Alright, Ephesians chapter number three. And in case some of you don't know, all these sermons are uploaded to Sermon Audio and you can go there and listen. And there's many other sermons on Sermon Audio, you know, you can go listen to it. I spend a lot of time just kind of cruising through, finding different ones to listen to myself and there's a lot to be learned. So I encourage you to check it out if you've never been on there, but Ephesians 3 Well look start tonight at verse number 14 Verse 14 Paul says for this cause I bow on my knees unto the father of the Lord Jesus Christ whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named and 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 ye being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Let us pray. Father, I thank you for the word of God tonight and everyone that's here. And I know that Wednesdays are terribly busy for many people, but I'm glad we can gather around the word of God. So I pray that we would hear what you have to say tonight, not what I have to say, but what your word says. Pray that you give us ears to hear and eyes to see and Lord that we would be captured by your word tonight. We thank you for it and we pray that you would help us to seek it and desire it that we may grow and be the very people that you'd have us to be in Jesus name. Amen. I'm preaching on this tonight for us to look at it and give a title. I would call this a powerful experiential church. That's one thing Paul had a desire that they would be a church that not only have the theology and the intellect and the understanding and be able to engage in what we call Palomics or apologetics to debate and to argue their faith, but they would have a faith that was based on an experience that they've had walking with God. And I think that is something we ain't careful. We didn't spend so much time studying, especially preachers, and talk about a lot of things. But we need to really hone in on the very fact that walking with the Lord is an experience to be had. There's some things, the only way we know God is through experience. And I'm not talking about some mystic revelation. I'm talking about knowing His love and the depth and the greatness and the very nature of God and His working in our life, seeing God's hand work in your life. Now, the apostle in this chapter, really if you have three, if I give it three divisions, it's going to be this. You see the apostle's purpose, and I say it's missional because he was concerned about the different ethnic groups in verses 1 through 13. Tonight we're gonna look at it that his is the Apostles prayer. It's very pastorial. You see Paul as almost a pastor being concerned for the people in Ephesus and that's verses 14 through 19 and the last two verses I would say this this is the Apostles praise his and it's doxological and that means that it is Directed praises that's directed toward God, you know, you praise a lot of things I can praise you we can praise music, or we can give praise to, when I say that, the people that perform the music, but God's praise, or the praise that Paul had, was directed toward God. Now, since Paul was like me, and he liked to chase rabbits, and I really come to that understanding in this chapter, he did that, and no doubt it was the leading of the Holy Spirit, but to some degree, I believe he had apostolic ADHD, when I looked at this chapter and the previous chapters. So you're probably gonna have to bear with me a moment because I do think it's important we understand the context why everything is being said. And you said, well, brother Grant, you taking us through the first 13 verses, I guess we understand. But I want you to notice in verse one, verse one, he says, for this cause I, Paul, For this cause I, Paul. He's not talking about the things that come after that statement. He's talking about what preceded that statement. For this cause I, Paul. And then he starts talking, it's almost like he thinks that this cause, this cause, why he's gonna pray for the church and pray that they would increase in knowledge and wisdom and love and all these things, but he gets sidetracked. He gets derailed with his thoughts because Understanding the great love that God has, he understands that. He has a mission in this world. It's very missional. He speaks of the different, the Gentiles over and over, which is the different ethnic groups he's concerned about. And so he said for this cause, he's referring to what he previously written. So he breaks away from that line of thinking and tells his missional drive for the different people groups of the world. And so verses one through 13, yes, we see his purpose is missional, we get that. But this is a holy rabbit trail, sanctioned by God. So the difference between his rabbit trails and my rabbit trails, Paul's rabbit trail is always sanctioned by God. I don't know that my rabbit trails are always sanctioned by God or not if it's just me. But if you look in verse number 14, he goes back to his original thought because he says, for this cause, for this cause. If you remember, I said initially his purpose is missional, but his prayer is very pastorial, we might say. And so for this cause is the same cause that he had in verse number one before he jumped the rails and went off for a little while. And so when we look at chapter three, verse one, when he says this, We've got to understand what he's talking about there for this cause before we'll understand what he's talking about for this cause in verse 14. He's getting back on track. He's going back to where my original thought was. And so what's he talking about? What's he just finished talking about? What's Paul just finished talking about? He's talking about God's purpose and grace and salvation in chapter 1. He talked about all of God's miraculous power and saving sinners and redemption and election and all these things. Why is it done to the praise of His glory and His grace? Then he comes in chapter 2 and he talks about this thing theologically we'd call double reconciliation. That God has made reconciliation horizontally and also horizontally this way. Got it wrong. And vertically, right? Vertically and horizontally. What do you mean by that? Well, he reconciled man to himself, who was dead in trespasses and sin, made him alive. He was a stranger from the covenants and the promises, and they had no hope without God in the world, aliens, and he has what? He's brought them together, right? So what God did, he saved, he made us alive. He reconciled us to Christ, to himself, and to be reconciled, there's no more animosity between the two people, but he also reconciled people groups of the world. And it doesn't matter if Jew and Gentile is a representation. It doesn't matter what the race is, where the people come from. In Christ, we should have unity. We should have fellowship. It shouldn't matter what our skin tone is. It should not matter where we was raised. It shouldn't matter what state we was raised in. There should be no jurisdictions when it comes to God's people being able to worship each other, serve with each other in a church, even different previous backgrounds of raising and style. Me and my wife come from completely different backgrounds. I mean, I could have been born in another country. I mean, really, compared to the way she was raised. And some of you, the same way with me. I mean, it was just way, it is vastly different. So what is the call? So we see this. He gets back to the original train of thought, so when he said, for this cause, what was the cause? Pay attention to this statement. What was the two major causes for Paul to get ready to respond and say what he said? I believe it's ultimately found in verse 22. But leaning into that, there's two major causes in chapters one and two, and I'm going to sum them up. and it took me weeks to preach it, but I'm gonna sum it up in just two paragraphs. Number one, God has redeemed and saved people from himself, or excuse me, back up. God has redeemed and saved people from himself, to himself, through himself, and for himself, by grace alone, for the glory of God alone. That's number one. Number two, he has not only reconciled man to himself, but he has reconciled man to man or people groups or ethnicities together. And Paul says in chapter three verse for this cause, understand there was no divisional breaks. There was no chapter breaks. You have to go back and look at verse 22. And he says, in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. The people God has saved, the people God has reconciled, the people God has brought together and destroyed the middle wall of partition. He says, in whom you also are built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. That's what he says. Now, in the previous verse, he talks about this glorious temple that's being put together with the people that are being redeemed. as God, a master craftsman, taking the saved and taking the material of those that are redeemed and placing it in this glorious spiritual temple. But now Paul prays this. He's praying for the church, which is not spiritual in that aspect. It's physical. It's people. It's made up of literal people who are visible, not metaphoric. the literal people in the literal church body. And he's praying that they would grow together as a habitation of God in the spirit. And so what he's saying is that You churches in Ephesus, you need to grow as the very dwelling place, the very habitation of God, a place where God meets. Now, our desire is to become a church, to organize as a church. I don't know if it'll be a year, I don't know if it'll be two years, it may be six, I don't know. But here's a place, a church, our desire ought to be the very dwelling place of the very presence of God when we meet with God's people. And to accomplish this, we need supernatural resources. Now, we can have money, and I visit churches, some are going to help us, I'm going to see some other churches, and they maybe help us financially and so forth, but that's not the greatest need we have. The greatest needs that we have is supernatural resources backed by supernatural power that is a church that is not only the habitation of God, but it concludes for this cause in verse 21 of chapter 3, unto him be glory in the church. If your desire is that the church that we plan and we labor together to build for God, it has become something that gives God glory, a place of His habitation. So here's what I want you to understand. In verse 14, Paul tells us, For this cause I, Paul, bow my knees unto the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what has he done here? This is Paul's prayer. I want you to notice his prayer. He says, not only about on these, the father of Lord Jesus Christ, to whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. And I've seen some guys go to great detail and great length trying to explain about the kingdom of God, family of God, and everything from this. Let me just tell you, everybody that's saved here on earth, is in the family of God. Everybody's been saved throughout all history, back to Adam, was in heaven, they're in the family of God. I personally believe everybody saved, that is saved right now and has been saved, I believe they're in the kingdom of God. It's a spiritual group. Now the kingdom of God is very complicated and it is teaching, but I don't wanna oversimplify it, but I certainly, if you get hung up in that, you're missing the main message. It's so stupid sometimes that people argue debate stuff, and I'm like that's not even what the message is about I spend all time Worrying about that. It's just foolish So what's he talking about here? I want you to see that his prayer is if you must look at that notice when he begins to pray for this church And his posture is one of humility. Now you can pray standing, you can pray walking, you can pray driving down the road. You can pray sitting, you can pray kneeling. But Paul, he said, I bow on my knees. That is a posture of humility. That is a posture of absolute dependence and understanding that he's following his faith saying what needs to be accomplished in the church can only be accomplished by you. And so he prays that way and it's directed to the father. He knows exactly he's praying, Jesus, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That is not a prayer for us to repeat, it's a prayer for us to learn the example of. It's the model prayer, not the prayer we put on the wall and repeat, and every football team in the world says the Lord's Prayer. That's not the Lord's Prayer. You find the Lord's Mediatorial Prayer in the Gospel of John, and 16, 17, start going through there. But this right here, and Jesus said, our Father who art in heaven, he's teaching us how to approach God. Reverential in approach or respect. The notice is a very desperate plea. Why is it a desperate plea? Because in chapter two, verse 22, you're building together. God's gonna take his people that's been saved, redeemed from different backgrounds, different walks, put them together, build them together as a habitation of God. You know, it's hard to get people together on something from every background. You gotta have something common. The only commonality really a lot of people have is that they've been saved by the grace of God. And the only reason it draws them together is the spirit of God. And how does that happen? That takes a supernatural work. And Paul realizes this. And he realizes it's something man can't accomplish. But it's a bold prayer. When I say bold, he comes on his knees and he approaches the father boldly. Now, when I say that, does that mean arrogant? No, he's not arrogant. Do I mean that he comes with confidence? Yes. If you look back in chapter two, verse 18, he says that for through him, we both have access by one spirit under the father. Through the work of Christ, every people, by the way, you can approach God yourself. You don't need a preacher to do it. You don't need a priest to do it. You can do it yourself. You have that right. We call it the priesthood of the believer, right? And we don't have Old Testament priests today. Everybody's a priest under God. Then not only that, do you look in from there, but chapter three, verse 12, what does he say here? In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. The writer of Hebrews said, come boldly before the throne of grace. So what we have here is this, that Paul's prayer is one of humility, who boldly comes, not in arrogance, but in confidence. Why is he confident? Because he understands that his father, they speak of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, is sovereign. I mean, if you don't think Paul believed in sovereignty, God has not read too much of his writings, right? I mean, when I say sovereign, what I mean, he has all power, all authority. He's the all mighty, all might, not some might, not other people, maybe it's half as strong as God. He has all might, all wisdom, all glorious in chapter one, verse 17. And just many other verses that chapter one, 20 through 23, we see him high and exalted, the son of God on the throne with his father, but he is the father of all in chapter number four, it tells us that. And then let me, I'm trying to think what verse that is. But anyway, it's there in chapter 4 verse 6, one God and father of all, who's above all and through all and in you all. What this expression means, it's not saying the universal God fatherhood of every person. Because if you're not saved, you're not one of God's children. Fact, not one of his children. And you don't become one of his children until you are saved, right? And so the expression simply means he has authority over all, has authority over all. So Paul's prayer, he goes, he comes boldly, why? Because he understands who his father is. He's sovereign, he's almighty, he's powerful, he is rich. Chapter four, verse number 19, it says, Well, I don't know what in the world I wrote down there, okay, but that is not it. And so I apologize that, but you should see him that he has everything. When I talk about him being powerful, oh, I know what it is. I just read that Philippians 4, 19. We can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens us. Not only do we have that, but we also have the promise that he shall supply our needs, what? According to his riches. In glory, right? That's 419. And so that Paul is the one that pinned that and what's he saying that Every need that I have there's a spiritual account in heaven spiritual bank account And he says you got a blank check You realize God wants us to petition Him confidently, why? Because He has the ability to give us everything we have need of. God is a very gracious God and He loves to give good gifts to His children, spiritual gifts particularly, but understand this, He also gives material gifts. Now who of us can call the governor tonight and expect him to answer the phone? Who of us can call the governor, leave a message and expect him to call us back tomorrow? Who of us can pick up the phone and call the president and expect him to jump on and say, hey, what do you need? I'm right here. I'm making myself available. I don't know anybody has that kind of pull or sway. But understand this tonight, that every time one of God's children gets on their knees and cries out to God, he pays attention. And Jesus is mediating for us in heaven. We get the very attention of the throne, the room of heaven. I understand what a privilege, Paul understood that. So Paul's petition was this, for this, the reason he prays for this cause in verse 22 was that the church, the people in Ephesus would be the dwelling place of God as a church. Paul's petition to God is one that's bold, is one that's passionate, one that is very particular and distinct to what he asked for. It's very straightforward and it's very powerful. And so we need to see how he prayed as we read this and in this section, and we need to pray the same way. I mean, we need to pray that God would do the same thing to us. We need to pray the same way Paul did because we understand who God is. We come boldly. And what does he pray for? Well, let me say this. First, he prays that he might be strengthened with might. If I can get past this verse in 20 minutes, I'll do good. But I'm going to try to tonight. Then we might be strengthened with might. Well, that word strengthened means to become strong. It means if somebody lifts weights and they say, hey, I made some gains. That means they're lifting more weights. They're getting bigger, right? They're making gains. They're getting stronger. But making gains is not enough. He says be strengthened with might. Now this word might is dunamite. And what does dunamite mean? It's a word you might hear dynamite in. And the word dunamite here means manifesting supernatural might, ability, capability. So he says that you might be strengthened with might. He's saying that your strength might be your capabilities and your abilities cannot be described by your own doing. But the only reason that you're growing the way you're growing and you're able to mature into faith and to do the things that I want you to do and your life radically change is by the supernatural power working in you. And that's how you see this is his petition. He prays that we might be strengthened by his might and it's also a controlling influence. And what he wants for the church is to make supernatural gains. That they, if you look at the people, you see people growing. And I've seen it in people's lives. They begin to grow and just absorb the word of God, understand things. And I sat back and say, it took me five years to get that. And they got it in two weeks. Are they that much smarter than me? No, it's supernatural gains. Supernatural gains. And so what I want you to understand is power of God. Now, where does it come from? By the spirit. And so when he speaks of this, where does he find this supernatural gains? Where do we look for it? Where do we observe a church is succeeding? Do we look at its structure? Do we look at its numbers? Do we look at its budget? Do we look at attendance or baptisms or what do we look at? You can't see it. Because it's happening in the hearts of individuals, he said that you might have this supernatural to be strengthened and might wear in the inner man. So he's talking about the very inner being. You can't parade it. Someone that feels like they're growing can't put on a towel around their neck. That's what I used to do as a kid, put on a towel and I'm Batman, right? They didn't buy me costumes. Kids get costumes now, all right? I mean, I got a towel. If I'm lucky, a safety pin. Right? That was a good copy. You don't get put on a towel around your neck. Why? Because if God is working in you, I can't necessarily see it, but it's evidential. Let me say this. What is the source comes from the spirit comes from God. And let me say, God's more concerned with what we are than what we appear to be. And it's not about having, when he says that, that by the inner man, you might be strengthened with might by the inner man. that Christ dwell in your hearts by faith. When he talks about this faith, he's not talking about us being more fervent in belief, more passionate, more determined. He's not like we keep begging God and begging God. If we twist God's arm, we claim some promise, treat God like a genie, and demand Him to do something. That's not what he's talking about. Supernatural power only comes from God, and it does not come organically, and it does not come and does originate naturally from man. It has to come from God and he says that God may dwell in your hearts by faith. Now, he says dwell in your hearts by faith. Let me just try to give you the idea and I'm going to skip a bunch of things, OK? Obviously, when we're saved, we're sealed by the Holy Spirit. God literally comes and dwells in us, but he wants to understand he's praying that he would dwell in us, because I think a lot of people have the idea. They may not ever utter it, but we kind of think, well, I'm going to give God this little section of my life. I'll give it to him on Sunday. I'll give it to him on Wednesday. But see, God isn't coming to visit. Have family come by and visit. They, you know, I'll go visit family. We just got back from some of you just got back visiting family and Bradley's on the road all the time. And I mean, I get it, but we went to Rob's, you know, me and Jill went to one motel room, wasn't that great. And the boys stayed at Rob's and went to another motel room and it was a lot nicer. Thankfully that night, you know, but you know what? I really don't think I unpacked my suitcase completely. Why? I didn't load everything in the drawers. I didn't go in there and I didn't paint the walls. I didn't go in there and change the bathroom. Jill didn't have one suggestion why that room ought to be rearranged. Why is that? Because she wasn't dwelling there permanently. She was going to change everything. When you're just visiting, let me just tell you why we need to pray for the supernatural power of God to work in our lives to become what we want to be. Because when God takes His abode with us, He's not visiting, He's moving in. He's staying. and it needs to be radically changed on the inside. And it needs to be changed. And how does it need to be changed? Well, it needs to come in and he wants to clean us up. He wants to change our thought process. And so he wants to make it his own. When he moves in, he renovates our character. He redirects our passions, we'd say. He reorders our purpose. So Paul prays for power, verse 16 and 17. Why did he do it? And he says this word, so. So, right? He prays for this power that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith. And what if I say so? That's what he means when he says that Christ. He's saying so that Christ may dwell. He's saying so. So it, you know, we put it in a modern vernacular, but let me say this next, that we might be rooted in grounded love. He wants us to be planted If you're going to take a plant and plant it, you want to put it in the richest soil possible. You plant a garden, you want to make sure it's fertilized, the richest soil possible for spiritual cultivation. For our lives to continue to radically change as we grow and that it prospers. That God can come to the very center of our life. Notice what he says, that by faith you may be rooted and grounded in love. What is to be rooted and grounded in love? That can only be accomplished by the word of God. It would be enrooted and grounded in love by the word of God. That is our roots. That is our soil. That is where we grow. So that's where our lives are radically changed. And so speeding on with some of this, I want to get to the end. But also that we may comprehend the love of God. Look in verse number 18. That we may be able to comprehend with all the saints. What is the breadth the length and the depth and the height right? He said that we may be able to comprehend with all the same And i'm going to come back to this here just in a minute But he says notice this it may be able to comprehend in verse 18 then verse 19. He says and to know Well, the problem with this he talks about something that's uncomprehendable and something that's unknowable But what how he describes it and so Listen, I want you to understand that probably the best way that we can comprehend the love of God, can we comprehend the cosmos? Can we comprehend the universe? How close are we to comprehending galaxies and there's millions light years away? How close are we to comprehending that completely? In Psalm 103, verses 11 and 12, turn there. Psalm 103, verse 11 and 12. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgression from us. And so, how can we comprehend that east from the west, how far that is? It just keeps going, it keeps going. And so, he has, let me just say this, that we may be able to comprehend the love of God, Now God, love is an attribute of God. Justice is an attribute of God. Holiness is an attribute of God. There's a lot of attributes of God, we might say. But when we say God is love, understand this, God is infinite. And that means that there's no end, it's immeasurable. And when we say God is love and he's infinite, understand that his love is infinite. Does he have the same love for every single person? I don't shock you, he doesn't. You don't either. So I love children, yeah, but I love my children, right? And God loves his own. Does God, and I'll say this, his general benevolent love that he has for humanity is greater than any scale of love that we could possibly ever have, humanly speaking, even affectionately speaking. Why? Because God is infinite. But beloved, I want you to understand this today. We are the apple of God's eyes. We are loved. How long have we been loved? From everlasting to everlasting. There hasn't been a time that God hasn't loved his elect. Why did he love? I don't know. He just said his affection. He did it because he chose to. Amen. I don't understand it. I don't understand it either. It's what the Bible says. I just kind of accept it and move on. Right? And people want to get mad and argue. If they even understand that God has loved somebody infinitely, what would he do? Would he judge them and send them to hell? No, you know what he would do? He'd make some provision for them. And he would rescue them. That's what God's done on our behalf. Cause it's infinite love. And if not, that's why he's long suffering to who? Usward. Who are the uswards? Well, he tells us. He talks about to those who are scattered, a persecution, you'll find that. And then he said in that previous letter I wrote to you in the same chapter, he talks about the elect according to the foreknowledge of God. Yeah, he's talking about his people. whom he loves. It's a deep love. It's almost incomprehensible for me to put my head around this very thought, even the doctrine of it. How can we put our mind around that? In fact, when he says that we may be able to comprehend, that's what the word means, to be able to wrap around, to be able to grasp, reach out and grasp it all. You can't even wrap your head around it. Then he says that we may know the love of God in verse number 19. And to know the love of God. That's a little interesting here because this word know here means something a little bit more. It's gnosko. And we even talk about the word foreknowledge. And it comes from prognosko or forward nation, prognosko. You hear the word gnosko in there. And it means the same as Adam knew Eve. Intimately. It's one thing, I may know somebody, but I know my wife intimately. There's a difference. There's such a grand distinction here with what God is saying. And let me put it to you this way. He said that we may know the love of God. How do we know the unknowable and how do we comprehend the incomprehensible? Well, you know, the deepest part of the ocean is a place in the Pacific Ocean. It is seven miles deep. Seven miles deep. And that's amazing. That's deep. For scale, Mount Everest is only about six miles tall only. Right, we had hills in Kitter close to that, right? It felt like it if you're walking up them, because they went around and around and around, right? But Mount Everest is only six miles, if you were to go from top to bottom, think about it, that's amazing, but there's, in the Pacific Ocean, there's spots that is deeper than that. And because of that, you can't explore how deep the ocean is. Any vessel you try to put down that deep would be crushed by the very pressure, right? There's nothing that we have that can go down and look at it, observe it, really to lay it out and understand what's there. I mean, what do we have? We don't have anything that can go that deep. You can't survey all those ocean. You can't understand everything about it. You can't know all about it. But, I want you to understand this. I don't have to know all about the ocean, know everything about the ocean. I don't have to go to the deepest part of the ocean to enjoy walking on the beaches. Be able to stand in awe as I look at just the grandeur of the ocean from the seashore. I don't have to know all about the ocean to go swimming or wrestle my sons in the ocean. I don't have to know every little aspect about the ocean to go down to the Barrier Reef in Belize, the second largest Barrier Reef, or you go to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, you would see some beautiful, beautiful things. Now I can go down about 120 feet. I've got my advanced scuba diving, not done it in years. I wouldn't want to go 120 feet right now, but used to, I would. I'd just go down and enjoy and look, but you know, I can't go seven miles deep, but at least I can go 120 feet deep. Now, do you hear what I'm saying? Because I can't comprehend it all does not mean that I don't get to experience it and enjoy it and love it. Now catch this, verse 18, he says, comprehend. He means to grasp intellectually, as I said, to lay hold of, to wrap your mind around it. He said, love of God, what is height, is breadth, is length, is depth. How do we know that? And then verse 19, he says, he's talking intellectually. We can't know that, the love of God. There's no way to measure that. There's nothing we can compare it to. And God said, who will you compare to me? Right, there's nothing. And he says, no, in verse 19, and to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, goes beyond knowledge, but then we might be filled with the fullness of God. But when he says here, no, it's gnosko, as I said, it's the same Adam, new Eve. It's an intimate, it can be used intimately, but it's a word also, as I was looking yesterday, word knows know means to understand experientially. I can't experience seven miles deep but I can experience 120 feet deep. I can't experience the whole how the layout is seven miles deep but I tell you what I can experience I can stand and enjoy myself on the on the shores of the ocean on and walk through the the waves and experience that. I may not be able to wrap my mind around God, but that doesn't mean I can't understand Him experientially. And Paul is saying that, listen, theologically, intellectually, you'll never understand it, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, if you will depend on him, you will grow, you'll get in his work, you'll seek his faith. You will be able to experience the love of God in an experiential way that you'll never be able to describe to anyone. To me, that is wonderful. He wants us to know God in this fashion. And I'm going to give you a few things real quick done. Notice what he says, how can we know him experientially? Well, in verse number 18, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints. What is the breath? What does the breath mean right here? It means with. When he says the with of the love of God, it illustrates his accepting love. He's accepted Jews and Gentiles, anyone from any background who comes to him by faith, who comes to him Seeking mercy. That is what he will give. The Bible is in chapter 2 verse 17. He came and preached peace to you which were far off and them that were nigh. This is an accepting love. People get all hung up about the doctrine of grace. Let me just tell you something. There's not a person God will turn away if they will come to him. Not one. Not one. And man chooses not to come to God. And so he rebels of his nature. But I want you to understand that some people they get to life and they say, well, I don't know if God accepts me. You don't know my past. You don't know the things I've done. I've lived pretty wicked. I've done a lot of things I'm ashamed of. I've heard people, I really come from a very dysfunctional background. I think really, you probably don't have a clue. I can show you some dysfunctionality, really good, but how wide is the love of God? I want you to understand, there's nothing outside His embrace. That's how wide it is. He said, what is the length or how long is the love of God? This illustrates God's lasting love from eternity past, before the world was created. He said His affection in chapter one. What has He done? It's the eternity future, forever. God will love. Somebody may abandon you in this world, God will never abandon you. He said, what's the height? How high is the love of God? The love of God illustrates his exalting love. Not only has he saved us from hell, but in chapter two, verse six and seven, he has raised us up together, made us sit in heavenly places in Christ. He's not saving us now, but in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. That's how rich He is. You know He saved us from heaven, or from hell to heaven. He has put us in the very presence of God, in the kingdom of God, with the people of God, and we're going to experience this. We can know it. In some ways kind of feel it and sense it. But one day, we're going to ascend to the very heights of heaven. We'll understand the very exalt, how God has exalted and lifted everything up. And we'll see his exceeding riches in his grace and his kindness in us when in the ages to come. So cross love lifts, takes us from the gutter. He puts us in the palace, literally. And last, how deep is the Father's love? I believe this illustrates His sacrificial love. And you see it in chapter 1, verses 7 and 8, in whom we have redemption through His blood. How deep? How far was God willing to go? God was willing to go so far as to crush His only Son for you and me. You think of the depths of the agony of Christ, his suffering, his humiliation, his shame, his mockery, he did it because of you. And so I'm done with three points of application. I didn't lie to you, okay? He laughed, he knew. So I was done with this and went on. I did a poll, didn't I? All right, so number one, it's by experience. It's not by experience, or excuse me, intellectual. power, or theological training, we really know God. We know Him experientially because of what He's done in our life. That's how we know God. Aspects of God. Let me ask you a question before we leave here. It doesn't matter. Do you know Him? That's what's most important. Do you know Him? Have you been saved? Have you trusted in the Lord? Have you repented of your sins? Have you looked to Him by faith and said, God, be merciful to me? Secondly, are you asking God the same prayers that Paul's asking? That God would do a mighty work in your heart and prepare you to be the habitation of God that as He takes you and others whose hearts have been cleaned up and leaned on His power, He can build a church for His honor and His glory and unto Him be glory in the church. And He does that through individuals. And so, are we growing, this question we need to ask, to this holy habitation, a place that God meets with us. Our Father, thank You for the Word of God. May we grow, may we understand, may we experience You beyond theory, beyond intellectual debate, maybe even theological concepts, may we experience how great and vast you truly are. In Jesus' name, amen.