We're gonna talk today about the more we stretch, the more we grow. You know, you see players do that, right? You see even the refs at an NBA game stretching. You see the refs that have to run. You see the players doing their stretches. And I think it's important because if they didn't, they'd probably be hurt. But we're gonna talk about how do you stretch Now, I'm not talking about just stretching your body. I'm talking about stretching your mind. See, if your minds were all stretched, everyone would agree that serving Christ is all there is. It amazes me sometimes people that have been to church for years and years and years, and they just don't get it. But you could get it if you wanted to get it. Well, let's look at Ephesians, our first text verses. We have two sets of texts today. Ephesians 3, 14 through 21. 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 according to his riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by the power by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Now, we've always thought that Christ doesn't live in our hearts. He lives at the right hand of God the Father. I remember one time we were still in our frame building, and I was leaving this woman that knew more Bible than I could ever dream of knowing. was in the back, and she said, if you ever seen Ephesians 3, 17, I said, you mean that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith? Oh, you know that? Yes, ma'am, I do know that verse. You really know that? Then why'd you preach it in our hearts? Because he doesn't. She said, it says so. I said, it's by faith. Where is Christ right now? He's in my heart." I said, no, where is Christ right now? When the first martyr died and he looked up and he saw Christ sitting at the right hand of God the Father, where is Christ? Well, that would mean heaven. I said, man, that's where he's at. He's not physically living in our heart. He's there by faith. The whole Godhead is there by faith. I shouldn't say this, and this is wrong, this is a confession, but I prayed she didn't come back. Unfortunately, she didn't. Man, she knew everything. She said, well, she was shocked I knew that verse. A guy that preaches, I've preached over 8,000 different sermons here. Even if I'm the dumbest man on earth, I gotta know more than you know. I mean, I could be dumber than a box of retarded rocks, that you may be rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all science, with the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of God, which passes knowledge, that you might be filled with the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly, isn't that? See, that's not English as we know it. There's no English equivalent to that. Exceedingly abundantly? But this is talking about stuff that is so beyond comprehension of all that we ask or think. He's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, but most of us don't think to ask very much. Oh, we might want our little Cadillac, pink Cadillac. We may want that. Or you may want a pink bicycle or a blue bicycle or, oh Lord, give me a bicycle. Our puny minds just don't really ask what we ought to ask. According to the power that worketh in us and to him be the glory in the church by Christ throughout all ages, world without end, amen. Exceedingly abundantly, how many of you? Boy, if all of us could expand our minds and realize how great God is. Can you imagine? Any of you imagine that? I can't imagine that. Exceedingly abundantly. What can we ask God? You remember the old John R. Rice story. I'm sure I've told it and you've read it. And he dreamed he went to heaven and there's this room. He said, what's in that room? He said, well, you better not look. Well, do you mind? Now you can go in if you want. So he opened up this door and it was loaded with the most fantastic things you could imagine. What was this? These are the things you could have had, but you never asked. Don't you think that's pretty good? You know, our boys coming back from Florida Bible College, I wasn't with them, thank God. Darity and Bill Adams and Ed Sutton, they'd just go to the John R. Rice house right at evening meal. They knock on the door and John R. Rice's wife's there and their kids are there. We've had all the Rice daughters here. And knocks on the door, would y'all like to eat with us? Well, of course, that's why they knocked on the door. And John R. Rice graciously had him in to eat. I mean, I was so much into rice, I would only eat Rice Krispies. Do you know what I'm saying? God knows, just pick one of these little clouds we have up here, and let's just say that one of them has a little bit of a web on it or something on it. Do you know God knew that before the foundation of the world? Do you know that God knows everything? He knows everything. He knows where you're going to go today before you even go there. He knows every leaf that's going to fall. Do you see that commercial? I think it's nationwide. Have you checked with the insurance today and the wife and husband don't want to check? So they're throwing dirt all over the house. They're throwing leaves. He's up there knocking the leaves off the tree. And the neighbors are looking out the window like these guys are nuts, because they had Nationwide. Now, I don't know about Nationwide. If all the companies that save you $400 were put together, you would be a trillionaire. I think what everybody ought to do is get Nationwide, save $400. Go to Geico, save $400. Go to Allstate, save 400. And in the end, you're gonna be a millionaire. Man, they all save you money. Now we all believe that, don't we? Does God know everything? Yes. Do you believe that? Do you know there's nothing God doesn't know and there's nothing God can't do? The more we stretch, the more we grow. See, when you start realizing, Our puny brains will never be big enough to comprehend God. As my son said, that the smartest man in all the world can't have .001 of the knowledge that there is in this world. And then all the smart people. I heard a guy today on television, a preacher, and he said, I won't say his name, but his name's the same as someone that just died. Some famous guy, a Jehovah witness said, oh, he was good. Well, that's your opinion. If you like people dancing with the Harlene clothes on, you can say whatever you want to say. This guy said, when God saves you, he just doesn't save you from sin. He saves you from all disease and all poverty. Wouldn't that be great? If everyone that got saved got saved and they had no more disease, that means they wouldn't die. They'd live forever. How many people do you know that are over 150 years old? Raise your hand. Not anybody. And why'd I say, well, people sometimes are living to be 110, 112. Do you see what I'm saying? No, God doesn't save you for you to live forever and never get sick or to even be rich. But He saves you so that you have exceedingly abundantly. He wants to teach you the deeper things of God. Do you want to know the deeper things of God? I hope so. Now let's look at Ephesians 1, 15 through 19. Wherefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and loved unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding be enlightened, that you be able to know what is the hope of his calling. and what the riches of His glory, of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us, who believe according to the working of His mighty power." The first prayer is a prayer of spiritual enlightenment. Do you see that? Boy, if we could all get the deeper things of God You know, it's really hard to understand sometimes why we don't all see that. We all have a different soul. Do you know St. Francis of Assisi? I am not endorsing him, but he thought that it was a sin for his priest to get a higher education with all these degrees because he felt like if you did, you couldn't stay humble. I'm not saying he's right, I'm just saying what he said. But how many of us become unteachable because we think we're superior? I'll tell you this, anytime you think you're superior, you're not gonna be growing, you're not gonna be stretching. These are great, great truths, great truths. Last Sunday night, we had our communion service. And I had one of our newer families come up, Mr. Barlow, and he said, I've been to many, many, many, many different communion services. And he said, that's the best one I've ever been to. Most all communion services, unless my knee is worse than usual, I kneel down to God. Now, everybody doesn't have to kneel down to God, but there are different ways to pray. And Paul said, I bow my knees. And I kneel down to God. It's not always easy to do it. As you get older, it's hard to get up. They say as you're getting older, when you go down to tie your shoes, as you're tying your shoes, say, Lord, is there anything else I can do while I'm down here? But I thought that was a real nice thing. I remember in our first building and we'd have communion and a young man came up to me and he said, Dr. Scudder, that was so fabulous. The communion service sends me, that's his words, sends me. But later he got offended and he came to me and he said, I'm not gonna stay in the church. I said, why? He said, well, one of your jokes just offended me. I said, what was it? He said, well, when you said you wanted to get a muzzle for your mother-in-law. Now, I think that's funny. And I tried, now listen, I'm confessing, this is not the way I should have acted. I started giggling. I said, well, you gotta admit, it's funny. Now, just before you think I was mad at my mother-in-law, we sent her a good size check every month of her life. I bought her two cars. I treated her really good, but we kidded. And that's just one of the ways I had to get a muzzle for my mother-in-law. And he left the church. He was leaving anyway. That's not why a person leaves the church. They have another reason, but that's what he used. And I bet he wished he'd never done that. But they don't admit to that. Takes a real big person to admit to that, doesn't it? It really does. It really does. And that's how people get upset. Over nothing. But talking about the heavenly hosts that look down and they're cheering us on. I remember Pastor John Julian as he preached here, and he was talking about the great cloud of witnesses and how they're looking down and cheering us. I got so blessed by his message on that. Next time you preach, you preach that one. And where they're cheering us, hey, go Quentin Road. Hey, you guys down there, the pizza blast, keep going. Look at the crowds. They filled this place for four hours for two nights, not full the whole four hours each night, but they had it full. They had lines and they were singing the Blackhawks song. Oh my goodness. Isn't that something though? Isn't that something? In 1 Corinthians Four, nine, for I think that God has sent forth us as apostles last, so we're appointed to death, for we made a spectacle in the world and to angels and to man. Well, we don't have a lot of time. I'm gonna have to sort of wrap up. I could go on and on and on. But see, God's talking about we have a big family. Listen, our family. Some of you with your earthly family, you say, my family's let me down. Some people, family means way more to them than to God. God doesn't mean near as much as your earthly family means. But that's not what, God, stretch your mind. Your heavenly family ought to be the family, because that's the family. If your earthly family is saved, they're going to be in heaven with you. But the family is going to be so good is when we're in heaven. Heavenly family. Isn't that good? family. I think it's the greatest thing in all the world. I really do. Let's look at my right and your left at Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. That means you can know right now that you're going to heaven. You can know right now. Right now, you can be sure of heaven. Isn't that worth it? God says, I love you, but I hate your sin. It's a gift. Well, this is a gift. Christ dying. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we could be made the righteousness of God in Him on the cross. Now listen, there's people been in Quentin Road that could have been here for 10, 20, 30 years and still not be saved. You said, how could that be? Because they still, oh, they don't disagree with what I just said, but they still think just about everybody's gonna go to heaven. There's a great world, don't take hard stands. Why did they stay? I don't know, but they have, and I'm glad they did. But that doesn't mean all of you are saved, because you have to one time in your life say, God, the best I know how, I'm putting my trust in thee. Wouldn't that be good? Aren't you glad?