Turn to, you turn wherever you want to. Get your Bible open tonight. Turn to Ephesians chapter number three. It's an awesome book. Starts out before the foundation of the world ends up on a battlefield. And I love it. I'm glad as Ephesians one says that I'm accepted in the blood. You know, I receive salvation. I don't use the word accept salvation as much as I do receive salvation, because I, he accepted me. And that may be semantics to you, and that's okay. I ain't trying to be overly smart anyway, but I want to tell you what, thank God he looked beyond my faults on my knee. But I want to go deep tonight on a thought, that I desire for this church. I desire it. I have noticed something during this virus time. It's took the edge off a lot of people. And I'm not faulting them, I just know it has. It's just took the edge off of them. And right now, I'm trying to put the foot on the gas that we'll get our edge back. That we'll get closer to God than we've ever been in our life. That doesn't mean I'm not being precocious, I am. But I'll be honest with you, I'm trying to follow God. Amen. And we'll preach on something I want for my life and your life tonight. And I want you to look at Ephesians 3 in verse 14. I'll read down to verse 19. And I have one little section in verse 19 that I'm gonna preach on tonight. For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you. Now listen to me, that he'd grant you. Let me say it again, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory. to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you be rooted and grounded in love. May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, listen, and to know the love of Christ, which passes all knowledge. Now here's what I want you to pay attention to. That you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Here's what I fear. We have all, we have all been, our buttons has been pushed, Colton. to be full of fear. Just know it. The news media tries to scare you to death. Facebook tries to scare you to death. That doesn't mean I'm not being cautious. All it means to me is I gotta depend on somebody bigger than me to take care of me, because I know that bunch, they're just spewing out a bunch of ignorance. Somebody help me. I wanna be full of God. Let me ask you a question. Are you full of God? Now I'm gonna show you five things you'll have if you're full of God in a moment. But let me give you three thoughts. And I got another series, I'm gonna bounce on top of this one, okay? I'm just giving you a, I just want you to have what I'm experiencing right now. I want you to have the fullness of God. I haven't always been this way. I may not be this way tomorrow. But my desire is that I'll be full of God. Verses 14 through 18, the petition about God's fullness. He said, I bow my knee. I want you to know something. I'm asking God every day, Lord, fill me with your power. Fill me with your spirit. Lord, help me to be an overcomer today. Help me not to give in to the world. Can I tell you a good thing I've done since election day? I bet you haven't watched 30 minutes of the news. I'm gonna tell you what else I ain't done. I ain't went to Facebook and watched anybody's pages. I'm sick of watching them, because there's too much ignorance going on there. I ain't watching no pages. And by the way, I'm about done with all of Twitter. Go ahead and tweet, Chad. I ain't tweeting, I'm just, I ain't watching that bunch of junk. Cause see, I can't, I believe this. You get your mind focused on all that, you'll never get it focused on being full of God. So I tell you what, I've been praying in my petition about the fullest God. But let me give you a good one in verse 17 and 18. Some of you give up on things too quickly. There is a possibility for the fullness of God, and that's just not for the preacher. Every human being in this room, every person listening by way of live stream, there is a possibility that you could be full of God, full of his power, full of everything that he has if you'll just yield yourself to him and get your mind off of what the world's saying and get your mind on what God's saying. Here's what's wrong. They're telling you it's not possible to live a superior Christian life. They tell you it's not possible to live something that's supernatural. But God said, it is possible. Help me. Then I noticed thoroughly, he said in verse number 19, the possession about the fullness. I want you to know, You can possess the fullness. Tonight, I want y'all to know this. I feel full. Now, I might not feel full by Wednesday. Come on now. Cause see, every day you gotta yield to God. But I want y'all to know something. You can get to a place of fullness. Do you want it? Let me give you five things we need to have a full experience and to have the fullness of God. I will tell you five things you'll have if you're full of God. Come on now, y'all ready? This is so simple. Verse number 14, Paul starts it out. For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe if you're full of God, you're full of prayer. Here's what you're doing. You're talking more to him than you are talking to the world. You're communicating with another world. You are in a spirit that is wonderful. Now let me talk to you about the price of prayer. You know why a lot of you are not full of prayer? Because you don't wanna pay the price of prayer. Somebody help me. You say, what is the price of prayer? Time. I'm just gonna ask you, I'm just gonna tell you, this is horrible what I'm ready to say. They did a survey across America of 1,000 Baptist preachers and 1,000 Baptist church members, and asked them how long they prayed a day, to be honest. And here's what they come up with. The average Christian prays three minutes a day. We're bombarded with hell every day. And we spend three minutes a day on average. Now look at your own self, how much time you spend on prayer? The average Baptist preacher spends seven minutes a day in prayer. yet he wants to have great sermons, and he wants to pastor great churches, and he wants to be a leader of men and women and young people, and he only prays seven minutes a day. Ladies and gentlemen, that is not gonna cut it. You are not gonna be full of God. You are not gonna have the power of God. You're not gonna have it unless you can spend time with God. It takes time, it takes toil. What's it say? Seek. Knock and open. Ladies and gentlemen, there's a lot of times in my life I just keep knocking, keep knocking until God opens the door. Am I preaching? I'll tell you what, our failures, every one of our failures is prayer failures. If you're not full of prayer, don't come and tell me you're full of God. If you're not a prayer warrior, and you're not getting your prayers answered, you are not full of God. I'm not being judgmental, I'm not being angry, I'm just telling you, you are inept, and there's weakness in you because you're not full of prayer, so you can't be full of God. Somebody help me. There's another thing you do in your prayer. Boy, I never saw this. And I'm bogged down, Chad. You gotta try the Spirit. Here's what a lot of you want. Come on, let's just be transparent tonight. You want your little baby-fied way. We all are too much babies. We pray to God, one channel, give me what I want. Not caring what he wants. Somebody help me preach. So I gotta do this, Michael. I gotta try the Spirit to see if it's the Spirit of the devil praying through me, the Spirit of my flesh praying through me. The writer in John said, try the Spirit. Now, of course, why? I know, teacher, I know. Because the Spirit is the one that makes the intercession for us when we pray and searches and knows the deep things of God. So if I don't try the Spirit and say, Holy Spirit, I'm yielding to you, that you might get connected with God, then I know exactly how to pray. How many of our prayers is nothing more than fleshly acts? fleshly acts when God wants us to be full of prayer. And I gotta try the spirits. If I let a fleshly spirit take over, I'm gonna pray fleshly. Am I helping anybody? Then number two. Look at verse 16, if you're full of God, not only are you full of prayer, but verse 16 says, you're full of power. That you may, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his spirit, where at? In the inner man. First of all, to fortify against the flesh. See, your flesh can't please God. You can't please God in your flesh. It's gotta come from the inner man. Somebody help me here. If we don't have power in our inner man, if we don't have his movement in our inner man, We're gonna be negative people, we're gonna be people that fuss all the time, we're gonna be complainers and murmurs, and we're just gonna have an attitude. Quite in here now. Hello, am I preaching? I want power to fortify against the flesh. How many know your flesh is weak? How many knows that you get attacked in your whole flesh? How many knows the lady, the person you comb every morning, and man, the person you're saving is your weakness. And then to fortify and also to be full. I desire for the inner man. I want my inner man to be so strong. that everything I face on the outward, man, will be overcome by the strength that's in the man. Why do we have so many weak and needy Christians? Why have we, during this virus, had people that are horrified in their mind? Now, I'm not saying I'll be cautious. I wear a mask, I wash my hands, I watch out over y'all, but ladies and gentlemen, I refuse, I refuse to give myself to worldly knowledge and then blast me with their propaganda. I'm gonna trust God. And help him fortify me. I mean, they tell you everything. I think they're a bunch of cuckoo cuckoo pups. Isn't it odd now that President Biden, who said, I'll be able to take care of what Krump can't do, now he says, man, we're hopeless, we're a hopeless winner. I can't help it. I'm done with foolishness. I want God to empower me on my inner man. Thirdly, whew. Verse 17, full of a person. that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love. Faith has a door. Somebody help me. You want a doorway to God's blessings? How many wants a doorway to God's blessing? It won't come by your flesh, it won't come by your fear, it will come by your faith. And fruitfulness, rooted and grounded. I wanna tell you, Michael, me and you talked this week about 21st century Christianity. I'm gonna tell you what our plague is. We're just not rooted and grounded in His love. Why we get so shook up? You know, some of my Baptist preachers thought the world ended when Biden got president. Didn't end when Obama got president. I just done what I done when Obama got in. I just took me a baby aspirin. They're not controlling my life. They may put pressure on us. They may try to silence us. They may tell us that we can't preach on homosexuality, though I will. They may try to tell us that we gotta conform to all their ways, and I won't. But I want you to know something. I am gonna trust God and be full of a person. By the way, can I tell you? When you got saved, you got all the Holy Spirit you'll ever get. But the problem is, it's not that you don't have the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit don't have you. How many members in this church tonight that's right here can say, I'm filled with God. I'm full of the Holy Spirit. I'm empowered with God. I am there. And for what? Why don't all of us just hit the altar and pray? Boy, it's quiet in here. See, I'm preaching on something that we all need to hear because we don't experience it very much. I fight it. I fight it. In my ministry, I fight it. In my daily life, I fight it. There are so many things that come by my way in that office up there. Every day of my life that tries to get me distracted and get me on a detour away from the fullness of God. Amen. A lot of nonsense. Number four. You said you're pretty quick, yeah. This is the first sermon in this series. But here's the one I want you to get. In verse 18, full of perception. This one, look what it says. may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the depth and the height, and listen to this, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth all knowledge. A desire for understanding, able to comprehend. Listen to me, ladies and gentlemen. Please get what I'm about to say. Since March 15th last year, I am in uncharted land. I've never been through a pandemic and I've never pastored a church where we all had to wear masks. So here's what I've had to do. I've had to get God so strong in my life that I can have right perception, push the right buttons here and there. See, listen to me, I know when to put it on the gas, I know when to back it off. If I had a breakout in this church tonight of coronavirus, I'd just shut down for 10 days, then get it with it again. It ain't no big deal. But see, I believe if you're so connected with God, you can have perception when to turn up the steam and when to back off the steam. And I'm not just looking at government numbers, and how many people's died in America, and how many, somebody help me preach, and how many people has the corona. Right now, the numbers in West Virginia are way low, the lowest it's been in six months. But I'm not even listening to that. I'm trying to listen to God. See, I wanna tell you something. I don't wanna. rather than none of you. By the way, this thing will help you in your marriage. It'll help everything, how to comprehend what your wife needs, what your husband needs, what everything is needed in your family. You know what's wrong with us? I'm gonna say this. Am I being sweet enough? All right, okay. Listen to me. There's more tools, Joe, for us to learn the Bible with right now than ever. in the history of man. Ever in the history of man. You can Google a word and get your definition. You can go and get books. I've retooled my bookshelf, bought me some more series of books. You say, why are you doing it at 69? Aren't you just too old for that? because I wanna have perception. I wanna comprehend. Let me ask you something. Do you ever get confused by this book? No, we all do. But there's a Holy Spirit. When you get full of Him, we'll help you understand this book. And if you ever start understanding it, I won't have to beg you to read it, and I won't have to beg you to study it, because you will do it. when you start comprehending it. I preach some things here. Somebody come to me the other day and said, man, how'd you get all that out of that? Well, it wasn't me. It was me seeking the mind of God and letting the Holy Spirit reveal it to me. Well, don't you want to comprehend what God has for you? Don't you want to understand the truth of the Bible? Woo! And then, he says in verse 18, not only a desire for understanding, just comprehending, to be able to be sensitive what the Spirit of God says. Right now, I've been praying, what next, Lord, for Tate Valley Baptist Church? Do you think I'm just gonna spend the rest of my days and go ahead and retire without what next? Do you think that? Ain't no way in this world. But see what I'm doing now, I'm saying, okay, show me the needs. So I'm praying, trying to comprehend. Where we go next? A building that we can build? Come on, help me. See, you gotta have God leading you. I've been leading you for 42 years and almost a half. We paid off that first sanctuary I was in on the right, built the activity building, paid it off. Built the building up there when it was unheard of to build it, paid it off. Bought that land over there for $1.2 million and paid it off. Bought that land over there and developed it for $500,000 and paid it off. Bought this sanctuary for about a million dollars and paid it off. Bought that out there for almost three and a half, four million dollars and paid it off. You say, how do you do that? Not because I'm real good at accounting, not because I'm a good businessman. No, I got a big God that can even give a dummy like me discernment on how to do something. And by the way, it ain't just for me, it's for you too. I'm gonna finish in a minute anyhow. but I'm gonna give you the last one. So what have I said so far, Chad? Now ask yourself, are you full of God? Come on, first of all, are you full of prayer? Secondly, are you full of power? Thirdly, are you full of His person, the Holy Spirit? Fourthly, are you full of perception? Or are you just tossed about with every wind of doctrine and it don't take much to get you thrown out way? Phew, but lastly, to be full of passion. May he be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breath, and the length, and the depth, and the height, and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. All them other four, they're real good. But if you don't have passion in your life and love in your life, you are not full of God. The example of love, breath, it's broader than all humanity. I wanna tell you something, church. I'm not a pastor that goes just after the affluent, people that have money. I believe every person in this planet and every person in this county, I'd have as a member of the church if they get saved and right with God. I don't care what their background is. Amen. And I think we need to love humanity like Christ loved humanity. The length, it measures all sin. How far did Christ go? Boy, I'm going to, how far did Christ go in forgiving you? Let me ask you a question. Then why can't you get over your bitterness and why can't you forgive the people that have harmed you? I'll tell you what's wrong with most of us. We got people that we don't like and we hate and we're bitter at them and we haven't forgave them. I have been messed over a few times, but I want you to know something. I don't have one ounce of bitterness tonight. And I have forgiven everybody that has wronged me. And it wasn't for them. It was for me. Somebody help me preach. Because I can't be full of God and have bitterness. And then the death, it goes beyond are beneath all human necessity. How far did God go? He went beyond all human necessity. He went all the way. That's how we need to love. That's how we need to care. Am I preaching? And then the height. Listen to this. It towers over all human thought. You can't think, listen, the love of God goes beyond anything of this world. I wanna tell you a story and I'll be done. When I was raised, you know, they talk about racism in America and I'm sure there is some. I'm not denying that. But I was raised in a generation of real racism and real hatred. And I was raised in. I want you to know something. When you get God's love in your heart, it breaks the collar bearer. Amen. Amen. Am I preaching? It just does it. I mean, I was raised up in a generation that was very, you know, it was tough. That's when Senator Byrd was in the Ku Klux Klan. Y'all say, well, I didn't know he was one of them. Oh, yeah, check the history. It was Abraham Lincoln that brought us, a Republican that brought us out of slavery, not him. Boys could preach in here anyhow. See, what I'm trying to tell you is when you give full to God, you can love anybody. You can love everybody. I wanna tell you something. There's some people I know that their sin nauseates, makes me sick of my stomach. Their sin nauseates me, but I hate sin. but I refuse to hate the sinner. I remember, I'm trying to wind this thing in. A sin that's brought America down and brought Sodom and Gomorrah down and the rest of it's homosexuality. I'll never forget today that I was in my state road truck while I was still working out on the highway. I had got saved getting ready to go into full-time ministry. And one of my best friends, dad, came up and got in the truck with me. And man, I'm telling you, he was, I knew him my whole life. I went camping with him. And he looked at me and he said, here's what he said. He said, what do you think of homosexuality? That's what he said. Well, I just went to Leviticus 20. It said they're an abomination. the book of Romans. By the way, homosexuals today don't believe it's New Testament again, so Romans does. And I went to the book of Romans and said they're reprobates, God doesn't approve them, and if they keep going, God will abandon them. And then he looked me in the eye and said, I am one. And I want you to know everything within me As much as I hate that sin, he said, but I want you to try to help me get out of it. And you know what I said to him, Lewis? Do you mean it? And I looked at him and I called him his name because I went camping with him. He never tried nothing on me. And I said, son, I love you. I've always loved you. But I love you, but I hate your sin. You mean it? So in the next four months, I worked on getting that man straight, getting him out of that sin. And it was a hard deal. I had to get full of prayer, full of God, because I was right on the devil's footsteps. And I was having a revival at Two Mile Grove Baptist Church up there on top of that hill in Two Mile. And I'd been working with him for about three years, and here he'd come down the road, with two little kids in the back of the car. I was going to revive him. I pulled my car right in front of him, about wrecked him and me both. And I pulled him out of the car. I said, I want to tell you something. I love you, but this is nonsense. And I told them two kids to get out of the car. They had money in their hands. And it broke him. Next night, he came to Two Mile Grove. because I went the extra mile and I did love him and got saved. Two years later, he got called to preach. I think he's in North or South Carolina preaching in a church right now, pastoring, delivered. He's similar to the guy that's on focus in the family, Joe Dallas. And if you ever had to deal with that in your family, Joe Dallas has a lot of material about it. And Joe Dallas, I use some of his material. And Joe saw himself a sinner and saw the love of God. And the only thing delivered him was salvation. And by the way, the only thing can deliver sinners is the same thing that delivered you. And we need to love them. Somebody help me. We need to love the drunks, the dope addicts, the child abusers. We need to love everybody. Cause see, he did. That doesn't mean you compromise with them. That means you love them and try to reach them and do your best to help them. God help you tonight. Am I all right? Y'all need to stand. I don't even know how to give the invitation other than this. Do you desire something more in your Christianity than shallow? Would you like to have the fullness of God? You want your family to have the fullness of God? You want God to have, you want to be full of God so you can comprehend how to live in your Christian life? What a bunch of people just come around this altar and seek God right now. Just come on. Our Father, thank you for what you've done for us in the meeting tonight. Lord, help us. to have passion, be full of passion. Help us to comprehend. Lord, just help us to love you like we should. In Jesus' name.