Ephesians 3:14-21

Dr. Terry is expressing gratitude for the birthday celebration they had and the love and support they have received from their friends and colleagues. They mention the various events and meals they had to celebrate their birthday. They also thank the people for their love of the word of God and for supporting those who teach it. The speaker then announces that they will be finishing chapter three of the book of Ephesians and proceeds to give some background information about the apostle Paul and his relationship to the city of Ephesus. They then read and explain a passage from Ephesians that focuses on Paul's prayer for the church in Ephesus. The prayer asks for strength, understanding, and the fullness of God for the believers. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the power of God and the glory that is given to him. Good morning. How are you all today? Good. President Jim, I told them last week that the reason I popped this chair is that I've been doing this in a similar chair at Southwestern Seminary for 55 years. And every time I went to class, I'd go bop, and they'd all clap when I popped it. So anyway, that's why I popped the chair. I like to get up close and see the eyes of people to be sure they're awake. And you would check the eyeballs to be sure they're popping. By the way, I have to thank you from the depth of my being for last week's birthday party and last week's birthday. And I told Barbara, it's the first time I've ever spent a birthday for an entire week. It was something every day. My staff at the seminary and institutional advancement took me out to lunch one day. We have a senior leadership team that meets just about every Wednesday. Sometimes we miss. We're not meeting this week because we're on spring break this week. So just about every Wednesday we meet. And the senior leadership team, Dr. Dockery, brought in dinner, lunch for us, and brought me a chocolate birthday cake with 90 on the top. And we all ate my birthday cake. And then the next day, on Thursday, we had another luncheon and had another dinner. And then on Friday, our children took us out to dinner. And then Saturday and Sunday, somebody else took us out to dinner. And finally, Sunday afternoon, after I finished teaching last week, I told Barbara when I got home, I said, I'm so tired, I'm going to bed. But thank you all. And for all of the beautiful birthday cards that you have sent via mail and some that came to the class, I want you to know how grateful we are, how honored we are, how blessed we are to have been with you all for now 30 years, believe it or not, since 1998. We've been with you all for nearly 30 years. And we are blessed beyond measure because of your friendship and your love and your graciousness to us, which you all have been many, many, many, many times. And for that, we are most grateful. So may I say to you from a heart of love for Barbara and me both, thank you. I always say that thank you is so, seems to be so little, as you can say it so easy, but it does mean a lot. It's sort of like saying I'm sorry. You know, you don't like people say I'm sorry. But thank you for all of your love, all of your prayers, all of your graciousness, your hope in the word of God. Thank you over these years for loving the word of God. And thank you for loving those who preach and teach the word of God. And I will tell you how grateful I am for Jimmy Draper co-teaching this class with me. It gives me a break every now and again. Thank you, Jim. I appreciate it. And now next week, Dr. Draper will pick up chapter four. And I plan to finish chapter three today. I plan to finish chapter three today. And by the way, this is probably the shortest lesson that we will do in the entire book of Ephesians. It's a very short lesson. And in a few moments, I will tell you why it's a very short lesson. So if you'll open your copy of the scripture to Ephesians three, beginning with verse 14, we pick up the Apostle Paul who has been preaching for about two and a half chapters and realized at the beginning of verse 14 that he had not completed his prayer. Although he began it all the way over in chapter one, verse three, and then redid it a little bit different in chapter two. Now he gets into chapter three and he comes to the realization, I haven't finished my prayer. And so in chapter three, verse 14 through 21, he will finish his prayer. Now, let me read the passage and let you hear this prayer. Remember two things. Paul was pastor here for two years and three months. He would have been there longer had it not been for Demetrius, the silversmith, who was making idols of Diana, Artemis, the goddess that was there, very ugly, sensual, vicious goddess. And because the Apostle Paul, through Christ, was bringing so many, many people in the city of Ephesus to the Lord, he was hurting the statue business. He was causing people to stop buying these idols because they were coming to the true and living God and no longer needed the idols. And so because of that, Demetrius, who was one of the workmen in Ephesus, one of the leading workmen in Ephesus, silversmith, came to the city council and got them to get a big activity going on in the theater, which sat 125,000 people, and on a given day they had it full and they wanted to bring Paul there and they wanted to admonish Paul and they wanted to kill Paul, actually, is what they wanted to do. They wanted to get him there and kill him. And the Christians in Ephesus would not allow Paul to go because they said, if you go, they will kill you. And so some of his church members went. And by the way, one of his church members was beat up pretty severely. And he was a member of the city council and they beat the daylights out of him. So you can imagine what they would have done to Paul if Paul had come. So Paul now, not having seen these people for probably nearly three and a half, four years, because he has gone on a third missionary journey, he's now started on the fourth missionary journey. He started a third missionary journey when he left Ephesus and did a surrounding going backward to Jerusalem to be there on Pentecost so that he could go ahead and do what he needed to do for himself spiritually. And then, of course, he was arrested in Jerusalem. And, of course, then he was sent to Rome. So now he is in Rome. He is under house arrest. And he's writing to these churches in Ephesus, in Colossae, in Philippi, and in Ephesians, Galatians, and Philemon. There it is. It came up. And he writes to Philemon. And so anyway, he's in prison. These are called the prison epistles. And they're from Rome and they're sent to the church. So now he's getting ready to pray for these people. And the prayer he's going to pray is that what he taught them for two years and three months will be reawakened in them and that it will come up from the depths of their spiritual beings and come back up into their heart and into their mind again because he's going to end this prayer with a statement that is the most important statement in the entirety of the book. And when I get to verse 21, 22, 20, 21, I'll show you the importance of that verse. So let's read the prayer. Verse 14 and following. For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from 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 through the Spirit in the inner man. Now, if you mark anything, you mark that inner man thing. It's going to come up several times. Paul is praying that they are strengthened in the spiritual inwardness of eternal Christ and God in their life. He's praying for their inward man. So he said, I will be praying for your inward man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to understand, comprehend, be able to come to know with all of the saints. Now, he's picking up everybody now. The church in Ephesus, the church in Philippi, the church in Korea, of course, he's picking up all the saints so that you'll be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the following. What is the width of the kingdom of God? What is the depth of the kingdom of God? What is the length of the kingdom of God? What is the depth of the kingdom of God? And what is the height? And in a few moments we will explore those four things that he's talking about. So the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. He's praying that all of us will be full of God. We'll be totally God's. And he's praying that we get the entirety of the fullness of God. Now, here's the two verses. Now to him who is able to do, mark that verb. Ladies and gentlemen, when God gets ready to do, he does something big time. One day he said, let there be life. Big time. One day he said, let us make man. Big time. And on many, many other occasions he just spoke out and said, let us do. And when God does, he does something big time. So it says he is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. Mark those words. The power that works in us. All of this is in relationship to the power that works in us. To him, to God, to him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ throughout all ages, world without end. And now he says it. Amen. So he's finally finished the prayer. He's finally gotten here. And he started over in verse 1, chapter 3. I mean, chapter 1, verse 3. He mentioned it in chapter 2 and now he's finishing it in chapter 3. So with this particular piece of scripture, he finishes the prayer. Let me tell you about Paul. Paul was from Tarsus. Tarsus is over in Asia Minor. Paul did not grow up in Jerusalem. Paul was not a Jerusalem kid. He grew up in a Roman village called Tarsus on the seacoast of Asia Minor, just over the Sicilian mountains coming from Lebanon and from Turkey, now Turkey, which used to be Asia Minor. And the first big city down there on the coast is Tarsus. And it was a seacoast city. And Paul's father was probably Gentile. His mother was Jewish. And he got a lot of Jewish instruction. We have found out that somewhere along the way his father did proselyte to Judaism. And so his father was a proselyte Jew. His mother was born a Jew. And Paul was raised a Jew. He went to the University of Tarsus, whatever that might have been, and finished his education there. He was not a Jerusalem person. But he was called into the rabbinical ministry as a child, as a Jewish child. And he began to study toward that to such an extent that as a young man, after he finished his formal education in Asia Minor, his parents sent him to Jerusalem to study at the temple. Now, when you go to study at the temple in Jerusalem, you're actually going to study to become a rabbi. And Paul wanted to be a rabbi. He wanted to be a religious personality. And he was coming to Jerusalem to study a rabbi. It's kind of interesting. In the New Testament, in the book of Acts, it tells us that Paul was so intelligent. He had so much knowledge. He had so much knowledge of the Jewish people and of the kingdom of God in Judaism that the scripture tells us that he outshined all of the other students in Jerusalem who grew up there. And all of the students who had been at the temple their entire lives, who should have been able to just blow him out of the way, they said Paul exceeded beyond all of them. So he was the number one student in Jerusalem and exceeded and went beyond all of his fellows in the study. He was moving to become a rabbi. And in the process of it all, became a Pharisee. Later on, he will call himself a Pharisee of Pharisees. And so the apostle Paul now is moving deeply into the Judaistic faith, moving deeply into Judaism, and wanting to be sure that Judaism stamps out this new cult called the Way. Now, we're not calling them Christians yet. You remember when they started calling us Christians? It was when Paul and Silas were up in Antioch. Thank you. They were up in Antioch and they were called Christians first at Antioch. Before that, they were calling the Christian faith the Way. And the reason they called it the Way was because Jesus said, I am the Way. And so they called everyone who was of Christian faith the Way. Now, let me tell you something. Paul was not a stranger to prayer. You will need to know that King David, and all of us relate to King David because we're so much like him. And yet, he was a man after God's own heart, which indicates that you don't have to be perfect. You just got to be saved. I'm not perfect. I'm just redeemed. And David was not perfect. He just was after the heart of God. And God saved him because of that. He was one of those men we'll talk about later in this passage that we find in heaven. And David wrote a psalm. He wrote Psalm 5617. And in Psalm 5617, he said these words, Evening, morning, and noon, shall I lift my heart up to thee, O God, and pray unto thee, so that you might be able to fill me with yourself. So, David prayed evening, morning, and noon. So, David prayed three times a day. Most every Jewish male prayed three times a day. They would pray, now you got to remember, the Jewish day begins at sundown. So, their first prayer of the first day would be when? In the evening. And that's why David, David's correct. Evening, I will pray. So, their first prayer would be at evening. And then when they get up in the morning, they would immediately get all of the trappings of Judaism. If they were in Jerusalem, they would go to the Western Wall, which was called then the Wailing Wall. And they would go to the Wailing Wall with all of the trappings of Judaism. They would pray as the sun came up over the eastern mountain, over Mount of Olives. And then at noontime, they would stop and they would actually cleanse themselves. If you remember, when Jesus was in Cana of Galilee at the wedding, they ran out of wine. His mother came and got him and brought him and told him they need some wine. And he said, woman, what does I have to do with you? And she turned around and left him. Isn't that just like a mom? She said, do it, son, and then walked off. And Jesus said, near him were some water pots for the cleansing of the Jews. And these water pots were sitting there. Now, every Jew, before he could eat, had to pray. And before he ate, he had to wash. He had to cleanse himself. He had to cleanse himself with what was called the water of cleansing. And they had it in the house. And these pots were there. And Jesus said, fill up to the brim and you know what happened. Well, this cleansing water was something that Paul did evening, morning, and noon. And he had to cleanse himself. He had to cleanse their hands, cleanse their mouth, cleanse their face, their ears. He even had to kind of wash their ears in order to get themselves ready. And so Paul was doing this all the time. So Paul was no stranger to prayer. But later on, in the process of doing this, Paul came on a process and a posture which all of the Jewish people used quite often. And that is, when they went to prayer, they never simply knelt on one knee. They always knelt on both knees. They knelt on both knees, put their hands on the ground. And many, many times during the prayer time, they would not be on their knees. They would be prostrate on the ground in the presence of God. But never, ever did they start without kneeling. And that was the proper Jewish posture to go to prayer. And they would start in that posture. They may not end in that posture, but they would start every time in that posture. And the Apostle Paul, because of his great knowledge of Judaism, every time he went to prayer had all of the trappings of Judaism on him. He had the phylacteries, the little leather box on his head, on the inside of his arm, this on his brain, and it's coming down on his heart, on his head, and on his heart, on his aorta, going down to his hand. When it got down to his hand, it formed the letter W in Hebrew, which stood for Shodiah, which was the wonderful word of God, Shodiah, Abishodiah. And so it formed the letter SH on his hand. He had his prayer shawl on called the Zizit, and he'd put his prayer shawl over his head. He took his prayer book, and there he got on his knees and prostrated himself in the presence of God. And he prayed three times a day, evening, morning, and noon. So this is the man, now, who's coming to tell us how to pray. And you will notice in this first verse it says, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father. I bow my knees to the Father. What he's saying is, when I get ready to pray, I get out on both knees. And I get prostrated. And I get in a position of humility. And I let God know that he is the king and I am the servant. And he says, I want you to know that I pray for you to the Father, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, Paul is encouraging them to follow the same kind of relational prayer activity that he follows. And he's encouraging them to pray many times a day. But he says, I want you to know, I pray for you. You know I will be praying for you at least three times a day and sometimes more. But I will pray for you and I bow my knee to the Father, who is the Father of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he starts talking in this prayer about the family of God. I want to read this verse because it's kind of interesting. From whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Did you hear what he said? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a family in heaven. We have a big family in heaven. And I hope when I'm finished with this part of the lesson, you will have a better understanding of who our family in heaven is. We know who our family here is. Because we can see. We can see you. We can hear you. We can hear you talk about your faith. We can read stories about other people all over this globe who have the same kind of faith you do. So we have a huge Christian family here and around the world. But also, the Apostle Paul says, are you aware of the fact that there is an even larger family in heaven? And that family, he says, up in heaven, is named. And they have a name that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through the Spirit in the inner man. And so now he's saying, God the Father is talking to the eternal family in heaven. He is talking to me, to the eternal family on earth. I am speaking to both of them at this present time. Because if it is true that Christ dwells in us, never leaves us, he is our filling, then every time we talk to each other, we talk with him, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. And we are constantly involved in the same relational activity. And so what he's getting ready to say here is something interesting. He says, to the family in heaven. Okay, who is your family in heaven? Do you know who your family is in heaven? Well, when we get through with this, I hope, without a shadow of a doubt, you and I will know who our family is in heaven. Now, of course, we know because of the 1 Thessalonians 4, that the rapture is coming, and that there are some people who have died in the Lord, and because the Apostle says in the 2 Corinthians letter, to be absent from the body is to be immediately present in heaven, we know that all of our blessed relatives who were in the Lord, and who were redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and who have now died, all of them are in the presence of God. So that's part of our family in heaven. Well, we know that family. But do you know who else is up there? Kind of interesting, isn't it? I want you to turn to the 12th chapter of the book of Hebrews. The 12th chapter of the book of Hebrews very simply tells us, with whom we, the church of the firstborn, are going to live with in heaven. Now you're going to find out who your family is. This is who Paul is praying for. He's praying for the church of Ephesus, but he's also at the same time thanking God for the family that's in heaven. Now let's read these verses, let me show you. Verse 22. Chapter 12, verse 22. But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem. Here's your first family. To an innumerable company of angels. That's your heavenly family. Now let me show you what I'm talking about. They are our brethren. They are people whom God created. We are people whom God adopted. Okay? And guess what? We're both in the family. An innumerable company of angels. It's kind of interesting, if you read through the word of God, you run into a little passage over in the book of Revelations, where the apostle John is speaking. In fact, in Revelation he says, John is being shown around heaven by this angel, this heavenly brethren, and he gets so overwhelmed with rapture, that many, many times on that trip he fell down to worship the angel. You remember? You remember? He'd always fall down in the presence of the angel. And every time he would fall, the angel would say, Get up, don't do that. You don't worship me, you worship God. But John was so enthused with what he was seeing, he'd just forget who he was worshiping, he'd fall down. So on one occasion, he fell down to worship this angel. And the angel in 1910 says to him, Get up, don't do that. Don't you know, here it comes, don't you know that we are your brethren. There's the word, it's in the book of Revelation. An angel tells John that he and John are brethren. Which indicates that all of us who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ are brethren with all the angels. An innumerable company. You can't number them. We have wonderful brethren in the heavens. In fact, some of them are taking care of us every day. Oh yeah, I remember what she's saying. And we have a guardian angel on high to watch over us. I remember what she said. No, we don't have a guardian angel. We have angels who are available to us when necessary. And God sends them when necessary. And there have been times in your life when God has sent angels to you, right? Shake your head. There was a day that I was dead. I was going to be dead. I was in a car. I was doing about 55 miles an hour. And the car in front of me, all of a sudden, for some reason, just stopped dead. And I was 55 miles right on his bumper. I thought, I'm dead. And I hit the brake, and the car all of a sudden just did this. The brakes didn't stop that car. I had skid marks for 30 feet. But the brakes didn't stop that car. Just before I got to that bumper, that car went. And I am persuaded that before I hit that car, a great big angelic angel stood in front of me and said, not this time. It popped my neck so it was as if I hit a stone fence. I kind of shook my head, and I was about that far from that car. Yeah. We have had angels. They're not a guardian angel. They're not with you day and night, running around checking on who you are. But when you need them, He'll send them. Okay, so that's the first group. An innumerable company of angels, who, according to the book of Revelation, are our brethren. We're kin. They buy creation. We buy adoption. Remember that. We got to heaven by being adopted by God, being joint heirs with Jesus Christ, in the airship. They got there because God created them. They're created beings. We're adopted beings. Okay? Then he says this, then not only to innumerable company of angels, but to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are registered in heaven. Would you all like to tell me whose names are in the book of life? Is your name registered in the book of life? Well, I would hope so. If it's not, let Brother Jim and I talk with you a little bit. You see, he's telling you, he's talking about the church. The church is the general assembly and church of the firstborn, whose names have been written down in heaven. I'm sorry to tell you all this, but you got to spend eternity with me. Sorry. If you don't like me here, too bad. You got me over there, and all the rest of us. So now we got angels, who are our brethren. We've got the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the assembly of the firstborn, whose names are registered in heaven, who are our brethren. And now the most important person. To God. To God. The judge of all. He's number three. Angels are number one. We're number two. God is number three. And God is the judge of all. Then he says something that's very interesting. And, to the spirits of justified men, made complete. They're not part of the church of the firstborn, but they're in heaven. They're not part of the New Testament, but they're in heaven. Who are they? They are the Old Testament saints. This is Elijah and Moses and Jacob and Joseph, and you just start naming them. This is this group of spirits, and they have been justified. They are just. And not only are they just, but in that being made justified, they were made just like us in Christ, they were made complete. When a Jewish person gets saved, they never get saved. They get completed. Because right now, the only thing that a Jewish person is missing is the Messiah. It's the only thing he's missing. And if he can get the Messiah, he's complete. I'm going to share something we got from our God in Israel. We've been going with Nir Nitzan to Israel for years. He's a retired lieutenant colonel, a reconnaissance officer. Has two master's degrees, one in ancient history, one in modern history. Intelligent as all get out. One of his little daughters was run over by a car, nearly died. And we were in Jerusalem on a trip, and we were in the garden. And in the garden, we were having a time of worship, and we were doing the Lord's Supper. And I was moved by God to get Nir to come up to the front. And I said, Nir, we know that your sweet daughter's in the hospital. And I want you to know, these Christian brethren of yours wants to pray for you. And they want to pray for your daughter. So would you come up? And everybody in the group came up, and we laid our hands on Nir. And we prayed for his daughter. As far as his daughter lived. In fact, she's married now and has a couple of baby girls. And she's doing really well. And this week, I got a letter from a friend of mine, and here's what it said. Dear friend, I want you to know, I'm very much appreciative of the Lamb of Judah. What? Now, any time a Jew talks about the Lamb, they never talk about Judah. They always talk about the Lamb of Zion. And he started off by talking about the Lamb of Judah. Then he said, I am so grateful that the blood sacrifice of that Lamb has brought me into fellowship with Him. And then he went on to say, and I want you to know, that I am believing in His sacrifice, and I am being redeemed by Him. I don't think I can find a better testimony than that one. And if you'd like to have a copy of that letter, I'll send it to you. Or I'll bring it to class and let you read it. I didn't quote it exactly right. I should have brought my phone. I have it on my phone, but I didn't. I was busy. Anyway, you see, we're brethren. And now He is brethren in Christ. So, we have God. We have the angels. We have us. We have God. And we have these Old Testament saints. Oh, we're missing somebody. And down here it says, To Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel. Ladies and gentlemen, when we get to heaven, nobody else will be there. That's it. If you don't like these people here, you're not going to enjoy heaven very much. Because that's who's in heaven. Now, should we, Brother Jimmy, get to heaven and discover that our friend, the Apostle Paul, actually gave the book of Hebrews to Dr. Luke and perhaps to his dear friends from Rome, Priscilla, should we get to heaven and find that he did an oral statement and they wrote it all down and Paul happens to be the author of the book of Hebrews. I didn't say he was. Don't you go out here and say, I said Paul was the author of Hebrews. I said in the event that he could be, how would that verse sit? It would sit perfectly. Because that's who Paul knew and that's who Paul loved. And so, we are a family. We're the family of God and we have been adopted and the angels have been created and we are all brethren. Okay, let's see what else it says. It says, in other words, in order that, God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. Now, Paul is starting to pray that God gives us all kinds of wisdom and all kinds of knowledge. Now, may I share a little bit of scripture with you? People say, I read the Bible but I don't understand it. Have you asked God to help you understand it? Or do you just read it? Before you read the word of God, do you simply spend a few minutes and say, dear Lord Jesus, I don't understand what I'm getting ready to read. Would you please help me to read it? And if we pray that prayer before we sit down to read the word of God, He'll tell us what's in the word of God. He has told Brother Jimmy and I some things that we never did ever see, right Jim? Because we were not looking for them and he said, you need to ask me today. I need to show you something. So talk to me and let's talk. Talk to my boy and ask him to show you what's going on. And so it says, He will give you wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. If you want to know what's in this book, don't just read the book. Ask Him. You have not because you ask not. Because when we do ask, we ask it for our own selfish pleasure. See? And so if you want to really understand the word of God, you ask Him before you read. Well, I've got to hurry on. And you get out of here and He says, and so that the eyes of your understanding might be enlightened, that you will be able to understand what is the hope of His calling. Pause. What is the hope of His calling? Your salvation. What is your hope? Your salvation. Without your salvation, what kind of hope do you have? You have no hope. I preached at a Baptist church one time that was called Little Hope. And after I finished, I said you ought to rename this place and call it No Hope. Seriously, it's East Texas, Little Hope Baptist Church. And it was Little Hope Baptist Church. Let it be Baptist Church out in East Texas. And it was Little Hope. But you see, what He's saying here is, you've got to understand that your hope is in His salvation. Because Paul reminds the Thessalonians in that fourth chapter when he says, you do not sorrow as those who have no hope. See, he's talking about the same thing there. Interestingly, when you read the Apostle Paul in all of these epistles, in fact, you're going to see a lot of this replicated when we get to Philippians and Colossians and Philemon. You're going to see a lot of it. He replicates a lot of this in Colossians. And he replicates a lot of this in Philippians because he's writing from Rome and he's in that room, you know. He's under house arrest and he's got all kinds of time. And he's remembering these things. Okay, so he says, you know, as those who have no hope, because you may know that the riches of the glory of His inheritance is in the saints. Your inheritance is in Jesus Christ. Your adoption is in God the Father. You are heir and joint heir with Jesus Christ. We have all of eternity as our treasure chest. And all we have to do, because He gave us the key to the treasure chest, the key to the treasure chest is Jesus Christ. He will open the chest and when He opens the chest, He will be able to give you everything that you need, all of His inheritance. Ladies and gentlemen, His inheritance is in us. We are God's inheritance. Now, many of you have many, many family members. You have a lot of heirs. You have a lot of inheritance. You have a lot of people out there. But ladies and gentlemen, go back and look at the book of Hebrews chapter 12 and look at God's inheritance. He has innumerable angels. He has the church of the firstborn. He has saints from the Old Testament. He has His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. And He has Himself. What an inheritance in God. Now, the last two verses, and I'm going to try to finish. Barbara and I have chosen these two verses as the Terry family verse. Now, each of us has our own personal verses. Barbara's personal verse is, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understandings, but by ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path. She has that on our kitchen table. We have it on the wall. We have this on the wall also. We have chosen this as our family biblical text. I want to read it for you, and then I want to tell you about it. And what is the exceeding greatness of the power toward us who believe according to the working of His mighty power, verse 20, which He worked in Jesus Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. Now, our two verses, 21, 22. For He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to the power that works in us. He is able. Now, ladies and gentlemen, as you read Paul, you will find this word able a lot. Paul uses the word able a lot. And in these two verses, 20 and 21, in three, he says, For God is able to do. And as I said, when God does, He does big time. And He's able. He has no kind of reticence. He has no kind of control. He is able to do. He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think. I looked at the Greek word for exceedingly, abundantly. It's one word. That other word is super abundantly. He puts an u-pair in front of it. God is able to do, not just exceedingly, not just abundantly, but the Greek says He is able to do super abundantly. Above, there's that word again, it's twice. Above all that we ask or think. God is able to do super abundantly above all that we ask Him or even think about. He is always outdoing us. He is always outthinking us. He is always outdoing us. He is always out glorifying us. He is always taking care of us. He is able to do super abundantly above anything we can think or ask. You got a problem? If He's able to do this, why don't you ask Him? You got a need? If He's able to think beyond you to help you, why don't you ask Him? Do you have a hurt? He's merciful and He'll help you. You see, He is super abundant. Not just exceedingly abundantly. He is super abundant. Above all that we can ask or think. Now, the end of this verse, according to the power. That word in this verse is the word dunamis. Dunamis. We get the English word dynamite from that Greek word. He, and He says, He is able according to the dynamite. And where is that dynamite working? Look at the verse. Where is it working? In us. In the 2nd Corinthians, the Apostle Paul said, We are new creations in Jesus Christ. All things are passed away. Behold, everything about you is new. Do you know what God did? God came into your life spiritually. And with the dynamite of His power, He blew your and my old heart to smithereens. The dynamite of God blew our heart apart. And in its place He put a new heart. And a new life. And He has given us new life in Jesus Christ. And because the new life is in Jesus Christ, old things are gone. Now, you get to the book of Revelation, get to the end. Guess what He is going to do to this universe? Before He brings down the new heavens and earth. He is going to use His dynamite again. Now, let me tell you, this world is setting up to help Him. You talk with any nuclear scientist, you talk with any hydrogen bombist, I talked with hundreds of servicemen in Germany. I was taken out to the base in Germany one day, and I was shown some quantum huts. And we had to keep moving, because there were guard towers all along the way. And my host said, if we stop for two minutes, we're dead. Those guard towers had two 50-caliber machine guns in each one of them. And if you stop for more than two minutes, they started shooting. Because down there was a stockpile of hydrogen bombs. And he told me, he said, there's enough hydrogen bombs down there to destroy the entire world. And guess who's trying to get one? And guess who's trying to make one? And guess who may help God to His end product? Okay, we come to the end. To Him be glory in the church. Let me ask you a question. Do you glory in your kids? Yeah, you do. I hear you talk about it. Oh, let me go one further. You glory in your grandkids. You glory. I mean, I hear you talk about these kids. I hear you just love them all over with your heart. Now you talk about your great-grandkids. We've been here too long, folks. We get out of great-grandkids. That's a few too long, okay? Don't you glory in your children? Look what Jesus, look what the Scripture's saying. Paul is saying, God is glorying in you. God's glory is you. He glories in the church by Jesus Christ because Christ gave Him us. We are His brothers and we are joint heirs with Him and He gave us to His Father. And He glories in us throughout a month or two? Four or five years? No, it says, throughout all the ages, world without end. And Paul finally says, Amen. Let me share a story with you. We'll go on. There was a young man during the Second World War whose name was Ryan. He was a private and he was in the army fighting against in Germany and they wrote a book about him and they also did a movie and the movie was entitled Saving Private Ryan. Some of you may have seen it. It's a wonderful movie. It's about a young man who had three brothers. He was a private and he was fighting somewhere in Belgium near the German front and three of his four brothers in one day were killed. And somebody in the federal government found out about it according to the story and called up the Department of Defense and said, we need to get this young man, Ryan, home. Yesterday, his mother, who is a widow, lost three of her four boys in battle. We've got to protect James Ryan. We've got to get to him. And so, they appointed a special squad and the squad was headed up by a young captain whose name was John Miller. And he had five men in the squad with him and they were sent to Germany, to Belgium and to Germany specifically to find Private Ryan and to tell him what had happened and convince him to come home. Well, they found him. They found him right at the border of Germany and Belgium just on the other side of Dortmund, the beach there. And they talked to him and they said, your three brothers have been killed and they want you to come home because you're the only son that your mother has. And he said, I'm not going. And he refused to go. I remember seeing the movie. He refused to go. He said, no, these are my brothers here. I'm going to stay and fight with them. Well, because he refused to go, all of a sudden they were caught in a firefight. And it was a real firefight to such an extent that the entire squad was killed and the captain was mortally wounded. And as the captain was laying there mortally wounded, he looked at Private Ryan and here were his words. He said, Ryan, earn it. Earn it. And he died. What he was saying was, Private Ryan, you earned life because we gave it to you. And in your life, you earned it. Fast forward 70 years. Go to the beach at Normandy. See an elderly man standing there looking at a military headstone that says on the military headstone, Captain John Miller. And as the movie ends and the book ends, James Francis Ryan, standing there in front of the stone and saluting, says these words, I hope I have earned all you did for me by giving me life. And the movie ends. Now, we stand in front of an open tomb and empty cross, a resurrected Savior. We can't earn anything. There's nothing we can earn. He gave it all. But we can say this, King Jesus, I stand before you today. I hope I have been a good steward. I hope I have been a good caretaker. I hope I have been the kind of person all life you wanted me to be in your kingdom. I hope that I have been a good steward of what you gave me. Eternal life. That's where we stand right now. And that's why that's our verse. Because we can only do it through the dynamite that's in us. You are not your own. You have been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body, which is his. Amen. Sovereign God, thank you for Paul's prayer. Thank you for the fact that Paul learned how to pray in a different environment, but taught us how to pray in a wonderful environment of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Father, for helping us as we pray. Help us to be so conscious of how we come to you in your presence and how we ought to be more reverent, more humble, more humility. Help us, Father, to be the kind of boys and girls that you want us to be. Help us to be your children. Help us to be your church. Help us to be your inheritance. Help us to help bring in the kingdom of your Lord and your Christ. And for those wonderful questions and requests, we praise you in the name of Him who gave us life. Amen.