Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 14. I'll read to the end of the chapter. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, holy, sweeter than honey Word of God. 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 he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God 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. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this prayer that calls us to such wonderful things. such inner strength, such love. Lord, we're just so thankful, and I pray that you would bless us as fulfillments of this prayer. Amen. And please be seated. We're in the midst of a series on the church, and as I pointed out earlier, in one of the messages in this series that the early church was steadfastly devoted to the apostles doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayers. And here in these verses is a prayer. It's a prayer for a local church. It's a prayer for the local church that existed in the city of Ephesus. And it's a highly instructive prayer The target is on how a local church is made strong by the only strength that can really sustain it. So it's a very important prayer, but it shows us how to pray, it shows us what to pray for, shows us why we pray, and also how these prayers are fulfilled. So I'm Turning to this prayer for a local church because I have been wanting to help us understand the local church more clearly even to get a refresher course on local church life. I want us to understand the sacredness of church life. I want us all to understand what it means to actually be a part of a local church. You know most people don't understand this how to treat a local church the way that God has designed her to be treated. They do their own thing. They're doing church their own way. And they don't understand how God has designed the church. There are particular ways that the church must function. And it's not the way of man. Now, it's likely that even here today, some of you are still doing church life your way. And so I want to present the Word of God in these weeks for what God's ways are in the church. And I have a motive for anybody who's in that place. I know everybody's not in that place. Most of you are not in that place. You really want to do local church life the way that God wants to. But I want to draw you out of your own ways into God's superior ways of relating to a local church. And they're very, very definitive things to say, It happens, sometimes people get disappointed with the church and they start going their own way and they relate to the church their own way. And there are many ways that that happens, but this is a prayer for a local church, the church in Ephesus. Now, there are many wonderful prayers in the Bible. For example, in the Old Testament, Moses prays astonishing prayers for the protection and God's mercy on his disobedient people. You have Daniel's prayer, Nehemiah's prayer, the prayers in the Psalms, and of course in the New Testament, perhaps the most towering prayer is Jesus' prayer in John chapter 17. But here we come to probably the greatest prayer in the pastoral epistles. And Paul does this twice in Ephesians. He does it in chapter 1 verse 15 through 23. And here in chapter 3 is my favorite prayer in the epistles. I've prayed this prayer many times for the people in this church. And I've taken this prayer and I've had the list of the people who attend this church. And I will pray through every person reciting this entire prayer, for every person visualizing them, their children and their lives and the things that are upon them. And so I love this prayer. And it's interesting too that one of the greatest prayers in the New Testament is a prayer for a local church, for a specific local church. And it helps us to understand how we ought to operate and the mission of the church. So, and by the way, this is a really good prayer to pray right now for believers that you might know in Ukraine or churches that are in Ukraine. Because here is the secret of their strength. So, we have spoken already that the body builds itself up in love and That the strength of your local church will have a dramatic impact on your life. And at the same time, your strength and your spirituality will have a great impact on your local church. It goes both ways. Both of those matter tremendously. The apostle deals with this in Ephesians 4 verse 16 where he says that we are the people who were speaking the truth and love and we grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share and get this it causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. When you come into a local church, you're there for a specific purpose, to edify the body in love, and not just to sit there like a couch potato and soak it all in, but actually to be on a mission in the local church, and I hope you all are on a mission when you engage local church life. So in this passage, There are a couple of things that are really critical. First, what kind of church the Lord wants us to be. And this is the kind of prayer for our local church that we ought to have in our minds. And secondly, how to intercede for one another and how to intercede for other churches that you're aware of. In my heart are many churches around And I know this prayer is the kind of prayer that should be prayed for them as well. Now, when you walk into a church, you are walking into something that God owns. Like when you walk into someone's house, you play by the rules. And if you walk in there with your children, you instruct them not to run, not to climb on the furniture, you instruct them not to open the drawers, not to snoop around. They are not in their house, they're in someone else's house. And they ought to function in that way. In the same way, when you walk into the church, you're not walking into your house, you're walking into God's house. It's his ways that rule the day. And so we're not really given the freedom to do our own thing in the church or even to think of it the way that we think of it. And so these verses really explain what it means to know God in the midst of a congregation. And you'll see in this prayer that God, through the apostle, he's praying for the enlargement of the joy of the people, the enlargement of their spiritual life, for their growth. This is the heart of the prayer, that they would abound even more. And that's my prayer, too, for this service, that all of us would abound even more in the local church, taking it more seriously than ever. Now, let's begin with walking through this prayer. You have an outline in front of you. You can see exactly where I'm going. And the points that I hope to make here this morning, that there are six of them. And the first is that this church would be strengthened with might by the Holy Spirit. Second, that this church would be rooted and grounded in love for Christ. Third, that this church would comprehend Christ's love for them. Fourth, that this church would be filled with the fullness of God. Fifth, that this church would know how and why all these things can be theirs in their local church. And sixth, that this church would know the purpose of their local church. So that's what I want to draw from these verses that are here. Notice that Paul prays. He says, I bow my knees to the Father. This is so wonderful. The apostle is likely in prison. The devil can't keep you from your effectiveness no matter where you are. You can't throw him in prison and make him imprisoned. Somebody said, walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. Whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, we can go to God. Paul's disposition here is he's on his knees. He says, I bow my knees to the Father. Now this is not here to tell us that when you pray you always have to get on your knees. This is not prescriptive. It really reveals the disposition of the Apostle. His disposition of reverence and of humility. And by the way, when we come into the church and someone prays, it's a holy moment. And I know you who bring children to church, help your children understand that when someone is praying in the church, it's a holy moment. All hearts need to be, quote, bowed down to their knees, even though they're not on their knees. Help your children understand every part of what we're doing. Help them understand the sacredness of the prayers. Help them understand the beauty of the songs. Help them to sing. Just don't let them sit there. You've got to guide them. You've got to help them. You're the parents and you need to lead them to the rivers of living water. And that's what the apostle does. He prays in a way of reverence. And also, I can't get over the tenderness of the prayer. I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's coming to his Father. You know, actually, Jesus taught his disciples to pray the same way. When they gather together in the Lord's Prayer, they're instructed to pray, Our Father. The whole church coming before their Father. you have a father and he is such a good father. So not only does the apostle come with humility, we also learn that that's coming boldly. Earlier in the chapter he speaks of coming boldly, but coming boldly before the Lord is not coming brashly, it's coming humbly, it's coming with as if you're on your knees before God. You're not demanding of God. You come humbly before God. But we have a Father. And we are in our Father's family. Many have come from broken families in this church. Some have come who had fathers who were abusive. Some were addicted to drugs or alcohol. And some have had fathers that were very distant. Some have had fathers that did not teach them. Some have had fathers that did not love them. But every time you come into a church, you are reminded that you have a father. And he is such a good father. And he'll always tell you the truth. He'll always bring you what you need. And he'll protect you for the rest of your life. But we have a father. And I just want us to rest on that thought that God is a good father. And he always leads his children to the very best places. And here, Paul is praying for such a good father. to bless the church, and he calls upon his father to bless the church in very particular reasons. Now, Paul prays for a reason. In verse 14, he says, for this reason. But look back at verse 10 and 11, you'll see the reason. Now, you could go back through the entire chapter because there are other reasons stated that are very, very connected to this, so I'll just focus this on verses 10 and 11. Why is he praying? Verse 10, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord. So he's praying that God's manifold wisdom would be shining through the church to the powers and the principalities. And I take this to mean Satan himself, the fallen angels, the demons, the holy angels, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit and all those who've died in Christ. Before the great cloud of witnesses that what the church does as they gather together would make the wisdom of God known. When we gather together we're here not to do our own thing, we're here to make the wisdom of God known. And we do it to one another so that when we scatter we let it out into the world. So the church makes a cosmic demonstration. This is a cosmic demonstration. It's difficult to think that way, isn't it? We have just come in here from our normal lives. But God regards the gatherings of the local church to be part of a cosmic demonstration. I'm sure you're aware there's a massive convoy of truckers that have descended on Washington DC to protest tyranny. And they're making a demonstration. But this is a cosmic demonstration. This is a different kind of demonstration. This is not a political demonstration. This is a demonstration before the powers and the principalities that God is Father, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that the Holy Spirit is such a blessing to His people, that God is good. This is a cosmic demonstration that God's ways are pleasant ways. This is a cosmic demonstration that there's only one God and He has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, and there's only one authority. That's the Word of God. That's our cosmic demonstration right now, and that's why we gather. Most people think that when they come to church, they're gathering to get some kind of feeling or some kind of help. Well, feelings and help are here, but that's not the primary purpose of our gathering. It's much greater than that. Every time the church meets, every time a church member goes out in public, every time a church member prays privately, there's a cosmic display of the goodness of God. to the powers and the principalities. And this demonstration is described in Ephesians 6 verse 12. against powers against the rulers of the darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand and this prayer is really for the church to stand before the powers and the principalities and declare the glory of God. We talked earlier in this series that the church is a nation. It has its own boundaries and its own laws. It has its own membership. But it's a nation within nations. And God put the church in the world. God put the nation of the church of Jesus Christ in order to make a declaration to the powers and the principalities according to His eternal purpose. So we gather for his eternal purpose. We don't even gather for ourselves primarily. Not to diminish the blessing that it is to us to gather, but we are gathering for his eternal purpose. And so we're on a divine mission to proclaim and demonstrate the forgiveness and the love that there is in Jesus Christ. So I guess the question is, am I doing the church my way or God's way? Am I thinking of it my way or am I thinking of it God's way? And then the prayer, the prayer is so beautiful and he prays for three, for several things here, for six things. And notice these things are for the strengthening of our inner being. Notice also he doesn't pray that anything would change. He doesn't pray that they would be let out of prison. He doesn't pray that they'll have good health. He doesn't pray that they'll be kept safe. He prays for inner strength. He prays for the thing that will get them through everything. Through their sickness, through their attacks, through their imprisonments. He doesn't pray for the change of anything except their inner being. And that's so important to understand. And I hope as you teach your children that they understand that. If all you're praying about is their health and well-being and that we have a good day, you're missing the point of their strength. They have to understand how strength works in their souls. These are very helpful guidelines for our own prayers as well. And this whole matter of the inner being is so critical. He is speaking about our inner life in this prayer and what he wants for us as individuals in the midst of our corporate life. This matter of the inner being, Paul speaks of it when he speaks about women. He says that their beauty in 1 Peter 3, 4 should be the hidden person of the heart, the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. That's the inner being. It's the exact same language and idea that we encounter here. So, first of all, he wants the church to be strengthened with might by the Holy Spirit. He wants this local church, Hope Baptist Church, to be strengthened with might by the power of the Holy Spirit. That's in verses 16 and 17. That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. There's an assumption here though. There's an assumption of our dependence. He says that he would grant you. We are so dependent upon him. Cry out to him, we're so dependent. Cry out to him for help. And that we would be strengthened with might through his spirit. Why? Because we're a weak people. Because we need his strength. And the church is a gathering of people where there's growing strength over the years. We come in very weak and we continue to be strengthened with might in the inner man. It's a process. But all of us bear the marks of weakness our whole life long. You never get strong enough in your life. God keeps strengthening you. And so we have to recognize that with one another. We are people who are being strengthened. We're going to come in here weak in different ways. But we have the devil who's always conniving to implant doubts, to emphasize fears of our hearts to discourage us. We're often beset by these things. Our knowledge is often defective and we need it to grow. Our will is often weak and it needs to be strengthened. And the Lord comes to strengthen a weak people. Before we became Christians, we were subject to every whim of our emotions. But God has broken the power of sin, and we now can make progress in the faith. And what we find here is God is strengthening the inner man, the inner soul of the man. If you've known me very long and you've met with me, you know that I just might ask you about the condition of your soul. I just might do that. Well, there's a reason. I'm asking about the inner man. I'm asking about how it's going in your life, in your heart, in the meditations of your soul. It's the most important thing. And of course the world is full of weak people who are just rolled over by the slightest fear, the smallest threat. of the economy or the government or getting canceled or not having a friend or the fear of spread of disease. But the people of God are not fearful people. They are growing away from their fears. That's why David said, I sought the Lord and he heard me and he delivered me from all my fears. That's what God wants to do with this congregation. But he doesn't do it by changing your circumstances. He does it by changing your inner being. That's how it happens. These are inner fortifications, the inner man. We are after the strengthening of the inner man. It's very interesting, you know this, that two people can be challenged with the very same problem, and one person sails right through it, and the other person is broken under its weight. That has to do with the inner man, the strength of the inner man. It's so important that we understand this is spirituality. If you want to prepare your children for the world ahead, make them ready in the inner man. Prioritize the inner man. Now, you won't be building inner strength in your children if you raise them on games and movies and entertainments. They will be weak. You will make them vulnerable. You think about that the next time you put your children in front of a movie. Think about that when you see your children playing a video game, being lost in a game. What is that doing to the inner man? You know, how many hours a week are they feeding the inner man like that? I would just urge you as parents, do not let your children feed themselves things that trivialize the inner man and to addict them to irrelevant things because that's what these things do. They addict your children. And they will spend hours and hours and hours staring into nothingness that will strengthen their souls. The inner man is everything, the inner strength is not built by engaging the mind in irrelevant things. That's not how you strengthen the inner man. And you can do that with news, you can do that with things that have nothing to do with your life. We are just bombarded with entertainment and content. And we have to ask, is this going to strengthen the inner man? Because all of us are really the result of the accumulation of our experiences. Weak or strong immune systems are among us. And God is calling a church to build strength in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. We need reinforcements. We need reinforcements of our faith. We need to be held up. We need to be stiffened. that we need to be braced, we need inner strength, and this happens by the Spirit. But we are weak in our faith, and we need fortifying. Remember the man who met Jesus and his son, demonized, was throwing himself into the fire? It was such a horrible situation. The father was so desperate, and he said to the Lord Jesus, Lord, I believe Help my unbelief. He was talking about faith because in the New Testament the word for faith and belief is the same word. And it was as if he said, Lord I have faith, help my lack of faith. We need faith. And so he says that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Now why would he say that? He's talking, he's praying for a church. I thought Christ already dwelt in their hearts. Why is he praying that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith? And the reason is because faith is something that grows. That's why that man said, Lord, I have faith, help me in my lack of faith. Our faith needs to grow. In one of the previous sessions, we talked about there's a different proportion of faith that people have in their gifts of teaching and the exercise of mercy and the exercise of the other gifts. There are different proportions of faith. I think that's what he's talking about. And this prayer is for a strengthening of all of our faith, wherever it might be. It might be low here and high there, but it all needs to be strengthened. Faith is built and out of what? Out of the riches of his glory. Out of the riches of his glory. Faith grows when one fixes his mind on the riches of the glory of his grace. And this is the feeding of the inner man. The inner man feeding on the riches of his glory. That's how you get strong. And that's what we all need to be for one another. Because your faith affects all of our faith. And all of our faith affects your faith. Because the body builds itself up in love. The glory of God, said Lloyd-Jones, is the summation of all the attributes of God His might, His majesty, His holiness, His purity, His righteousness, His justice, God in the totality of His being. This is how God wants to strengthen you. Through the knowledge of God, through His attributes, by understanding who He is and who you are before Him. That's how we're strengthened. And so the question is, am I doing life in this local church My way or God's way and God's way is that you'd be strengthened with might by the Holy Spirit and then the second The second thing that he prays for is that this church would be rooted and grounded in love That this church would be rooted and grounded in love. That's the second half of verse 17 that you being rooted and grounded in love now I love the graphic, illustrative nature of the Bible. Paul mixes two metaphors. One is botanical in nature, rooted, and the other is architectural, and that is grounded, like a foundation. And the apostle likes to talk like this in using these metaphors. In Colossians 2.7, he issues a command to the church using these metaphors and he says, as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. So this metaphor helps us to understand what we ought to be and what we ought to be doing in order to serve our local church. And that is that we ought to be rooted and grounded in love. So he's speaking of trees and their roots. Trees speak of vitality. They teach us about spiritual nourishment and how A tree through the roots draws nourishment out of the ground and into the branches. And the water is drawn up through the roots and the soil feeds those roots with nutrients. And it's the living water in the soil that feeds the soul of the Christian. That's the imagery that he has here. Yeah, why roots? Well, I mean, roots, the deeper they grow, the stronger the tree. Roots also, roots often grow around rocks. You know, a big tree a few years ago went down on my property, huge root ball, and the roots had grown around this gigantic rock, you know, bigger than my body. just gripping the soil. And it took a big excavator to pull it out. But deep roots give strength. God wants you to have deep roots. He's talking about deepening and strengthening your love for Jesus Christ. What can you do to do that for your brethren, for your local church? You're not your own. You've been bought with a price. Strengthen. Deepen the roots. You know, the other thing about trees and roots is that the deeper the roots, the higher the tree. The shallower the roots, the shallower the people. The shallower the roots, the weaker the people. The shallower the roots, the less effective the people. in the church and in the world. But roots have to go deep before the tree can grow high. And it takes time to grow those roots. You know, David uses the same metaphor in Psalm 1. It's so familiar. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water. that brings forth its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and whatever he does, he prospers. Of course, then he says the ungodly are not so. They don't have that strength. They don't have roots. They don't have water. They don't have rivers of living water feeding them and the roots drawing up the strength and making a fruitful tree. So it's the soil of love for Christ, it's the waters of the love of Jesus Christ that strengthen the Christian. He's talking about love for Christ, that your love for Christ makes you strong. You know, I was thinking about this this week, and I've thought about it many times for my own life, and I see how I fall short in so many ways. But, you know, what am I doing because I love Him? Am I doing what I'm doing because I love Him? Am I saying what I'm saying because I love Him? You know, in every area of my life. Are you teaching your children the way you're teaching them because you love them? Are you coming to church even because you love Him? Because you want to love Him more? So he's talking about being rooted and grounded in loving Jesus Christ. And then grounded, now this is the architectural metaphor, and he's saying that the church is like a house with a foundation. The church, as we've said before, is like a building. It's a temple, and the church has a foundation. The church has a master builder, and also a deep foundation makes a strong building. And a deep foundation of love for Christ makes a strong person. So Paul doesn't just leave it with rooted. He wants to give another illustration. He's trying to just continue to help us to understand the same basic idea. And you're really familiar with Jesus telling the story of the man who built his house upon the rock. The winds came, the floods came, and one building stood and the other one was blown away. Why? Because the one that stood was built upon the rock. And in that passage, the rock is obedience to Jesus. It's not Jesus, it's obedience to Jesus. You can go ahead and read Matthew 7 and you'll see it. In Luke, he talks about this foundation of the house that stood as dug down deep. dug down deep. God desires a church with depth. Another argument to push away the trivialities in the entertainment and in the gaming world. Push them out. Get them out of your life. And get dug down deep. Dig down to form your conscience, your whole thinking on the Word of God. And you'll stand. That's what the Apostle Paul is praying for. In Ephesians 2, 20 and 22, earlier on, Paul tells the church about the groundedness of the foundation. He says, the church, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built for a dwelling place of God in the spirit, So the church is strengthened in its foundation by loving Christ. The foundation of your life grows deeper and deeper as you love him. You know that hymn, how firm a foundation ye saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent word. That's how you dig down deep. And then the third thing that he prays is that the church would comprehend Christ's love for them. In the previous part of the prayer, it was their love for Christ, and I believe he switches, and he's now talking about Christ's love for them. That you may be able to comprehend with all the saints the width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge. So now he's praying that we would see the love that Christ has for us. He's praying that the church would see the vastness of this ever-flowing love of Jesus for his church, the mercy of God covering them up, that they might be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge. So to comprehend in the sense of the meaning of the word, it means to grip, to grab onto something. You would grab on to the fact of Christ's love for you. It was Christ's love that won me to the Lord many, many years ago. It was his love. I could not believe his mercy and his love. And that's what he's saying here. To experience this increase of the knowledge of the love that God has for sinners. To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge That's why Paul prays, oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. It's so broad, it's so wide. It's wide, it's high, it's long, it's deep, it's unfathomable. So to know the love that Christ has for us, and that's one thing that we should always be celebrating. We're going to get to the Lord's Supper soon. It's a celebration of Christ's love. He gave his life as a ransom to set us free from guilt. You can escape your guilt by Jesus Christ. It's really interesting though in the Bible, the Bible makes it very clear that the love of Christ is not simply something that we relish in. and we soak in and we are blessed by. He would have us do that. You know, when we gather, I want us to just soak in the love of God for us. But the love of God is not just used that way in the Bible. We want to meditate on the width and the length and the depth of Christ's love, but we can't stop there. Because in scripture, that love is meant to be demonstrated toward one another. It's not just theoretical. It's not just an intellectual acknowledgement that Christ loves you. It works out in your relationship with other believers. In other words, the love of Christ just doesn't sit there and smolder. It's meant to be a pattern of our love for one another. The logic of scripture is that if Christ loved us, we ought to love one another. Jesus told his disciples that his love for them was an example of how they should love each other. And in John 13, 34, he said, a new commandment I give you that you love one another as I have loved you that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. It couldn't be more plain. His love doesn't, it wasn't meant to stop with you. It's meant to come out of you once you've known that you have been loved. In 1 John 4, 7, and 8, we learn that loving like Christ loves is a sign that you know God. And he says, if you don't love, you don't know God. It's that serious. He says, beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God. So the Bible doesn't know anything about the person who just rests in God's love. But the Bible does know the person who rests in God's love as it becomes an overflowing flow of love into the brethren. In 1 John 3.16, we learn that it means that we sacrifice our love, our lives for our brethren. by this we know love because he laid down his life for us notice the premise because he laid his down his life for us we ought to also lay down our lives for our brethren part of that means you know laying down your offenses maybe legitimate wrong things that people have done said you had to lay them down because because Christ laid them down for you that's the idea so Christ is God's gift of himself to man so that he might know love in his heart to feel it, to experience it, and also he might demonstrate it. And this growing in love is an outgrowth of faith. And this matter of faith is so critical The apostles said to the Lord, Lord, increase our faith. And the love of God is meant to increase our faith, that we might dwell. And this word means to live in a house, to dwell, to settle in. It's like saying, Lord, I'm in your house, dwell deep in me, grow in me. Draw me nearer to you. Turn me to yourself. Fill me, Lord. That's what it means to dwell. It's like abiding in Christ. It's the very same thing. And then fourth, that the church would be filled with the fullness of God. Verse 19, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. That means that the church gathering together has God on its mind. And the saints are strengthening one another in God. So are you doing church your own way or God's way? God's way is that you come into the body and you strengthen one another in God. So that when we are in the face of one another, we're actually praying that God would help us to strengthen our brethren. Not just to talk about what we want to talk about necessarily, but what God desires for us. To love one another from the heart. To be filled with all the fullness of God. And then fifth, that this church would know how and why all these things can be theirs. Because the apostle in verse 20 He prays in such a way that he tells us how all this can happen. How can all these things happen? How can this happen to you? How can it even happen to me? Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us. The ability is from God. And so We come and we cry out to God for help that we might strengthen our brothers in God. That this is what's on our minds. But the fact of the matter is that if it's not in your mind when you gather with your brethren, it's because it wasn't in your mind when you weren't with your brethren. Because it has to do with being filled with the fullness of God. It's the most beneficial thing we can do in a local church is to be filled with the fullness of God. And then six, that the church would know the purpose of their local church. Verse 21, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen. The purpose of the church is to demonstrate the glory of Jesus Christ to all generations. That means that the church is a place where we prepare the generations. It's part of our duty. We're not just standing alone. We must pay attention to the generations. And that means the children that are here to pay very special attention to them. to help them to understand what it means to know God and love God, to understand what the church actually is so that they can see the significance and the beauty of it and they would love it for the rest of their life. But children need parents to help them to do such a thing. So this prayer tells us what we need to be for one another. and that is to be filled with all the fullness of God. So am I doing this church my way or am I doing it God's way? Am I strengthened with might by the Holy Spirit? Am I rooted and grounded in love for Christ? Do I comprehend Christ's love for me? Am I filled with the fullness of God? And do I understand how it all happens? By the power of God. And do I understand why we're here? And we are here to declare his glory. And that everything that we do here would be for his glory from one generation to the next until he comes again. So this is a prayer for a local church. And I pray that God would so mightily fulfill this prayer in all of you and in me for his glory for all generations. Let's pray. Lord, again, you've shown us things that are more beautiful than we can even completely understand. And you've shown us ways that are so good. And you've You've shown us ways that are contrary to our ways. But we know that your ways are always pleasant ways and all your paths are peace. And so, oh Lord, come and fulfill your will in this local church. Amen.