. If you don't know what a meal train is, it's not an actual train that brings you food, that would be super cool. But it is a bunch of awesome people who love you and support you who sign up to bring you a meal so that you don't have to worry about cooking and doing dishes and things while you're in the throes of a newborn, right? You're sleep deprived, all those things. We've had lots of meal trains going on at Northland recently. But I'm excited to have one for ourselves in a month or so. But we have all of these amazing people who give us gift cards and meals, and all they want to do is help power you through those first couple moments. They're just loving you. But this really had me think, as I'm dwelling on it, that, you know, if I wasn't a part of a church family, what would that support look like? Would I have that same kind of support if I wasn't a believer? If I wasn't plugged into a church? How would I power through those early moments? How do non-Christians, how do they really, how do they do anything? How do they make good friends that aren't exactly like them? How are they able to come to a place like this where there's people from all different backgrounds and places and different work and education that come here, and we become good friends? There's no other place that I would meet Connor Howard. We've said this multiple times. He's a tree guy. He's up in a tree. I'm in an office. Signing people up for classes. I'm preparing sermons. We would never meet. But the church is amazing. It's such a gift. My church family, this church family, you guys, seriously, you give me the power to get through some really tough days. You pray for me, you support me, you support my wife. You help take care of my kids. We have people who come and watch our kids and love on our kids back in the children's wing. It's just incredible, the gift that we've been given, that give us the power to get through days to get through weeks. And the Lord has given us this gift. But there's not, that's not the only gift. That's not even the most important gift that he give us. Today, as we're going to be in Ephesians 3, 14 through 21. We're going to be talking about the most important gift that we have, and that is love. We need the gift of power that Jesus has, and that is love. Love is power. And we're going to unwrap that and unpack that here today in Ephesians chapter 3. So if you have your Bible and you'd like to turn there. Ephesians three, we already read it, Braden read it, but I'm going to read it again. This is what it says. 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 and your inner being. So that Christ may live, may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ. That surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled 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 glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it never returns void. Lord, Lord, that in the preaching of your word in the reading of your word, in the hearing of your word, you accomplish exactly what you intend to accomplish. Lord, that is such an encouragement to me. Lord, as someone who is fallible, somebody who is um, just not capable in the ways that I would like to be capable. Lord, but it's about your word. It's not about me. Lord, so I ask that you would take the scribbles on this page, that you would take whatever ideas and thoughts are on this page, and that you would be the one who would receive the glory, and that these people would hear, and that they would be built up in your word, and then Christ, Lord, we love you, Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so the very 1st thing we're going to see here is that Paul is praying. Paul prays to the Father. And he's actually jumping back into a prayer that he started in verse one of this chapter. He says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father. And if you jump back to verse one, that's the exact same thing that he had just said. So last week, Pastor Tyler mentioned that Paul entered into like this very worthwhile tangent, this very worthwhile rabbit hole, right? That he's talking about the mystery of the gospel, the mystery of the gospel to the Gentiles. To those who were not God's people in the beginning, to those who have been loved by God, the Gentiles, and entirely made the point last week, that if you're not Jewish, you're a Gentile. So this is incredible. So last week we got to talk about this amazing mystery that has been unfolded in the cross of Christ, in the mystery of the gospel that he is revealed. He says, for this reason. What he's saying for this reason, as he was in verse one, he's pointing back again. So we're going back even further to chapter 2 in the end of chapter 2 in verses 3 through 13, sorry, 31 through 13. Paul is talking about how those who were far off had been brought near. The Gentiles, again, this mystery of the gospel that God, ever since the beginning, was working out a plan to bring the alienated, to bring the far off, to bring the unclean, to bring them near, that this has always been his plan. God didn't change his idea, but this was his plan all along. And that now the Gentiles as well as the Jews are now co-heirs with Christ. The Gentiles are not 2nd rate citizens, but they're full fledged sons and daughters of the king. They're full fledged co heirs with Jesus. They were once children of wrath, but now we are children of love. So if you're a Gentile in here, and if you've put your faith in Jesus, you were once far away from him. You were once unclean, you were once a rebel. You were once a sinner, but in Christ, you've been brought near. And Paul says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father. And what he's saying there, we see an image of people bowing their knees, maybe you're thinking Tim Tebow, right? He's praying before a football game. Oh, we got a Florida guy here. We like Timmy, Timmy T. There we go. But we maybe think about boundaries. That's something normal. But actually, in the 1st century, and even before that, it was more traditional for people to stand while they're praying, that this was the more respectful way of praying and approaching the Lord. So Paul is saying that he's not necessarily breaking tradition, but he's so overwhelmed that the emotion of the mystery of the gospel that's been revealed in Jesus, that he falls to his knees. He's emotional. He's wrapped up in this amazing truth of the gospel, of this love for the Gentiles. Have you ever been so moved by something, or so hit by something emotionally, that you have to sit down? Maybe we think about in a movie where, like, the doctor comes out and they don't have good news. They said, you're going to want to sit down for this, right? Or maybe again, in another movie, the guy's on the phone, and he's like in the background, all you hear is him talking, you don't hear the person on the other side, and he's getting fired, or he's getting let go, or something else horrible is happening, and he just slowly sits down. He's overcome with emotion. I was thinking about this. If you've seen the original Planet of the Apes, you see Captain Taylor, he gets on the beach, and he's walking around, and he thinks that he's going to be able to escape, he's trying to get off this planet, go back to the normal planet, and he sees the Statue of Liberty, just sticking out of the beach. And he realizes that, actually, this is just the future of what his planet actually is. So there's no hope of leaving. He falls to his knees and he says some not some great things. But he falls to his knees and emotion. Paul says, I bow my knees before the Father, not in terror, not in sadness, not in fear, but in love in worship. He falls before Jesus. He falls before the Father, with overwhelming awe of the love of God that's been revealed. That's it for this reason. I bow my knee before the Father. I also think about the background of Paul himself. Paul being a Pharisee, a man who was all about the Jewish tradition, all about the Jewish law, was actually persecuting Christians. He was rounding them up, throwing them in jail. We actually enter in in the beginning parts of Acts, where Paul rounds up Stephen, and they throw the coats at his feet to show that Paul was responsible for the death of Christians. Paul says, in light of the gospel that's been shown to the Gentiles, in light of the love that's been shown to me, the forgiveness that's been shown to me, I bow that God would give forgiveness to someone like me and like them. And not only that, Paul has been sent on this amazing adventure of sharing the gospel, sharing this love. The ones that he was chasing down, that he was hunting down, to punish for following Jesus. Now they're the ones that he pursues with this gospel. He was spared of his actions and sent on the most important mission. He was also once an enemy of God, but now he's loved and sent to tell others. He said, so I bow my knees before the Father. And then he says this, bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he, according to the riches of his glory, may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit. So Paul, he falls before the Father. It's important to note and to remember that God is known and calls himself father, that he is personal, that he is relatable, that I can talk to him as a good father. He's not some far off king that makes demands that never enters in to ask about what's going on, or to power you, or to help you. He's not some far off demanding tyrant who sits on his throne looking down, but he is the father who's come near. And Paul says, I bow before this father. It's important to remember that we were once far off as aliens, that we were dead in our trespasses and sins, that we were children of wrath, but now in Christ, we are no longer children of wrath, out on the outskirts, far away from him, but now we're sitting at his table, as his sons. as his daughters. And as a good father relates to his kids, we can relate to our father, and we can talk to him. He will help us. He listens. We aren't left outside to fend for ourselves, but we're full-fledged children of the Father. We're co-heirs with Christ. But he's not just Paul's father. He's the father of all, all families living and dead, not just the Jews, not just the Gentiles, everybody, past, present, future. He's the beginning of all things. He created us. He formed us from the dirt. He formed us and breathed life into all of humanity. All of creation, past, present, future. And he says at whom every family on heaven, in heaven and on earth has been named. Maybe we would blaze through this, but naming is actually very significant. To be named by somebody is very, very important. It's actually revealing ownership. It's revealing a transfer of responsibility, so to speak. When we think of being named, maybe you think about someone naming a boat, somebody naming some kind of object that they have, like my kids, they have stuffed animals, and they all have names, they make no sense. The names are just kind of gibberish, but they're names. But another maybe more realistic one, maybe we're more related to, we think about fathering. We think about husbanding, right? When a wife takes the name of her husband, it's not so much that she is his property, but that she is coming under his headship. Under his responsibility, under his care and under his watch, that now, in the eyes of the Lord, that man is held responsible for that woman. That's my woman, right? And we think about kids, I already mentioned this. We're about to have our 4th kid. We thought a lot about names. We like to think a lot about names and we want to make sure it's a significant name, that it's not just frivolous. My name was picked out of a book, and I guess that's fine. I just don't feel very significant with that, right? But we thought long and hard about her name, and we've her name her Paisley. So, which means in the church, and her middle name is Odalia, which is I will praise Yahweh, in the church, super cool. Harry Lee found that one out, so give her all the credit. But we named her because she's ours. We're waiting for her because she's ours. Her last name is Leslie, because she's one of us. She belongs to me. That's my daughter. She's not yours, right? That's mine. Naming someone shows not only relation, but it shows responsibility or, in another sense, it shows ownership. That's mine. In the 1st century, when Paul is writing, this is really significant. In a world of still sin, of brokenness. And there wasn't modern ways of getting rid of unwanted children before they're born. That in the 1st century, what they would do is that they would let the baby be born, they would leave the baby unnamed, and they would sit it in a trash heap. They would hit the baby away, away from their parents, away from all society, so they would just die. Because in the first century, if you didn't have a name, you didn't have any rights. And if your parents didn't give you a name, you had no rights. That was their way of being rid of it. But Paul says that every family on earth is named by the Father. You as a Christian, Paul says, your father loves you, and he has taken you from the grave in chapter 2. He's taking you from the trash heap of being unwanted, and has placed you at his table, and he's given you a name, and that name is his. You are his. You belong to him, the loving and perfect father. You are his. He goes on in verse 16. He says, I bow and he's before the Father. Everyone's named by him, that according to his riches. He may grant you to be strengthened with power. Why do we need to be strengthened? With what power? What power over what? All these questions that we may have. In light of the whole book so far, he's talking about power over sin, power over death. In chapter 2 verses one through three, Paul already wrote this. He said, you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body in the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. We were all once, Far, we were all once dead. We were all once actively rebelling against a holy God. Romans one tells us that no one is unknowingly, just, oh, I didn't know that you existed, that all of creation screams that God exists, and we in our sin are putting a stiff arm to him and walking the other way. We were all once following the prince of the power of the air, but he's rescued us. He's rescued us, and we live in a life, live in a world that's not yet finished, that Christ has not yet returned, that has not made this world new, that we still have indwelling sin. We still have bad habits. We still have things that we learned as sinners before Christ that we're continuing in. Maybe you're here and you would realize that. Maybe you can go ahead and point them out. Don't scream him from the mountaintops. But maybe you have a struggle. Maybe you have a sin problem. Maybe you have something that you just, I can't get over this. You understand why we need power. You understand this. I imagine the walk of the Christian like this image. I wonder if we can get it pulled up. I got a picture here. It's called the night, Death, and the Devil. It might be hard to see for you in the back, but if you want to pull it up on your phone later, you can. This is a picture that I pull up often, you might say Dalton, that's kind of creepy, but it's really good. It's helpful. Now, the actual interpretation of this engraving is debated, so I, as any good observer of art, I'm going to make my own interpretation, right? It's good. But what I'm seeing here, and many people would also agree, that this night on this horse is a Christian, that he is the Christian, he's on the walk. He's on the narrow path, headed to the kingdom at the top. If you think about Pilgrim's Progress. If you've ever read that book before, heard that book before, this is the story, that he is on a one way path, on a narrow path going right to the king. He has the armor of God on, and he's walking. Now, he's got enemies. He has things that want to kill him. We see that there's death in the devil. Death is right here. He looks like the nut, but dead. He looks like a skull. He looks old. He looks like he has a horse here who's sickly underneath. And on top of his crown, he has snakes. Now, biblically speaking, we understand this snake was the tempter that snakes are always represented, almost always represented as the enemy, as someone who wants to say lies, to draw you away. James talks about, we are we sin whenever we're drawn away by temptation from the evil desire within. We have evil desires. We have things within us. We have indwelling sin that the tempter, that death wants to draws away from the walk. And then in the back, you have the devil. He's almost cartoonish, almost silly back here, but he's always lurking. He's always following behind, looking for an opportunity to pounce. Your enemies like a roaring lion looking for an opportunity to devour you. We've said this before. The devil doesn't simply want to distract you. He wants to kill you. And he sees it here. He has a spear. He's chasing after. When I think about the walk of the Christian. I think about this. We have temptations. We have a real enemy, and they want to kill us. They want to draw us away from God in his path. We need his strength to make it through this. I think it's a really creepy image, and I think it's a good image to have in our mind that even though life may seem well, life may seem good, but we have real enemies. And we need God's power to be to take us from them. God doesn't raise you from the dead. God doesn't raise you up from the trash heap to leave you powerless. He gives you power. And Paul says, Father God, grant these once dead, unnamed children of wrath, grant them strength, in power, over sin and death. And he says, through your spirit, through your spirit. So number three, we see that the Spirit strengthens and power. The spirit strengthens in power. Paul knows about our enemies because he is the same ones. He has the same inclination to sin. He knows because he too has the exact same enemies. Romans 7, 18, 22 through 23. It says this. Paul says, for I know that nothing good dwells in me. That is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law, wage war against the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Paul says that he is powerless on his own to do the things that he knows are right. That is why Paul prays for strength in the inner being, the unseen, the desires, the heart, the sinner of worship. Paul says, God, give them power there. They need power over all of their desires, they need power, and all of those things. And spirit, the spirit is the one who strengthens us in power. He's, Paul is praying in line with scripture in Acts one 8. We know this. Jesus says, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you'll be given power. Now there's multiple reasons. He's talking about the authority of the gospel, as you go forth, you will have power in the world of sin and darkness. And as I preach the gospel over that that there's authority and power there. But also there's power and authority over illnesses and demons that we see that in acts as he's healing that, but also its power over sin, power over death. The Holy Spirit, the 3rd person of the Trinity strengthen us in the inner being because he lives in us. Remember, Jesus said that he is the helper. Jesus said, I'm going to send you a helper who will live within you. And we jumped back this a few weeks ago. Ezekiel 36. We see that he's putting his spirit within us to help us to walk in his statutes. Help us to walk in his commandments. The Holy Spirit lives within us, and we are strengthened with power. Now, notice this that Paul is not talking about a holy cosmic workout regiment that's going to make you really great at doing things. He says, actually, you're weak. Actually, you can't do anything. We need God the Father to send his spirit into our heart so that we can be strengthened. It's an outpouring of grace and power into our hearts that builds the strength over sin and death as he makes his home more fully in our hearts. He strengthens us the same way as he saves us. By grace alone. By grace alone, may you have you can have power over sin and death. So God grants strengthening of power through his spirit. But how does this power work? How does it work? How does it actually accomplish anything? Look what the spirit does in verse 17. He says, have the spirit in your inner being power in you and strengthen you there so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints. What is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ. When a person puts their faith in Jesus, their trust for forgiveness of their sins, the spirit moves in, and the spirit opens the doors of your heart so that Jesus can come then, he's scrubbing the floors, he's ready in the throne. He's placing great care to allow Jesus to move in, to live there. He's tilling the soil. He's breaking the stony hearts. Galatians says that he sends his spirit into our hearts so that we can cry out, Abba, that we can cry out, Father, we need the spirit so that we can call out to him for salvation, that we can call out to him for power. God strengthened us, strengthens us with power through the spirit, by faith, in Jesus who lives in us. That's how we have power. That's how it works. The spirit makes room for Jesus in the inner being so that we can dwell, so that he can dwell in the very heart of the believer. So we see this, that Jesus dwells, he lives in our heart. And it's by faith that he does so. Now, we know this from scripture and other parts that the heart is always represented as the emotional worship center of a person. Jesus often talks about the heart, and he says that as the center of man, and Mark 7, he's talking about how it's from the heart comes to the things that defile a person. It's not what goes in. It's what comes out, that what defiles them. From the heart. He said, what comes out of the heart are evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. Out of this sinner. This is what comes out of us from that inner being that we were talking about. And this is what defiles us. He talked to the Pharisees and he said, hey, on the outside, you look great. You look like, you clean the outside of the cup. It looks perfectly clean. It's beautiful. If you remember the Pharisees, they would stand on the corners and they would have long, beautiful, very articulate prayers. They'd sit on the street corners, and they would fast for long periods of time. They could fast longer than other people, right? They had scripture fully memorized and could spat it off from memory. But Jesus says, You look great on the outside, but you're dead on the inside. You may look beautiful on the outside, but your heart is ugly. God is about the heart. He wants the heart. He wants true worship. Deuteronomy 65. This is called the Shema, if you want to know the actual language of it, but Moses is giving this last sermon to the Israelites, and he says this, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might. What he's saying is every bit of you needs to worship God. And that starts in the heart. God wants your heart. And as Jesus dwells in our hearts, he's growing true love. He's growing us in worship. He says that we need to be rooted and grounded in love, this stability, this foundational truth about us needs to be the love of God towards us in Christ. The most common thing, the most known thing keeps us firm, is the love that Christ has shown us by dying for us on the cross. Jesus grows our love for God from our heart, not from our actions. Power against sin and death start with faith in Jesus who lives in our hearts. So when we put our faith in Jesus, he comes and he lives with us and he grounds us in the love of the gospel. You are no longer dead in your sin, you are no longer incapable of obeying. You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are children of the king and you are loved. We're rooted and grounded in that. The accuser, the devil, has no more right to accuse you, because you've been washed clean of all sin. In Christ, alone, by faith, you've been washed clean, and the devil can no longer hold a valid charge against God's people. This is where the power begins. is faith in Jesus. It's loving Jesus. And it goes on from here. Read 18 and 19 with me. He says that being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So the 5th point we're going to see is that we are filled with all the fullness of God in Jesus. But notice what Paul says here. He says that the love of Christ surpasses knowledge. There are some fancy words there. But this is literally what he says. The love of Christ is further than you can think. further than you can know that we know the scripture. We know the gospel. We have faith in Jesus, yet we have not even scratched the surface. That's how deep and how wide and how long and how high his love is for us. We can't even have the strength to comprehend it on our own. Paul prays for the strength for this so that we would know how loved we are. We can't know this because he is higher than us. He is greater than us. The word that we use for this is that he is holy, that he has holy love and holy really means other, different. God is different than us. We are like him because he's made us in his image, but he is different than us. He loves way deeper than we can even understand. His love is higher and deeper than we can even know. We can't just obtain the ability to know this kind of love. We need, as Paul is saying here, in praying for the Ephesians and for us. We need God himself through his spirit to open the doors of our hearts so that Jesus, who is the fullness of God, the Son of God, the He is God, the Son. We need him to live in our hearts, to cause us to love him, to cause us to grow in this. Scripture says that we were enemies of God. That we can do no good thing, that we are not passively sinning against God. We're not unknowingly away from God, but that we are rebels toward him fully in our sin, actively sinning against him. We aren't looking for him. We can't find him. We can't earn his love. Yet, he sent his son because he loved us. He sent his son not to just live, but he sent his son to die and pay the price for your sins and for mine. He died to make us right with him, to extinguish the power of health, to wipe away the guilt of sin, so that we have no more sin. He took us even though we were his enemies, and he made us his children. The question we should be asking is, what kind of love is this? Who does this? What kind of God would actually love like this? We can't actually comprehend this love. We think of love as transactional. We think of it as you give me something, I have to give you something back. I have to be worthwhile. Um, maybe, maybe this week you get a phone call. Maybe Connor, you'd like this one. The phone call comes and says, hey, Connor, you just want a 1000000 dollars. Connor, what's your honest response if someone says that? Right? You're going to believe the guy? No, it's okay, this is a total scam. Never call me again, put me on a do not call list, all this different stuff. That's not how we hold phones anymore. This is how we hold phones now, I guess, but we don't understand that. I didn't do anything to earn a 1000000 dollars. I didn't even enter into a contest. There's no reason I should be getting this. We don't understand something for the sake of doing something, right? It has to be something transactional. In our fleshly mind. We don't understand this, but God's love is not transactional. You have absolutely nothing to offer him. Yet he gives you everything. You have absolutely nothing that you can bring that is even seen as good, but he has given you all the good in Jesus Christ towards you. So to the person in here who has not put their faith in Jesus. I need you to hear this. It's not about getting your life right before you come to Jesus. It's not about trying to live or to get rid of sin or to do things better before you come to him. He finds you in your lowest moments. We just sing. He knows exactly who you are. More than you even know yourself. And he still sent his son. He knows exactly what he's getting himself into. We all fall short. No one is good. Not a single person in here ever earned their salvation. No one has ever been good enough to be saved. But the love of God is so good because he loves us despite our sin and failures. He pours it out on us and he forgives us. You have no power to overcome sin on your own. You have no power but to follow the prince of the power of the air. You're separate from God. He says, have faith in me, and I'll give you the power you need to overcome sin. I have the power in Jesus, and we will grow you up in faithfulness. Paul prays that we would have the strength to comprehend and to fully know Jesus. Why? Why, why do we do this? Why is he praying this? So that we will be filled with all the fullness of God? This is a process. He's not saying you will be God. He is saying that as Christ, who is, who has, God says, was pleased to have the fullness of himself, dwell in Jesus, he dwells in your heart. And as Jesus is growing in revealing how you still love the world and how you still need to love him even more, as he's revealing that he becomes bigger. Yeah, his truth, his righteousness, his love, his desires become your desires as he's growing in your heart. In the fullness of God is being poured in as Jesus has made large in your life. The strengthening with power that Paul is praying about is about Christ. growing more and more in our hearts. As Jesus grows, we learn the depths of his unknowable love. We have power. Knowing the love of Christ fills us with all the fullness of God because he lives in us. He is welling up. He is pooling up in our hearts, and all of those who believe in him. The Spirit is blazing the trail so that more of Jesus can live and grow in your heart. So every single day in our lowest moments. When you feel like you want to quit. When you feel like you want to give up, He is calling you to himself, to realize that he is more, that he is better than whatever you've put your faith in that made you to this moment. He is better. He is growing in your heart, in your highest moments when you feel like you're unstoppable. Maybe you're looking around and you're in nature. You see, um, something great happening and God almost seems visible. God, I can see your love. I can see your creation. I can see what you've done. He's building a life of worship in you. In the everyday, when life seems to be standing still. When you feel like you have nothing going on. God, I don't even know what's going on right now. I'm not making a difference. I'm not doing any of these things. God is inviting you to see the adventure that he's inviting you into by his love, that you've been saved by grace through faith, and that he is sending you out to help others do the same. So the believer is strengthened in power as Jesus reveals his love to us in our hearts. Now, here's the question some of you may be thinking. Okay. Loved Alden, that's what you got for me today. Really? Love is the reason, love is power. Is it Valentine's Day? What's going on, doll? This sounds this sounds silly. How is that power? Here's an illustration. And it may seem silly, but I love breakfast food. I love it so much. Anybody a big breakfast food fan? Yeah. Here's the truth. I think I make the best breakfast food. My wife, she can attest to it, right? She's even nodding, yes. I thought she was going to say, no, that's great. So, we stick with the basics. We're really great at it. We make bacon, fried eggs, we fry it in the bacon grease because we're not healthy yet. And then we have pan fried toast, and we make breakfast potatoes, alls from scratch, and they're it's the best. Now, we love breakfast food and we want to go out and eat breakfast food often. But you know what happens when I go to any breakfast food ever. And I order the exact same meal. I am always disappointed. I go in, I'm like, they didn't even season these eggs. These are horrible eggs. I don't even know why I'm ordering eggs at this restaurant. And this bacon's this big. It's horrible bacon. They burnt it or whatever. It's soggy. It's never as good as what I make at home. So when we go, we always have to order something that we never make. Like, chicken on, with gravy with, on a biscuit, and with cheese all over it, like, even more on, right? But when I go there, I can't order the thing that I know that I have that's better. There's a lesser version. I can't choke that down. Um, it's a lesser version of the quality that I normally make. The quality of our breakfast and my love for it keeps us from eating the lesser version. So this idea is translating to what we're talking about this morning, in Christ, you begin to experience the incredible love of God, the unknowable love of God. You are beginning to taste and see that something is much better in Christ than whatever is offered in the world. That in Christ, you are seeing that there is something of higher quality. You taste and see that it is the Lord that is good. And whatever we thought was good in the world is bland and flavorless and has no life in it. So as Christ is growing in us, we start to realize that the world can only offer cheap imitations of what God has to offer in Jesus. So as he's growing us in love, this is power, the sin habits that you hold to begin to lose their flavor as you spend time with the king. To beat sin, to walk away from the desires of the world, you don't need more rules. You don't need more restrictions. You need a greater love. You need Jesus to dwell more richly in your heart. You need a god sized love to rule and reign in your heart. It's not about rules and restrictions. It's about revealing the surpassing worth of Jesus. The unsearchable riches of his love. Maybe again, you're saying, Dalton, you don't know my struggle. You don't know my pain. You don't know my experience. You don't know how hard I've tried to quit this thing. You don't know how hard I've prayed. You don't know how far I've run away. I'm too far gone. You don't know the things that I've done, Dalton. You don't know the things that I think. You don't understand. These things do have power over me. I have no hope. Listen to what Paul says about God. 2021. Now to him who is able to do, far more abundantly than all we can ask or even think, according to the power that is at work within us. To him, be glory in the church and in Christ, Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. God can do far more. Far more abundantly than you could ask or even think. We've already pointed out how limited our thinking is about his love. But we also are so limited in our thinking about how much love and how much power he has. He says he can do far more than that. You think, no, I have no hope. I can't overcome this. No, you can't. God can. And it's not some far off power. Look at what he says. It's through the power that is within us. The power is already at work within the believer. It is a love of Christ that he has for us. He's growing us in this desire for more of him and less of the world. And he is already working. So trust what he says. Lean into what he says. God is not limited to your imagination. He's not limited by your inability to see past your struggle. God is not limited by how much you sin or how how you think you have how bad you think you are. God is limitless in power. God is limitless in love. In Christ. You are no further away from him than you'll ever be because you're at the seat, at his table, as a loved child of God. And his powers pour it out on you and pours out view through Christ. He wants you to know his unsearchable, unknowable love in Christ. You who are far from Jesus, that you would say that you're far from Jesus. He wants you to trust his unlimited power, to do more than you can even think. He wants you to trust in him for not only your salvation, for eternity, but for your hope for today. Place your faith in him today and watch as he grows, you mourn into his image, and as he reveals more and more of his love in you, and watch how he transforms your life. It's about him doing the work, not about you. A few take home points. I've gone a little long, so I'm gonna give you these without much instruction. But if you take home points. Number one, you don't have the power to defeat sin. Jesus does. You don't have the power to defeat sin. Jesus does, and he is at work within you. Number two, you are loved by God beyond your ability to understand. So rest in that. Number three. God is more powerful than you can even think. When you think that you don't have power to go on today, God has it for you. When you think you can't break that sin habit. God has the power in you in Christ. And number four. He wants to make his home and your heart today. If you've not put your faith in Jesus, if you've not trusted him for your salvation, for eternity. He wants to be. In your life today. If you feel hopeless, if you feel insecure in your salvation, if you feel, I know you're saying all these things, but what's going on inside of me, I think I've messed it up. I think I've screwed it up. No. He knew exactly what he was getting when he saved you. He knows exactly what he's getting if you come to him today. Here in a little bit, we're gonna give some announcements. I'm gonna kind of direct people. There's a there's a welcome card in the back. If you need prayer, if you want to talk with somebody, to Tyler or to me or to somebody, you can fill that out. And Dalton, I love to talk, and I'll reach out this week. Or just catch me afterwards. I'd love to meet, talk over the phone, text, whatever we need to do. I just want you to know how much Jesus loves you. And how much he wants you to put your faith in him today. Let's pray. God, we thank you for today. We thank you for the salvation we have in Jesus. Lord, thank you so much that I didn't earn it. Or thank you that it was a gift. A gift that was freely given. A gift that was earned by your son. Lord, that you paid the price in full. And you are so rich in glory and mercy. That your grace is greater than all my sin. Lord, I pray for all those in this room, as they've heard your word, as they've heard your gospel, your love for them. Lord, would you place your spirit within them? Would you strengthen them in power so that Jesus would dwell richly in their hearts, that they would be rooted in love, rooted and grounded in love? Lord, that they may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and height and depth and length of the love of Christ, that they would know the unknowable love. Of Jesus. Lord, to you be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.