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Let's go to Ephesians chapter three. We're going to pick up on our Bible study. If you're new to Cornerstone, we go straight through the Bible. We are now in the third chapter of the book of Ephesians. It's in your New Testament. If you don't have a Bible, you can pull it up on your phone. I'm going to read from the new King James Version. But while you're turning there to Ephesians Chapter three, a little background to what we are about to read in Acts 19 and 20. It records Paul's missionary journey to Ephesus, where it tells us in Acts 19 and 20 that he spent three years there. He goes to Ephesus. He leads many people to Christ. There is both revival and riot in Ephesus because they're going to chase him out of town, but not before he spends three years there leading people to Christ, planting a church and discipling them. Then five years later, after he leaves Ephesus, he is now in a prison in Rome for preaching the Gospel. And he writes this letter of Ephesians. He writes this letter back to the church at Ephesus that he had planted five years earlier. And part of his reason for writing Ephesians was to encourage Christians to live out their faith even in the midst of a hostile Roman Empire. And that was the time period in which Paul wrote this, first century. So it's under the Roman Empire, it's hostile towards Christians, especially Emperor Nero, he was killing Christians. And history records that Nero would even take Christians, dip them alive in tar, and then light them on fire and use them as human torches in his garden. Okay, so that's what's going on in first century Rome. And Paul writes to the church at Ephesus and he says, stuart, stay strong. You're living in a hostile time towards Christians, but stay strong. So that's why, you know, God's word is so timeless for us. Because whatever hostility, and it is rising towards Christians, in case you haven't noticed over the last decade or so, whatever hostility or whether, whatever animosity, whatever hatred people have towards Christians, stay strong in your faith and continue to persevere in your walk with Christ. And that is in large part why he wrote Ephesians. Like, you might live in a hostile environment, a culture that does not like or accept your values, your biblical views, and they might even persecute you, but stand strong and continue persevering in your walk with Christ. And so as part of Paul's letter here to the church, At Ephesus, he's going to pray for them twice. The first prayer is recorded back in chapter one, and I'll just summarize it. It's chapter one, verses 15 to 19. And basically in a sentence, Paul prays that they as Christians, and by extension that we as Christians, would know the Lord better. I don't care how long you've been a Christian, there's always room to know the Lord better. Amen. And to grow deeper in your walk with Christ and to press in closer to Jesus. That's his first prayer in chapter one. We come here to chapter three, where he ends this chapter with the second prayer that is recorded in Ephesians. And I'm going to read it to you here if you'll follow along with me. This is chapter three, starting at verse 14, down through the end of the chapter. Here's the second prayer. Ephesians 3:14. Paul writes, 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 you're going to notice four reasons he prays. And each time he has a reason. He begins with the word that here's the. That here's the first one. That he that's the Lord would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. Verse 17. That here's another point. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That here's a third point. You, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that. And here's the fourth point. That you may be filled with all the fullness of God. And then he adds this benediction now to him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Father, we just pause now as we open up your word and as we look at this prayer and we ask that you would impress it upon our hearts. Here we are almost 2000 years later reading this prayer that Paul prayed for the church at Ephesus. And, and Lord, we know this is a good prayer for us too. So we ask that you would use this to strengthen our own hearts and to bring us closer to you. Jesus, thank you for loving us and thank you for dying for us. We commit this time to you now in Jesus name and everybody said, amen. We're just going to look through these verses this morning. And I want to start back at verse 14. If you'll notice, Paul starts out by saying, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I bow my knees. So Paul writes here about how he takes this prayer posture of kneeling. He gets down on his knees and he prays for the church at Ephesus. Now, he was not the only one who would pray kneeling. There are many different examples in the Bible of people who prayed on their knees. Examples. Solomon in 1st Kings 8:54, he got down on his knees to pray. And ezra In Ezra 9:5, Daniel got on his knees to pray. In Daniel 6:10, Peter got on his knees to pray. Acts 9:40. And there are other examples. But getting on your knees is not the only prayer posture we see in the Bible. There are times that people stood when they prayed. Examples. Hannah prayed in 1st Samuel 1:9. While she was standing, the whole congregation of Israel stood for prayer. In 2nd Chronicles 20, verse 13, Job stood when he prayed in Job 30:20. And listen to the words of Jesus. In Mark 11:25, he says this quote, and whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. So Jesus even makes mention of people standing. And he says, and if you're going to stand praying, make sure you forgive people who have if you have any unforgiveness towards them. The truth is that there is no one right prayer posture. You can stand praying, you can sit praying. You can pray on your face. You can pray on your back. By the way, if you pray on your back, you're likely to fall asleep. But you can pray on your back. You can pray on your face. You can pray with your eyes closed and heads bowed. You can pray with your eyes open and heads lifted. You know, a. A lot of times I'll say, in our corporate times of prayer, why don't you bow your heads and let's close our eyes. And that isn't because that's the only default prayer posture. It's honestly because it makes for less distractions. Like, you know, when you're. If I pray with my eyes open, I'm looking at everything and I'm not really focusing. But the fact is, you can pray in whatever posture you're comfortable with. The important thing is just be praying. That's the important thing. I came across this cute poem years ago. I share with you, and here's how it goes. The proper Way for a man to pray, said Deacon Johnny Keys. The only proper attitude is down upon his knees. Nay, I should say the way to pray, said Rev. Dr. Wise, is standing straight with outstretched arms, with rapt and upturned eyes. Oh, no, no, no, said Elder Snow. Such posture is too proud. A man should pray with eyes fast closed and head contritely bowed. Well, it seems to me his hands should be austerely clasped in front with both thumbs pointing toward the ground, said Rev. Dr. Hunt. Well, last year I fell in Hodgkin's well head first, said Cyril Brown. With both my heels a sticking up, my head a pointing down. I done prayed right there and then. Best prayer I ever said. The prayingest prayer I ever prayed was standing on me head. So, like you, you can pray in whatever posture you, you, you might feel comfortable praying. But I think it's significant here that Paul mentions how he prayed on his knees. I want you to think about this because I think it communicates a few things about the seriousness of what he's praying for, the love of the ones for whom he's praying and the reverence for the one to whom he's praying. And I want you to think about this for just a minute in, in your own life. Again, not that there's any one right posture, but there's something. I'm going to mess up the cameras, so watch me go down. There's something to be said about when we get on our knees before God. When's the last time you got on your knees before God and. And prayed earnestly and interceded for someone that you love and care about? This is what Paul is doing. He's on his knees and he's crying out to the living God and he says, father, and he's praying here for the church in Ephesus, which by extension he's praying for us. When we read our Bibles, we should see this and take things personally that, that Paul is. It's as if he's still praying for us today. And I want you to picture a man on his knees just crying out to God because he's desperate for us, and we should be as desperate for people we love too, that we would get on our faces or get on our knees and cry out to the living God on behalf of them. And that's what he's doing here. He's interceding for us. And there are four things that he prays for believers. And here are these four, and I highlighted them as we read through the verses. But for you Taking notes, here are the four things. He prays that we would be strengthened spiritually. He prays that Christ would dwell in our hearts. He prays that we would comprehend the expanse of God's love. And he prays that we would be filled with all the fullness of God. Now let's look at these four things together. Here's the first one. He prays that we would be strengthened spiritually. Now look again in your bibles at verse 16. In verse 16, he says that he that is the Lord would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. Now, the inner man, or the inner woman is our soul. He's praying for us to be strengthened the inside spiritually. You know, you can go to the gym and work out physically and take care of your body, but what are you doing to strengthen the inner person? And that's why Paul prays here that God would strengthen us inwardly by his spirit. And, and he prays for Christians in this way because he knows, and by the way, he knows from personal experience that Christians can grow tired and weary and even be greatly discouraged at times. Paul would Write Himself in 2nd Corinthians 1:8. He said, for we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. There were times in Paul's life when he was so tired and so weary that he even would say, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. He would even talk about how he longed to go to heaven. But he knew that he was needed on earth, so he didn't want to rush that. It wasn't a suicidal thought at all. It was just this idea of man. This world takes a toll on our souls, doesn't it? And wow, one day it, it'll be better to be with the Lord. But until he calls me home, I'm going to be faithful to do what he calls me to do here on earth. But he understood the weariness others in the Bible too. You look, look at the account of Elijah, Elijah, the great prophet. You know, he has this wonderful time on Mount Carmel where God uses him for the display of God's glory and power against all these false prophets of BAAL and Ashtaroth. And on the top of Mount Carmel, after this wonderful display of the glory of God and the people of Israel make this, this unified profession of faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and they leave their, their ways of idolatry, at least for the time being. And after this great moment Literally this high on top of Mount Carmel. Then Elijah receives word that King Ahab's wife Jezebel, who is a paganist herself, wants Elijah killed. And when Elijah gets that death threat notice, he flees. He runs 100 miles down south to Beersheba from Mount Carmel. And the Bible says when he gets down there to Beersheba, in First Kings, chapter 19, verse 4, it says that he came and sat down under a broom tree and he prayed that he might die because he was so discouraged. You see, that true with Jonah too. Jonah the prophet. After God used Jonah to preach to the Ninevites, which was something he didn't want to initially do, remember, he fled and he went the opposite direction. God had to get ahold of his attention by having him swallowed in the Mediterranean by a great fish. And then when you're thrust out through the belly of a great fish, vomited onto dry ground, you kind of get a change of heart. And so Jonah's like, you know what? I think I better go to Nineveh after all. And. And so he goes to Nineveh, which is the capital city of the Assyrian Empire. You know why he didn't want to go there? Because the Assyrians were ruthless, brutal people that when they fought and took captive people, they would often skin men alive and use their skins as wallpaper on their homes. That was the Assyrians. So Jonah's like, no, thank you, God. I don't want those people to get saved. If we're honest, there's a group of people that most of us don't think are worthy to be saved. We've written off. And God wants us to know that he died for all. And so Jonah finally responds in obedience. And he goes and he preaches a message of repentance to the Ninevites. And they repent. And when they do, Jonah is miffed. He's like, I knew you were merciful God. And it says in Jonah, chapter 4, verse 3. Therefore he prayed, oh, Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. How is it possible that these great prophets go from cloud nine to the like the pit of despair? Because discouragement happens. And not only the prophets. The psalmist would write in Psalm 42:3 times, why so downcast, O my soul? Not only do we see recorded in Scripture people who were spiritually discouraged. Some of the early church leaders would, would suffer too. Martin Luther suffered most of his life. He used to varied terms in his writings to describe how he felt. Words like melancholy, heaviness, dejection of spirit. Sad, downhearted. Charles Spurgeon. Charles Spurgeon wrote of the same thing. He said it came upon him when he was 24 years of age in 1858. And he wrote, quote, my spirits were sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child. And yet I knew not what I wept for. End quote. It happens. People can get discouraged. People can become spiritually weary. The world can take a toll on our souls. That's why Paul prays that we would be strengthened in the inner man, that God would do a work by his spirit to strengthen us in our souls, because we need him to strengthen us. This is why Paul prays for us. Here are a few verses that remind us of the strength of the Lord. This is Isaiah 41:10. So do not fear, the Lord says, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, and I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. That's Isaiah 41:10. Or this is Psalm 28:7. The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in him, and I am helped. Isaiah 40, 28 and 29. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary. And his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. This is what the Lord will do for us. But we must pray and ask him to strengthen our hearts. Number two. Paul also asks in this prayer that Christ would dwell in our hearts. It's verse 17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now, this is curious. Why would he say this? You have to remember, he's writing to Christians. These are believers here at the Church of Ephesus. So we know they're saved because of the way he addresses them. In chapter one, verse one, in the opening of the letter to the Church of Ephesus, he writes to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus. So we know they're saved. We know that they're believers. So why then would Paul write in this prayer for believers that Christ might dwell in their hearts through faith? Well, I. On the screen, I put the word dwell in quotation marks because that's an important word to understand. In the original Greek language of the New Testament, the word dwell is cato, chao, cato. Now, in the Greek, oikeo, by itself means to dwell. But in the Greek, whenever there's a prefix kata, in front of a word so that it's joined together. Kata oiko. Kata emphasizes the word. And in this case, in this context, kata means completely or thoroughly. So it's kata oikeyo, meaning to completely or thoroughly dwell. Or another way of saying it is, may Christian be at home in your hearts. You know how you say to somebody when they come to your house and maybe they've never been there before, and you say to them, make yourself at home. That's the idea behind dwell that Paul is praying, may Jesus be so comfortable that he would be at home with you. There's a buddy of mine who now pastors a church in Nebraska, but before he pastored the church there in Nebraska, he was living here. He played four seasons with the Redskins, and. And he attended here. And before he got married, because he was away from family, Terry and I would have him over to the house sometimes. And I remember the very first time he came to our house, he went right to our refrigerator and helped himself. And I was like, dude, like. Like, you know, wouldn't you agree with me that in American culture, there's, like, an unspoken rule, you go to somebody's house, you don't open their refrigerator, their pantry, their medicine cabinet, or look behind the shower curtain. Isn't that just. That's just protocol, right? And I was like. I was like, dude, what. What are you doing? And he's like, oh, sorry. I just. I felt that comfortable with you guys. Okay, see, that's making yourself at home, right? So the question becomes for us, how at home does Jesus feel with you? And I don't mean like a. Like an NFL running back rifling through your refrigerator? I mean, how comfortable is Jesus watching what you watch on TV or Netflix? How comfortable would Jesus be watching looking through your cell phone? How comfortable would Jesus be going to places where you hang out? How comfortable would Jesus be hearing your conversations? That's what he's praying for here. It's very challenging. He says, I pray that Christ may feel at home with you, that he would be so comfortable in your presence. There wouldn't be anything you'd be embarrassed or ashamed about, that your life would be consistent with your love for Jesus. That's what it means for him to dwell in our hearts by faith. He wants to be at home with us. He wants to be that comfortable that anything and everything he sees about our lives, Jesus is comfortable with. That's his prayer here. Is this challenging or what? Number three. He also prays here that we would comprehend the expanse of God's Love for us. Now this is verse 17 through 19. Take a look again at verse 17, middle of verse 17. That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ. Notice which passes knowledge. Now wait a minute, does that sound a little contradictory there? How can you know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge? How. How can you know something that is unknowable? How can you comprehend something that is incomprehensible? So here's what he means. What he means is that you would know him not intellectually because the, the fact of the matter is that intellectually the vastness of the love of God, great to wrap our minds around, it's just too great. So he's praying for us to know the love of God experientially. He's saying, I want you to know the love of God experientially. This is what he's praying for us. There's a story about a Swiss theologian is he was a pretty famous guy a generation ago. His name is Carl Barth. He died in 1968. He used to lecture at universities in Germany until the Nazis kicked him out in 1935 for refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler. And so then he lectured at universities and seminaries in the US and during Karl Barth's lifetime, listen to this. He published more than 600 writings, including at the time of his death he hadn't even finished this a 13 volume, 9,300 pages work on Christian doctrine titled Church Dogmatics. He hadn't finished it at the time of his death, but on one occasion I just mentioned all that to show you how well published and well written he was and what a scholar Carl Barth was. On one occasion in 1962 he's lecturing at the University of Chicago. And at the end of one of his theological lectures he had a Q and A session and a student stood up and asked Mr. Barth, if you could summarize all of your great theological learning into one sentence, what would it be? And Barth thought for a moment and he said, I can summarize it in one sentence. A song that I learned at the knees of my mother, Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. That was the summary of all his great learning. Narrowed down all the theological great debates about subject matters into one finite sentence. Oh, it's the wonder of the fact, this great profound theological truth that Jesus loves me that Jesus Loves me. Paul says, oh, I pray that you would experientially know the love of God for you. And how was the love of God expressed towards us? Well, of course, sacrificially. Ephesians 5. 2 and walk in love. As Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, he loves us also demonstrably. Right? Romans 5:8 says that God demonstrated His love for us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The Bible also talks about how generously he loves us in 1 John 3:1. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we might be called children of God. And of course God loves us unconditionally. But let me, let me qualify that, because sometimes when we hear that God loves us unconditionally, we think it's a passion and we think we get to live however we want. And we don't really need to repent of sin and turn to Christ and trust him as Lord and Savior. Because after all, I'm good to go because God loves me unconditionally. That's not what the Bible means when it speaks in general terms about the unconditional love of God. What it means is when we say God loves us unconditionally, it means that we don't have to do anything to earn his love. You don't have to do anything to perform to gain his love. Because the love of God is not based on human performance. It's based on his character. It's based on his character. He loves because God is love. And some of us struggle with this whole idea of God loving us. You know why? Because the devil loves to remind you of all the things you've done for which you don't think you can be forgiven. Or it makes you outside of the bounds of God's love. And the fact is that Jesus died for all because he loves all. He doesn't love our sin. He wants us to repent. He wants us to turn to him and trust him by faith. But he is a loving, merciful, compassionate, forgiving God who loves us sacrificially, generously, unconditionally, demonstrably. And you can think of a thousand other words to describe the love of God. And it is so vast we can't even wrap our minds around it. But Paul says, I pray that you would know some measure of his love exponentially to know this love that surpasses knowledge. And then finally what he prays for is that we would be filled with all the Fullness of God. This is verse 19, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now this of course, is in contrast to being full of yourself. You know when somebody says to you, and it's not a compliment if they were to say this to you, you're full of yourself, what do they mean? What they mean is you're full of pride, you're full of ego, you're full of self centeredness. And when someone is full of themselves, obviously they're not displaying Jesus. So the idea behind this prayer that we would be filled to the fullness of God is the idea that there must be more of him and less of me. Just like John the Baptist said when Jesus then appears on the world scene and John the Baptist in John 3:30 said, he must increase and I must decrease. And I don't think he just meant it as okay, well, Messiah is on the world scene now. So me as, as a prophet needs to diminish that. I think he meant it also in terms of the heart that Messiah is here and Jesus is either going to be Lord of our lives or he's not. And if he's going to be Lord, he needs to increase and I need to decrease. And all of us have to decide that in our lives on a daily basis. Let me, let me refine that on a minute by minute basis, like we have to die to self, that Jesus would be most visible and most glorified in our lives. This is the idea behind Paul praying this. May we be filled to the measure of the fullness of God. That, that Jesus would be most visible and most glorified in my life. Now a song came to my mind as I'm finishing out this final point here and I had to look it up. I couldn't believe it's 20 years ago, but Jeremy Camp had a song 20 years ago called Empty Me. And I think the lyrics speak to what Paul is praying here. And let me just share some of the lyrics with you. Holy fire, burn away my desire for anything that is not of you and is of me. Well, I want more of you and less of me. And then the chorus is simply, empty me, Empty me. Fill, won't you fill me with you? With you. And may that be our prayer that we would be emptied of self and filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Amen. What I want to do is I want to pray these four things. Sound booth, don't take these off the screen because I want to pray for these four things for us today too. And I want you to just join with me now. You know, I'm going to say the default. Bow your heads, close your eyes. But if you want to, you know, look at the screen as I'm going through these four points, you can do that too. And let's just personalize this because these four items are just as important for us to pray for ourselves as they were for the Church of Ephesus in the first century. So let's join together and pray about these things. Lord, we come before you right now, thankful for your word, and we pray these four elements that Paul prayed for ourselves. Number one. Lord, we pray that you would strengthen us in our spirit, that you would strengthen us spiritually because this world takes a toll on our souls and life can be difficult and there are struggles that we go through just like people in scripture did. So we know we're not alone, Lord. And so we ask that you would strengthen us by your Holy Spirit in our spirits. Help us, Lord, to be strong in a day that is often so tiring, so taxing, so discouraging. Strengthen us, Lord. Number two. We pray that Christ would be at home in our hearts, that. That he would make himself at home, that we would be mindful of Jesus in every aspect of our lives. How comfortable would Jesus be with all that he sees and hears about our lives? Lord, we want you to be comfortable. We want you to dwell in our hearts through faith. And thirdly, Lord, we ask that we would experience the love of God. And I just particularly want to pray, Father, for those who have a hard time embracing and accepting that God loves them. Lord, I pray right now that you would move in a. In a miraculous way so that those especially who doubt your love would know it right now. They would know your love experientially. Thank you for loving us. Thank you. Thank you for demonstrating it. Thank you for loving us with an everlasting love and for leading us with cords of kindness. And lastly, Lord, we pray that we would be filled up with the measure of the fullness of God. Less of us, more of you. That we would empty self and be filled with your fullness. So that when people see us, they would see Jesus, that you would be visible and glorified in our lives. This is our prayer, Lord, and we thank you for your word in Jesus name. And everyone said Amen and amen. God bless you guys.