Latest / Accidental Bible Scholar / Ephesians 3: 14-21
Transcript
- Jeff Ward: welcome back to the Accidental Bible Scholar podcast. We're glad you've been listening. Thanks for listening. You know, if you get a chance and you like it, subscribe or like or make comments and that'll get word ⁓ out into the world, I guess. You know, we're new on Amazon Music. You can find us there amongst the normal spots you've probably been listening, but it's on Amazon Music as well. you have questions, ⁓ critiques, take them. And or you'd like to see or heard or talked about on a podcast, we'd love that you can do that through email at contact at accidentalbiblescholar.com. You can reach us there. then finally, did the first part of three last time, we'll go into the second part of Ephesians chapter three today. A couple of things we have coming up. that I'm excited about. Besides chapter four and five, we'll talk about marriage and parenting. Randy has great lessons on that. I've heard them before they're phenomenal. You'll look forward to that. And then finally, chapter six is on spiritual warfare. That's always good to ⁓ and as we Christians are pushing the kingdom of darkness and bringing forth the kingdom of light. So that will be good. Without further ado, Randy, you want to about What is it, 14? To the end of the chapter in Ephesians 3? In Ephesians 3, yeah. All right, let's do it. This is primary prayer that we're gonna be looking at today. We're gonna look at multiple prayers of Paul. So when you think of the attributes of God, what are some of the attributes you think about? Holiness. Holiness, yeah. you know all knowing loving loving God. Omnipotent, all-powerful. Big words like that. But yeah, we're going to talk about love. know, in first John 4.8 says God is love. Yeah. I think twice it says the Bible says God is love. 400 times it says God is holy. That's just a little something to throw out there. I've never counted those. got that from, who did get? Matt Chandler's who I got that from, from the sermon. if you don't like those numbers, you know. If you come up with different numbers, you can text him, not me. Anyway, but here's another attribute. This is kind of, I have my notes, but I'm going go off here a little bit. Is happy. You want to attributes attributes of God is happy. We don't think of that necessarily grumpy, maybe grumpy. Yeah. We, we led one of them was grumpy and dopey. Just kidding. Not dope. Yeah. But happy. Yeah. That's hidden. How's it hidden? We, the word blessed or blessed. in English is used to describe three different, completely different Greek words. I find that interesting that that's some of the carry over from the King James 400 years ago. There's for whatever reason, all of our translations bring some of these King James words, these religious words forward and put them in our modern translation. And I don't have the verse right now because I'm doing this off of a, but blessed or blessed many times or sometimes means happy. One of the descriptions is God is a happy God. The happy God is what it says. Romans four, eight says happy. It says blessed is the one against whom the Lord will never count sin. I love that verse. But the real word is happy. should be happy is the one against whom the Lord will never count sin, which is like, duh. If the Lord's never gonna count your sin against you, yeah, happy is the result. Many of our pulpits and our teaching places don't hide that. They don't want you to think that God will never count your sin against you. Well, Randy, what about the judgment? Well, there's a lot about the judgment I don't understand, but here's what I do understand. Happy is the one against whom the Lord will never count sin. Romans 4, Romans 4, 7, right before it says something very similar. So that's not me, that's what Romans said. Blame Paul if you don't like it. Today we're gonna talk about love though, because one of the prayers we're gonna talk about, Paul is going with his prayer saying, I hope you know the unknowable love of God. He's praying for these Ephesians that they may know the unknowable love of God. Isn't that something? That you could know the unknowable. know, 1 John 4, eight is where it says God is love. God has and does pursue you and pursue us. And it's the story of the whole Bible. It's Adam and Eve sinning. They go hide. God pursues them in the garden and goes find them. is a prophet that goes and buys his adulterous wife at the auction block. You know, it's Abraham sending out a son or sending out the unknown messenger, unnamed messenger to go find a wife for his. son. It's Jacob working two sets of seven years for Rebecca. It is the Samaritan woman that Jesus brings into the fold when he says, have to go through Samaria, which he didn't have to go through Samaria, but he had that woman and her whole town in mind. It's Zacchaeus. ⁓ today, I'm eating dinner with you. I eat dinner with you. It's like, it's Paul, a murderous, angry Self-centered Pharisee on his way to lock up Christians is interrupted by Jesus Christ himself. It's denying the Lord three times taking off and going back to fishing and God shows up on the shore going dude, throw your net over there. And jumps in and swims to him. It's the prodigal son that the father's watching the horizon the whole time he's gone because he sees him far off. That's a story and it's trying to comprehend this love but that's part of the prayer that Paul prays here for these Ephesians that we can now pray for ourselves. So anyway read the first two verses so it's Ephesians 3, 14 and 15. For this reason I kneel before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. pray that according to the wealth of his glory, he will grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner person. Okay, was that 15 or is that 15 and 16? 15 and 16. Okay, 14 and 15. We'll get to read 16. Oh man, sorry. I'm just making sure I'm where I'm supposed to be. But for this reason, he says it again, and then we have to go back to chapter two, chapter three and all that. For this reason, because of the gifts of grace, because of the tearing down of the wall that separated man and God, that separated... Gentile and Jews and because we have been built together into a holy temple belonging to God for this reason I pray and to the heavenly to every before the father from whom every family in heaven on earth and on earth is is His name so let's let's read 16 through 19. Okay, and Are you reading what verse you read out of there anything else? No I got the NKJB, the New King James. I'll read it. I don't know why, but we'll hear about it. Go I pray that according to the wealth of His glory, He will grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner person, that Christ will dwell in your hearts through faith so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you will be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth. and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge so that you will be filled up in all the fullness of God. Okay. I'm gonna read the King James. There's lots of words in this prayer. So I'll just read a slide there in reverse just so we hear more words. But when I have something like this, there's just a lot of stuff packed in. I'll read multiple versions and I'll talk about another technique here in a minute. New King James verse says, I pray that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and the depth and the height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. a mouthful. One of the things that helps me when I have something like this is ⁓ I cut and paste. scripture into a document of some sort and then I'll just go and color code with different highlighting colors and I'll color different that stand out. a lot of times I'll ⁓ color the verbs. Okay, where are all the verbs? And then I'll cover color code the subject and the object of those verbs for instance. And like if the same subject I'll have the same color. If the subject changes I'll change The color, same thing with the object. So if God is the subject on two or three of these, I'll color code those. I have here, you'll see the folks listening and watching can't see, but the word that, that brings this of things that I pray that. And so we have four different that's through there. And the NET, in sow that. And the NET, the sow that is there to answer why. So the N-E-T kind of group sees a little bit different, has two that's and two so that's. I know that's crazy, but it helps me to understand and say, okay, here's the subject, here's the object. ⁓ here's a different subject. Here's a different object to whatever these verbs are. And then I highlight the words that like that and these things. So, cause he's praying that. so you can highlight and there you go, ⁓ I see four that's in the New King or two that's and two so that's in N-E-T. So there's four primary things that Paul talking about. other thing you notice is the subject of the verse, what you find is that God is the subject of two things, that God may grant you and that may So we're looking at God granting and Jesus dwell. That's the work of God. God may grant and he's saying this as a So the grant means to give you something that you don't owe back. He's giving you this, a work of God. a gift that is a work of God. And this is not something that we try and do. This is a prayer that will be done in us. So we can read these and we're kind of the type A Western mindset. I got to figure out everything that I got to do. Well, this is all prayer, all praying for these Ephesians. We can pray it for ourselves and family members. We'll talk about it again, but that he may grant this. God may according to what resources? according to his riches of his glory. We talked about earlier, I think we talked that in chapter one. According to is what Paul is saying is that it's comes according to. It's not from, he's not blessing you from his riches. He's blessing you according to his riches. And real quickly, what I said, if I had $10 million, if I gave you a buck, that would be from my riches. If I gave you a checkbook that had his or if I let's put it simpler if I just put you on my checking account where you could write checks that would be according to my riches that I'll be giving you. So he's given it according to his glory. So let's see. Next, look at some of the highlights and what the four things are. To be strengthened with power or to be strengthened with might, depending on the translation. When looked at that verse, it's Strong's number 1411. It's dunamis. And it says, the believer, talking about this definition, for the believer, power is to achieve. It's the power to achieve by applying the Lord's inherent abilities. Are you talking about something that's according to? That I had the power to achieve by applying His abilities? Oh my goodness. And we're going to get to Ephesians 3.20 here in a minute, which is most people, or lot of people have memorized, whether you know it or not. But the power to achieve by applying the Lord's inherent abilities. What is it? This is the Lord's power. May I be strengthened? And may I be strengthened in His power? with his might and he's talking in the inner man here, but we're also talking about the ability or this power overflowing. And then he's going to talk about to comprehend and to know, to comprehend and know, know what? The love of God, not just the love of God, but as Paul describes it, the unknowable love of God. That I may know the unknowable. ⁓ my goodness. We think, well, it's unknowable. Well, yeah, it is. But Paul's praying. by the power of his mind, his power and his ability to manage, you may know. And remember, knowing the Bible is not information. It's more than that. It's an intimate knowing. It's like Adam knew Eve and Cain was born. Okay, that's this knowing. He didn't just acknowledge her. There was something else going on there. I put here, a difference in our lives if we simply understood more fully God's love for us. And that's what Paul's praying. God's love drives his actions on our behalf. Because of his love, he became a man. And I've discussed it earlier, I was going to discuss it here, but it's a repeat from last week. I didn't wake up this morning to be loved by you. I didn't wake up this morning to be loved by my wife or my kids. I didn't wake up this morning to be loved by the guy at the stoplight next to me, or the guy that turns in front of me a little too tight. I didn't, I didn't. wake up to be honored by him, to be respected by him, to be loved by him. I woke up already fully loved, fully accepted. And I woke up to love you. I woke up to love Angela and the guy next to me at the stoplight. Here's the thing. If I need anything from you, then I can't love you. That's a, if you ever get a hold of that, you're like, It opens up so much of understanding God's love, understanding righteousness. Same thing, I can't do anything righteous unless I'm already righteous. That's why the guys, many of us, many people argue, I'm not righteous yet. You know, we're not righteous, I'm a sinner. Well, are you a Christian? Well, then you're righteous. No, I'm a sinner, because I sinned. No, you didn't, you weren't a sinner because you sinned, you were a sinner because Adam sinned, Romans 5, 17 through 19. So. Same thing, righteous. And what I mean by righteous, because my motives are wrong. If I'm trying to do a righteous act in order to become righteous, because I'm not righteous yet, it's an unrighteous act because it's a self-centered motive. It's only from a position of righteousness that now I can act righteous because I don't need anything. Same thing with love. From a position of being fully loved and not needing anything from you, then I can love you. Because if I need something from you, then my love for you or my quote unquote love, my The that I'm trying to do, love for you, is self-centered because I'm trying to get something from you. has a mercenary effect on it, right? So it's not love. But when I am fully and I understand his love for me, and listen, we to spend much of our day tied in and experiencing that love. ⁓ to the point that our mind is renewed, that it's automatic. We just walk around feeling approved, feeling loved, feeling accepted. And I say feeling, but knowing, even if you don't feel just knowing, an intimate knowing that I am loved and I'm accepted, then I am free to love others. So that's part of this prayer is to unleash this love of God that just spills out of us. that then just sloshes around on everybody around us. That's it. And their joy and the peace that goes along with that. And I put here the next one that I would show that you will be filled. Let me go read that in NET, because NET sums this up as this thing is everything has come down to this. So all this understanding and love God so that you would comprehend, so that you would know, we're highlighting the verb, so that you be strengthened in this power through the spirit of the inner person. All these come down so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. That's something that you're just like, okay. all the fullness of God. I think we're gonna look up some verses. We'll look at some verses here in a minute maybe. If not, we'll just go do it. Didn't write anything down. Really knowing the love of, so what this says, if I really know, intimately know, understand by faith the love of God, this leads to me being filled to all the fullness of God. I'm not some knucklehead to just trying to get through the day. I've been filled with all the fullness of God. That's pretty amazing. I've been filled with all the full, let's just go to verse. I don't have to read them. Let's go to Colossians 2, 9 through 10. All right. The word filled and fullness. is the fullness of deity and bodily form and you have been filled in him. That's the same word, just one's an adjective and one's verb, or a noun and a verb. and then fullness, but it's the same Greek word, to the extent he was fullness of deity in bodily form. Paul uses the same word, that we have been filled in him. Filled in him is a funny way of saying, so if you were a glass, if I fill the glass with him, I'm pouring him into my glass. That's not what it says. I am filled. in him picture a five gallon bucket full of water and I dropped the glass into the full into that five gallon bucket. It's got water in it. It's got water all around. We are filled him. So this is saying some similar if we understand that we will be if we understand his love in this prayer is the ultimate purpose of Paul's prayer here is that we would be filled up all the fullness of God. We're going to talk about a little bit about being growing up in him in chapter four to be be walk in the full stature of Jesus Christ. There is a calling here to grow up into Jesus Christ far beyond what most of us think is possible. Most of us think being Christ-like, being like Christ is being moral and nice. It's so much more than that. It's John 14, 12. The deeds that I do, the miraculous deeds I do, you'll do and greater than these you'll do because I go to the Father. It's doing the deeds of Christ. It's doing Matthew 10, 7 to 8. I'm going off my notes here. I think we'll come back to this in a couple of podcasts, but that's okay because we need to hear it more than once. That's what Paul's praying for, that we would be filled to all the fullness of God. Amazing. Let's go look. let me go, I'm gonna go to the document that I use on a daily basis, some weeks, a semi-daily basis. But I have this, have Ephesians 3, 14 through 21. It's my Tuesday prayer for my kids and for... my wife and I and our grandkids. Here's what I say on Tuesday. And what I've done here is I've taken the word of God and I've changed the pronouns to bring it forward to me and us now. Let me just cut to another quick tangent. First John five, 14 and 15 says that. Whenever we pray in accordance with God's will, we know that he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, we know that we have what we ask for. What's the paraphrase? If we pray God's will, we know we have what we ask for. I know beyond a shadowed out that Ephesians three, the prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians is the will of God for me. It is the will of God for my wife, my kids, grandkids. And I love the ⁓ of Paul because I can now come to them and go, I know I'm praying. I can pray with great confidence and great faith this prayer. But let me just read it. For this reason, I kneel before the Father ⁓ whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that according to the wealth of his glory, he grant me and my family to be strengthened with power through the Spirit in the inner person, that Christ will dwell in our hearts through faith so that because we ⁓ have rooted and grounded in love. we will be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, is the length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that we will be filled up to all the fullness of God. Now Him who by the power that is working within us is able to do far beyond all that we ask or think, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ to all generations forever and ever, amen. And I have that written out and that's my plan. for praying for my family on Tuesday. I have here just a couple of one liners out there as a prayer request. I say, may we know the unknowable. Father, me and my family, may we know the unknowable. Another one that says, may we do the impossible, Mark 9.23 is an example. May we do the impossible and pray that for my family. I want to throw out a couple others. Ephesians 1.17 through 23, that's Monday, I do the same thing. just read the first part of it. says, pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory will give to me and my family. And I have this underlined, the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The ⁓ of our understanding being enlightened that we may know is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of his glory and his inheritance in the saints. And then I keep going all the way through verse 23 there. But these are two prayers of Paul that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is God's will. for me and my family, therefore I can pray it with faith. me give out some ⁓ Cautions one, verses nine through 14. Another great one that we can do and we can change pronouns around. Just a quick thing, when our kids growing up had a big decision to make, Angel and I would pray, cautions one, nine and 10, the first two verses, specifically for them. The Lord always answered that prayer, spectacularly many times. Let me just read that. On Wednesday, this is Wednesday, I have Caution 1, 9 through 14, but I'm just gonna read verses nine and 10. It says this, Father, fill me and my family with the knowledge of your will. That was when our kids had come to decision point. Fill them with the knowledge of will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that we may live worthily of the Lord and please you in all respects, bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of you. That's verse 10. Let me keep going while we're here. Being strengthened with all power according to your glorious might for the display of all patience and steadfastness, joyfully giving thanks to you, our Father. You have qualified us to share in the saints inheritance in the light. You delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son you love in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Woo. You want that? I mean, I want people pray that for me. I pray that for myself. My kids, I don't know if they know I'm praying that for them. We've told them a few times, but they probably forgot. Probably not. My kids pretty attentive. And of course, son-in-laws and grandkids. Anyway, here's another Wednesday. It's from 1 Peter 1, 2. It's just one-liner. May grace and peace be ours in full venture. I know it's God's will. I know it is because he's in his word and I pray it and I know he hears it. I know he hears it. I know I have what I ask for. Let me throw out some other examples. Thursday, I got Philippians 1, 9 through 11, first Thessalonians 1, second Thessalonians 1, verses 11 and 12. So Philippians 1, 9 through 11. And I pray this, that our love may even more and more in knowledge and every kind of insight so that we can decide what is best and thus be sincere and blameless before the day of Christ. Or be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. Woo, that's another great prayer. St. Basilien's 1, 11 through 12. I pray always that our God will make us worthy of his calling and fulfill by his power our every desire for goodness and every work of faith. that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in us and us in him according to the grace earned God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Another great one. There's another one, just quick side note. We talked about glory. It says that we would be glorified in him. I mean, come on. And then Friday. Friday's a little different. Friday I go to Deuteronomy 28. Deuteronomy 28, the first 14 verses. are all the blessings of the law. If you obey the law to its fullest, then these blessings come upon you. If you don't obey the law, then there's a whole lot more. It's like 15 through 65 or 68. It's a whole bunch of verses, and it's the curse of the law. Galatians says that we have been redeemed from the curse of the law. That's the second, the two thirds below Deuteronomy. What I can also do, because Christ obeyed on my behalf. Christ did everything on my behalf. I can claim the first 14 verses of Deuteronomy for me and my family. And I have a long thing. got a bunch of parentheses here, but let me just read the first little bit of. And you can see how I reworded it because everywhere in the Bible it talks about obedience or in Old Testament. If you obey, this happens. If you are righteous, this happens. If you are holy, this happens. Jesus is my righteousness. He obeyed fully for me. He has now given me righteousness and holiness. We talked at some point in here that he even repented on my behalf. He took the baptism of the repentance, which was John the Baptist baptism on my behalf. Verse 28, I mean chapter 28, verses one. Since indeed Jesus Christ has obeyed the Lord my God and was careful to observe all his commandments, the Lord my God has elevated us above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings have and will come to me in abundance. Literally come upon me and overtake me. pretty sense, St. Corinthians 1.20. Somebody, you guys look that up. Since Jesus Christ obeyed. And here's the point where I change it. Since Jesus Christ obeyed the Lord my God, I am blessed in the city. So because of Christ's obedience, I am blessed in the city, blessed in the field. My children are blessed as well as the produce of my soil, the offspring of my livestock, the calves of my herds, and the lambs of my flocks. My basket and my mixing bowl are blessed. I am blessed when I come in and blessed when I go out. The Lord will cause my enemies who attack me to be struck down before me. They will attack me from one direction, but flee from me in seven directions. And it goes on about that. the end, see what I read? I reworded it slightly at the end to just to bring it forward in time and replace obedience with Jesus' obedience. The Lord has made me the head and not the tail, and I always end up at the top and not at the bottom, because Jesus obeyed his commandments and was careful to do all that the Lord commanded. Jesus did not turn away from any commandment that was given to either the right or the left. He did not pursue other gods and worship them. So I put this in the context of Jesus accomplishing that for me. these are just examples of pulling prayers out of the New Testament or the Old Testament, plugging in Jesus Christ, what he's done for us on our behalf, and then praying those prayers. They're an exact list of what God's will is for us. that I said he obeyed in Deuteronomy, but many of the verses in the New Testament talk about fruit of righteousness, that we may live worthy of his calling. Those kinds of things that normally we leave with a to-do list. Go, I gotta go do all this. Paul's prayer is that the Lord does this to us, which is the only way we're gonna accomplish it. These are not giving us a to-do list. These prayers are on God's do list. To do list. He's going to make us worthy of His calling. Make us do the things that are worthy of His calling. And that prayer is what we're. That's good. We're praying. It's a big change to my prayer life when you pray, when I started praying scripture. Yeah. Confidence and hope, not, I hope it happens, but the hope we have in praying that is that it's gonna happen. That God will take care of our family and protect them. And all the things that you read are, that's a big, that's a life, that's the life, prayer life changing thing. And it's a great place, I say to start finish, not just that it's not enough, but it really attunes you to, I think, the Lord then prompting you to, for other prayers along those lines as day goes on. Right. So we exercise our faith, we grow in faith. These are all words that Paul would talk about. Um, so it's like lifting weights, you know, or running, I need to do what you need to do. You're running, you ran this morning. said, know, uh, if you'd have called me, I'd have watched you run. Anyway, you were in this maybe a gay rate or something. So, but you don't start off with running a marathon, right? Right. You run a little bit, you know, and you get two up to where now you're doing a 5K, you know, and then you're gonna go do a 10K. And then you do this race and that race, do a half marathon, and then you a marathon. You have to work up to it. It's weeks and years of training to get there, right? Yeah. Well, faith, some reason we put faith in a little bit different category. just think, well, you know, either I ought to have it. And you many times pray and you think you're praying in faith, you're not praying in faith. You're praying out of concern. Many times we're praying out of fear, which is the opposite of faith. Yeah. And we do. use we wish this happens or we hope this happens in the in the English western version of hope not the biblical hope we'll talk about that here in just a second but yeah so when I'm here's what faith means faith means be fully persuaded by a revelation of God that's what the Greek word means the word that we see believe in our scripture is a different Greek word that means to be fully persuaded. Now, depending on the context, we can be fully persuaded by revelation of God, or we can be fully persuaded by our own thinking. I mean, how many people have done stupid things in full belief, fully convinced of something, but it just didn't work? Yeah. Because it wasn't God's work. So faith is to be fully convinced or be fully persuaded by a revelation of God. What's the revelation of God? Well, primarily it's what's his will. So I'm fully persuaded when I know God's will. That's what faith is, be fully persuaded or fully convinced when I know God's will. Okay, so then if we go to Hebrews 11, one, and we had this discussion earlier this week, just you and I, but with couple other guys, but Scott and Caleb, in case you're listening. 11 says, faith is being sure of what we hope for. being convinced of what we do not see. Okay, so faith ⁓ sure of what we hope for. There's hope is not, the biblical hope does not mean a wish. Like man, I wish this happens or hope this happens. Hope is there is the confident expectation of good. So faith is being, faith is being fully convinced. by knowing God's and sure of what, sure of knowing our confident expectation of good. So hope triggers faith. So if you don't have hope and you don't know his will, by his will we have hope. We know that his will is this. We know his will is scripture. When we're praying prayers in scripture, we know that's his will. So we can pray with great faith, because that hope, this confident expectation of good, which is God's will, sparks faith. And now we have real faith because we know God's will and we see it there. That's like the running a mile. Okay. But, but sometimes we come up against things that's equivalent faith equivalent of running a marathon. We can't start there. We start with these. know this is God's will. So I know this is my confident expectation, expectation of good. So now my faith is being fully convinced in knowing this hope or this concept, this confident expectation of good. And so now I can, that's like running a mile. I can do that. But once I run a mile over and over and over again, now I can go to two, three, four, all the way to 26 and a half. and I can sit there now, I need to be ready. I need to be fully engrossed in God's work. I don't know what's coming tomorrow. I don't know what's gonna require to me. I don't know what great faith I'm gonna have to have tomorrow, but I need to be ready. I need to be fully ready to run that marathon. I need to be fully to express great faith in great things no fear, ⁓ I have a confident expectation of good, and I know that's God's will. And therefore I can be fully convinced by revelation of God's will. That's faith. So that's what praying these prayers, they're spectacular prayers that you're like, ⁓ my goodness, I want that for my family. I that for me. And I'm fully convinced that God wants that for me. So I know if I ask it, he'll do it. And then when we see him do that, then we go, he did that. He'll do this now. And ⁓ now I I see his will. Romans 12 to says, talk about renewing your mind so that you may be able to test and approve God's will. We'll talk about that here in a couple of things, but test and approve God's will. That almost sounds blasphemous. needs me to approve his will. Well, what he needs me to do is be fully convinced of what his will is and go, ⁓ that's God's will. Once I know that's God's will, now I can pray it or speak it or do it in faith. And go, now I can accomplish God's will on earth that is in heaven because I know it. Because what we're really presented with from the demonic attacks on our minds and just the hanging out in the world, we're presented with about a hundred options for any given day. only one of those options is God's will. We got 99 of them that are just noise and clutter. But with a renewed mind, I can test and approve what God's will and I can pick that one out and go, oh, that's the voice of the Holy Spirit. This is the one that lines up with God's word and it lines up with God's purposes for me. in my family and this is what I'm wanting to say, pray or do, whatever he does. And I go for Lord routinely and go, Father, what do want me to say? What do you want me to pray? What do want me to do? And at every decision point, because sometimes we speak to the mountain, sometimes we make a request to him, and sometimes we just get on a horse and go do it. Those are kind of the three areas, I guess you could say that he's asking of us. All right, a lot of side notes and a lot of things there, but that actually is a pretty good lead in to Ephesians 3.20. So you want to 20 and 21 and this will finish up chapter three. Now to him who by the power that is working within us is able to do far beyond all that we ask or think. To him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. All right, so, now to Him who by the power that is working within us able to do far beyond all that we ask or think. You know what we do with our brains there? Here's what our brains do. We reword that. We reword that. God can do far more, far beyond anything we ask or think. That's what we say. ⁓ God can do whatever He wants. And that's true. God can do... bigger and better, more than I can even ask or think. But what's the part we leave out? Working within us. The power working within us. See, we want to sit on the pew. We want to hang out in front of the TV and just throw up prayers and see what comes down. I don't know if it's his will or not, but if I throw up 100 of them and 10 come down, that's God, that's a pretty good day. Our first thing is discover God's will. And then he's going to use us to accomplish his will. So now once we discover God's will, now we can speak in faith. to the mountain, we can pray in faith, making requests to Him, or we can go and walk out our faith, many times all three, of course. But it starts with knowing His will. That is the hope, and that hope sparks faith that now we then go do this. But most people don't understand that, or they just go, this, false humility that's taken over many of our churches that, you know, he can do whatever he wants. He just does it. you know, no, we're a co-laborer with him. This is how we co-labor with him is from the power working within us. That power right there is the same power that Paul just requested for this church in verse 16. That would maybe be strengthened by his power, by his might in the inner man. That's the power. Let me just read that definition again. the power to achieve by applying the Lord's inherent abilities. So this power is the Lord's ability within us that we now apply. That's what Paul's asked for. And that's what he's kind of summarizing here. But many of us had verse 321, Ephesians 320 memorized and we just go, yeah, do more than I can ask. He can do more than I can think. Well, but he's doing it with the power within you. So he's the one that's going to make you think and ask. talk about thinking, or thinking is super important, but that's next time. So far beyond all that we ask or think. That's all we got. Okay, Lord, what do want me to ask? do you want me to think? because I know you wanna do far beyond what I can ask or think. So I'm not gonna worry about me asking and thinking, here father, tell me what you want me to say, tell me what you want me to pray and tell me what you want me to do and then let's go do it. for this whole thing comes down to now to Him be the glory. I wanna back up one thing here, it says he is able. He is able, there's songs and there are good songs and they should be sung about God is able. He is able. But don't miss this, He is also willing. It doesn't say, I'm not saying that's exactly what it says here, but by getting to know Him, we can test and approve His will so that we know that He is willing. And prayer of faith doesn't come from me knowing He is able. It doesn't say that I am fully convinced by what He can do. I am fully convinced by revelation of His will. I need to know what he will do. I need to know what he is willing to do. And now when I do that, I go back to what do want me to say? What do you want me pray? What do you want me to do? And let me, before I close, let me address one quick side note. I can hear some questions come out of this is, well, if he's willing and if it's his will, why would I even need to pray it? And that goes back to some of our original podcasts talking about the covenant of Adam, because God has, through the covenant of Adam, Genesis 1, 26, 27, 28 has delegated authority on planet earth and for his creation to man. And so he, wants us express his will back to him so that he can do his will through us. That's not blasphemy, that's following God's word. That's arrogance, that's humility because believing and doing God's will and word is humility ⁓ its highest So I just want answer that question I do. But we need to know what he's willing so that we can ask for it, so that we can say it, so that we can speak it, so we can speak to the mountain, Mark 11, 23 and 24, so we can speak to the Luke 17, the black mulberry bush is what NET calls it, or black mulberry tree, the fig tree, another place. Those are all examples that Jesus talks to us. He says, hey, when you have a problem, speak to the mountain. Don't quit talking to me about the mountain. You go talk to the mountain about me. Okay, and then other times he says, okay, make your request. Do it with endurance. Okay, and then sometimes we just go. And so those are all three things that we need to get with him and understand. Is this a speak to the mountain situation? Is this a make a request to you situation? find in many churches that we don't even address the speak to the mountain. because we feel like, that's weird, or some guy on TV got weird with that. okay, that's a satanic attack making you feel like it's weird to speak to the mountain, when in reality, it is a teaching of Jesus Christ to go and speak to the mountain when you need to do it. Zerubbabel, I'm reminded of, he's the king Zerubbabel, and Zephaniah speak grace grace. and the mounds will be flat and the valleys will be raised. Basically, he's saying grace, grace, grace, grace. That's a different subject. I here to close, we are rulers. We have been left here to rule and to reign. We will rule and reign over the new earth and the new heaven through Jesus Christ. He's in us, we're in you. That will never change, by the way. We are princes or princesses left here to do the work of the king, empowered by the king, authorized by the king. And that brings us to the end of Ephesians 3. Next we'll look at Ephesians 4. Questions, comments, thoughts? Anything else? No, just, well, yes. Or I wouldn't say no and then say something. But yes, there's something to speaking prayers out loud. Some of this out loud. Yeah. And probably the authority thing you're talking about. Yeah. Telling the... spirit world around us. Yeah. Reminding them the authority we have the. Yes, power within us. Yes, working. You know, Paul tells the Corinthians that. All of God's promises are yes in Christ and we add our amen. When we speak God's word, when we speak a promise, we're adding his amen. Speaking is super powerful. That's why the devil comes against it. That's why most people are afraid to even talk about it. Because you'll get some dumb like put on you for talking about it. But let's just talk about a couple of examples. think we have time. Joshua 1, 8, think it says, Never let there be a time where God's word is not on your lips. That's a severe paraphrase. Then you'll be careful to do everything within it. 1821 says there's power. The power of life and death is in the tongue. James compares it to a spark, the tongue to a spark that sets a fire or a small rudder that steers a massive ship. That's the tongue. James talks that. Jesus says, whatever comes out of your mouth either justifies you or defiles you. Jesus says you will be held accountable for every word that comes out of your mouth. Jesus exercised this when he said it is written three different times when he was tempted by Satan. He spoke God's word to counter Satan. Ephesians chapter six, take up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, the Rhema, the freshly spoken word of God. Take up the sword. Take up the freshly spoken word of God. How do you take up the freshly spoken word of God except that you speak with your mouth the word of God? Yeah. And we'll talk about that in Ephesians 6. these are just a very, very short list. told you, we talked, I think we talked on this podcast, there's like 6,000 references to our tongue or lips or mouth and speaking and hearing and listening and. We talked about that, but it's everywhere. So yeah, and of course it's powerful. And of course Satan's gonna come against it. think about this. Your spirit is in the unseen realm. Your body is in the seen realm. Okay, when you speak, you're connecting the seen realm and the unseen realm. Because what's coming out of your heart, Jesus says, what comes out of... man's mouth is an over full of what comes out of his heart. His heart in biblical terminology is your spirit in most places, but in general, that's when you hear heart go, oh, that's your spirit. What comes out of your spirit, I mean, what comes out your mouth is in your spirit. Jesus says, then John chapter six, that my words are spirit. I think our words are spirit too, as being created in his image. What am I saying? When you speak out loud, you're connecting all of creation whatever's coming out of your mouth. That's why we want to make sure it's God's word and God's will coming out of mouth, because we don't want dumb things coming out of mouth. I said you'll be held accountable for every word that Jesus says. Actually, term is you'll be held accountable for every... I'm drawing a blank. Every bad word, false word, it's not even bad words. It's every light word that comes out of your mouth. People are probably trying to correct me. I'll figure it out. But it's basically, yeah, watch what you say. But not watch what you say, make sure you say the right thing. So yeah, when you speak God's word out loud, it's super powerful. Psalms 107.20, I think it says, The angels, because you said you're for the demons around you, it's also for the angels around you. You have in this room right now, I don't know, thousands of angels, many angels. We're told we have an angel, all the children have an angel. So they're around here. Psalm 120 says that they hearken or they do the word of God. The very next phrase is not repeating that, it's saying something different because the Bible generally, in poetry sometimes it repeats itself, but it doesn't repeat itself for no reason. So 10720 says. that the angels hearken to the word of God. Then the next verse says they hearken or do the voice God. Who gives the word of God voice? That's you and I. So he does what God says and he does what people's, what comes out of our mouth when we voice the word of God. You're empowering those around you. You're thwarting the demons around you when you speak God's word. What song is that? 107 20. Yeah, is that wrong? Could be 103. I think it's 103. Okay. Why are you holding it so far from your? I know. He sent. Yeah, this is he went and healed them. Let me that's another great thing about healing, but we'll go there. So 103. Three is another one on healing, but Okay, so the NET is a little different. It's 10320. Yeah, I tell you, I get these mostly wrong. And it's better in the King James in the NET says, praise the Lord, you angels of his, you powerful warriors who carry out his decrees and obey his orders. What it really says, let me see what the note says there. Doers of his word by listening to the voice of his word is what it means in Hebrew. So doers of his word and they listen to the voice of his word. Our NET changes it for some reason. I know. I would say just leave it literal many times so that we can figure out what the writer actually wrote. But the New King James will point you in the right direction. But the voice of his word, that's what the Hebrew says. The voice of his word. So 10320, I'm glad you corrected that. Well, I was like, I tell you, man, I got it. got got it. got then 20 part, right? Yes, you did. Okay. 20 says he sent his word and healed him. His word is Jesus Christ. Right. His word doesn't come back to him void. It always accomplishes what it is. Jesus is his word. Jesus went back to the father and he sent him to heels. Therefore we have healing. Yeah. That's a lot of verses. That's a, that's several pages right there. Yes, it is. Very quickly. That's something else to think about. That's good. All right. Okay, I guess we better end. All right. Give us a lot to think about this. Let's see. All right. Thanks, Randy. Sure. 53.