Today we are going to study the second amazing prayer in the book of Ephesians. Prayer should be an important part of any believer's life. Early church devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, we get some of that. Fellowship and the breaking of bread, we get a lot of that. Prayer. So we're trying to do more of that, like on our Wednesday night group, so we're doing some praying. But I'm sure all of us could do more in our own lives. And when you look at this prayer today, boy, what a powerful prayer this thing really is. And I'm wondering, have you ever prayed this prayer for somebody? And if not, it'd be a good thing to start. So let's read the prayer. And I'm going to attempt to write the elements of it on the board. And then we'll see if we can figure out what it's all about and take it apart. So it's Ephesians chapter 3. 14 through 19 for this reason I bow my knees before the father for whom every family in heaven on earth Derives its name that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. What are the elements of this prayer? Let's just take it apart. What is he praying for these people? Give me something that he prays here. What's the first thing? Verse 16. Okay, so they will be strengthened with power. Keep going. Through the Holy Spirit, where? In the inner man, wherever that is. Okay, what's the next thing he prays? That Christ would dwell in their hearts, how? Through faith. What's the next thing? Rooted and grounded in love. Okay, what's the next one? Strength, again, to comprehend what? Is that what it says? That you're interpreting the breadth Height, length, and depth. He doesn't say of what. In my version, maybe yours cheats and tells you. Some translations are interpretations too. Okay, what's the next thing? To know Christ's love. And what's true of Christ's love? Surpasses knowledge. Ooh, surpasses knowledge. How can you know something that surpasses knowledge? I don't know. Number six. What's the last thing? Okay, filled with the fullness of God. That's pretty well it. That's a mighty prayer. It would be good to pray this for somebody else. It's a prayer of enablement. And really that first prayer he prays is that they would know about these kind of things. And here he's praying that you'd really use them. That's why I say it's a prayer of enablement. So, we're gonna wade into this thing. He starts off with the words, for this reason. For what reason? A reticence because we're one family. Well, that's right. What does this take you back to? Previous chapter. Chapter 2. He starts chapter 3 with the same words, for this reason. And he got derailed. He was going to say, for this reason, and have this prayer. But as soon as he said it, he got off track. So the first paragraph in chapter 3 is a big parenthetical remark. He just got so excited. And so now he's back on track again. So it's good to know I'm not the only one that ever gets distracted. It goes back to the fact that we are one family in Christ. Meaning what? What does he mean by one family? What's the big deal here? That Jew and Gentile can coexist together in God's family. That's the whole point of what he's excited about. And it says, in verse 14, when he prays, he talks about a posture in prayer. What is it? He's bowing his knees. What does that signify? Humility? Worship? Submission? Reverence? That's right. How do Jews usually pray? Standing up! So this is different. Now, there's no one position prescribed. You've got people standing up when they pray. You've got some people falling on their face when they pray. You've got some people sitting when they pray. And of course, now he's falling on his knees. So this indicates he's really moved. It indicates from a Jewish perspective, all the things you said, you're overwhelmed by those emotions that y'all said. So it's a very emotional posture in that sense. So he's really excited about this thing that he's saying here. Psalm 95 6, Oh come let us worship and bow down let us kneel before the Lord our maker. So this revealed mysteries that Paul talked about the last couple of chapters, last couple of weeks, that's a big deal. And then before he launches the prayer, how does he describe God in verse 14? What imagery does he conjure up here? God the Father. What aspect of God is brought out by that? Look at where his children, where his family. Yeah, Al? We come to God differently than the pagans did in that they come to a loving, concerned, understanding, accepting father. A loving, concerned, understanding, accepting father. It's different from the pagans. How did they, in the pantheon, how did they see their gods? And they had to appease the gods who were capricious and very manlike in their whims and pettiness and petulance He's appealing to the fact that those in Christ can come to God as Father Jesus said no one comes to the Father except For me, John 14, 6. Again, before he gets into the prayer, he talks about him being the father of every family. Why do you suppose he brings out this idea of every family in verse 14? It goes back to the point of making points of the Gentiles and Jews. Yeah, it goes back to that point of the Jew-Gentile being made together. Right. So when you talk about Jew, you're talking about one family, or if you stretch it, 12 tribes. But with Gentiles, man, you got a lot of families. We from all over. So I think that's it. Probably that's right. What are the families in heaven? Andy's going to tell us what the families in heaven are. Oh! Notice I skipped that. That wasn't one of the questions. Why do you think he's talking about the family in heaven? What's that? It's commonly thought, and I think Val is right, it's believers who've died and gone before us. In the Apostles' Prayer, it talks about the communion of the saints. And that's just not the saints here on earth. That's the church, universal, triumphant, and in heaven as well. Anybody else got any other thoughts on that? So let's say that in revelation that every tongue and kindred and tribe and family, it's going to be represented standing before him. There's some weird theology that takes it. And words that happen. If we were to share this with somebody at work or something, they might say, well, what is this family? I've said it before, I'll say it again, the last thing we need in theology is creativity. And most of these people who weird out things, they'll take some one obscure verse like this. And they'll build some weird big thing off of it. And you can't do that. And when you put it back in context, you don't have a lot to work with here. The bigger picture is he's talking about all the families, all the tribes of earth coming together as one, as God's people. That's the big picture. If you build much more than that, you're just making up stuff. And you have to watch people who do that. And usually they're very entertaining, very creative, and it's the wow factor of the sensation. But when you get right down to it, a lot of that weird stuff, it's just not based on Really not based on anything. Smoke and mirrors. And finally, what I hadn't prayed yet, right? Paul prays this in verse 16, according to the riches of God's glory. In the West, we're very materialistic. It's much harder to appreciate the spiritual riches than it is material riches. So Paul's praying this according to God's riches. That's pretty significant. So here we go. First prayer has to do with being strengthened in your inner being. So question five is, what does it mean to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being? to this first step, not knowing what it is to see God's power fully at work in them. They suffer, the church suffers, and the world suffers because the inner man of most believers is never strengthened with power through his spirit. Only God can reach and cure the inner man, and that is where he most wants to work. His work begins with salvation, and after that, his main field of work is still the inner man. because that is where spiritual life exists and where it must grow. The divine nature imparted to the believer of salvation is at the core of the inner man and is the base from which the Holy Spirit changes the thinking of the believer. That's good! Do you all agree or disagree with what he said? Now, pretty good to me. I appreciate that well-reasoned and thought-out explanation. What is the inner man, then? That's the essence of the person. It's spirit, which is you. That's the real you on the inside. And it says in Corinthians, the outer nature is wasting away, but our inner nature is being renewed. day by day. So that's what is to be strengthened. Now Al said something, according to what he said, he felt like a lot of Christians, he might even have said most, I don't know, they get saved and they just stop. They don't really experience the way God would like them to. The strengthening of the inner man. So we're not talking about salvation here. We're talking about going beyond that into something stronger. Something deeper. The Holy Spirit, if you're saved, He's in your life. He's working. There's a doctrine called the perseverance of the saints. What does that mean? God will work on you until you die. God will work on you until He kills you. Is that what you mean? No. Say it again another way. God will continue to work in your inner man until the day you leave this earth. Okay, God's going to continue to work. And you'll continue growing it. Until what? He'll continue to save you until you get to heaven. It really ought to be, I mean more accurately, ought to be called the perseverance of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. So this is gonna happen, but it happens, it sounds like from this it can happen to a greater or lesser degree in people's lives. Charismatics talk about this thing they call the second blessing. Not second coming, we haven't talked about that. The second blessing that there's a post-salvation experience. Well, there is. Are you getting everything God wants you to have? Paul's praying that they would be strengthened with, look at that word, power through the Holy Spirit in your inner man. So the Holy Spirit is gonna work to persevere in you to make you more like Jesus, but I want you to understand there's probably more than you've got now. There's probably more to be experienced in this strengthening with power through the Holy Spirit. Is that something you want? We ought to ask God for it. But you know what you ought to be praying for everybody else in this church? The same thing. When was the last time, you don't have to raise your hand, you prayed for somebody else to be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in the inner man? We pray for a lot of people, we pray trying to keep people out of heaven this morning, as I recall. We do a lot of that kind of praying, don't we? What I mean is, keep this saint on earth a little longer. And sometimes we pray for lost people that they'll get saved. But this is a big thing why we pray. There's nothing about sick people or lost people in this. Making sick people well or lost people sick. This is about these spiritual riches that we have in Christ and Paul's wanting us to apprehend that stuff. To utilize it. It's like having a bunch of money in the bank that you never take out. You live like a pauper. The money's in the bank, you just don't use it. Here it is, it's the bank. We are to be strengthened in the inner man. And what's the next thing? The next aspect of this prayer. Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith. I thought these people were already Christians. Don't they have faith? Isn't Christ in their hearts? Shake hand, yes. Well, what's he talking about? What's he talking about? If this has already happened, he's talking about something. Yeah, they had faith, Christ is in their hearts. Great. Well then, what's he talking about here? Continuing to trust in Jesus. Okay, that they would continue to trust in Jesus. That's good. Larry? That he would dwell. And dwelling means residing, staying there, being comfortable at home. That he wouldn't just be there, but he would be comfortable there. Okay, we know he's going to stay there, but we want him to be comfortable. Settle down, welcome. This word for dwell is the Greek word for down and the Greek word for living in a house. It's settle down. In some of our lives, I think Jesus is just barely inside the front door. He's over there in the foyer with Eden and Nathanael. Where does he want to be? He wants to be at home in every room. Is He dwelling in your life in that sense? What keeps Him from making Himself at home in your life? In anybody's life? Sin. What's in that sin closet over there? Not exercising faith. And? Weak faith. Not exercising faith. That would do it. This is experiencing as Christians every day the stuff God wants us to experience. So we get so busy going to work, Raising the kids, cooking dinner, whatever we do. Lots of people do all that stuff. Are you living in the reality of being strengthened in the inner man by the Holy Spirit and Christ actually being, as Larry said, at home in your heart? And the key, it really goes back to the faith aspect, I think. Leif has said, yeah, you got faith to be saved. You got that tiny mustard seed, but don't stop there. You got planted in water. Yeah. And you're grinning pretty big. You all right over there? Want to say something? I don't know. This verse has always confused me because Jesus left us the comforter to dwell in us. But here it is saying Jesus is dwelling in us. Wow. Yeah. Which is it? I would like you to answer that one too. Well, you see, problem with you is you didn't graduate from seminary, you just went a few years. If you'd have caught on to the end, you'd know the answer to that. They say that for the senior course. Now Ed's been to seminary, he knows the answer. He did say that. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. And in Revelation, he says, I'm knocking at the door. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, what will happen? come in and sup with it, eat, make it home. They're already Christians he's talking to. You've got the Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit of God. He's praying to the Father and the Holy Spirit strengthens us and Christ is dwelling in us. You've got the Trinity and it's a package deal. It's like, do you pray to the Father, Son or the Holy Spirit? Well, I mean, technically you're praying to the Father, but sometimes people get so excited they pray to Jesus and that's okay. That's right. Christ ain't need the help of glory and it's the Spirit of Christ. He's the Holy Spirit and yet Yeah, there's a mystery to it. Did y'all see that cartoon I sent out on the Trinity with the two Irish guys? That was a pretty good summary of the mystery of it, I thought. Now, Val, what would you like to say? Oh, you were excited a minute ago, and I thought I put you on hold. Were you done? No, I just had said that I've always felt Jesus was the Comforter. He is that too, and so is the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay. And so is the Father, thank you. If the Father comforts us, we comfort others in the same comfort the Father has comforted us. I mean, what I would say in this, I didn't mean to put you on the spot, if I were to go to seminary, this is what I would say. This is the proof of the Trinity, though, and sometimes we try to split hairs with things, but the fact is, God dwells in us. That's right, amen, well said. and some of us more than others, it sounds like. He's more at home. MacArthur points out in his commentary that, remember two angels come to see Abraham and said, I want to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, the Lord was with them, the Lord and these two angels. And that was great. They had a great time. He says, well, what about Lot? Oh, yeah. His Bible says Lot's righteous and Abraham's righteous, right? We've got to get Lot out of Sodom. So who goes to Sodom to get Lot out? Two angels. Where does the Lord go? I don't think he felt so at home with Lot. Like he did Abraham. You've got to be like Lazarus was to Jesus. That's where Jesus hung out. He went to Lazarus' home with Mary and Martha. That's where he hung out. Lazarus, he wasn't an apostle. Does Jesus hang out in your house? Does he like it? And so it comes down to sin and lack of faith. Now, Al. Al commented that the reason Christians need big hearts is so they can fit all three members of the tribune. Y'all hear that? Christians need big hearts so we can fit all three members of the trinity. That's good. Yes, sir? Dallas? The scripture that we were referring to, the Christ might dwell in the hearts of mankind, I see that. What you're talking about there is the fullness. Okay. Which he talks about toward the end, doesn't he? A lot of this is kind of like the Trinity. Some of this kind of mushes together. Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith is very similar to being filled with the fullness of God, isn't it? Do you have all of Jesus you want? Is he really dwelling in your heart or is he just standing in the forehead? I don't think we can either. We need to pray for each other about this. It depends on how large your sin group is. You have enough of him as long as he doesn't crowd into that. That's right. There's one thing I think Paul says here, he says There's two things that happen with truth. One is, to the believer that God is speaking to them and it's resounding in their heads, they are drawn to it, which makes them want to get sin out of their lives. To those who are not Christ-like, truth repels. But it also, if you think about the inner being, the more truth that comes in, as God branches it into us, it's going to push that other sin out as the fullness and He fills us. I like it. All right, I don't want to get too technical, but there's some stuff I don't understand here about cause and effect. Try to separate cause from effect in this prayer. Okay, let's assume the first item up here is a cause. Okay, so first thing he prays is that we would be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in an inner man. So this next thing we've talked about, Christ dwelling in our hearts through faith, is that a cause or is that an effect? Look at this structure. Look at the key words. He really tells you. Okay, Elizabeth says it seems like an effect because it says between these two things, so that. The reason God wants to strengthen you with power through the Holy Spirit and the inner man. What does that look like when it happens? So that, what it looks like is Christ dwells in your heart through faith. This leads to that. Interesting. I don't understand everything I know about it. That's what it says. And then what's the next item? That you being rooted and grounded in love. What's the next thing? Now, is that a cause or an effect? Well, both. Actually, it's both. It says that you may... It's that you may have the strength to comprehend the breadth, height, length, and depth. Rooted and grounded in love? That's parenthetical. So I don't know if this goes back to the strengthening or if it's another effect of the strengthening, but the next that is number four, strengthen to comprehend. So this love seems to serve as another basis for strengthening to comprehend something. Seems to. So it's both, I think, like Adam said. It probably flows out of the strengthening and it serves as a ground for something else. Andy? Have you ever put up a flagpole? We almost have to put the flag almost as much in the ground as coming out of the ground. So as he grows in us and we are rooted, it then allows us the strength to comprehend. That's good. And notice, trees have roots and this word for grounded is like a foundation. You're talking about trees and buildings. You've got these good foundations, which leads, like you said, that's underground. This root, this base of love leads to this next thing. It not only keeps it stable, but it also feeds. Uh-huh. It's not static. It feeds. It's living. It's living. Okay, this is my throwaway question. You can all answer this. Why is love such an important part of the Christian life? Well, commanded to do it. Rats. I'm gonna do it. Okay, it's God's character, so if His character is in you, it's going to come out. And what did you say over here? Go ahead. And God is love, that's right. Some of you, hopefully the better ones. Yeah. then you're apart from God. And that Bible says if you don't have love, you're apart from God. Basically, you're lost. Yeah. Okay, if you don't have the love, you're not going to comprehend. Yes, the love. I think, yeah. But it's interesting. Okay. It takes one to know one. Okay. Well, he never says, I think he got so excited he left it out. But he talks about love before it, and he talks about love after it, so most people tend to think, yeah, he's talking about, you can even begin to understand the love of God. One time, I've talked to y'all this before, but when I first got to this Baptist church years ago, they had a gym out back, and I'd been working, it's hot, hot, blazing sun, it was August or something when I got there, and I never had been in the gym. And so, I decided one day I'd go to the gym, I had a key. And so I go across the parking lot, and it's like, being in the Sahara Desert, and I go over, and it's a white aluminum building, and the sun's reflecting off of that. I'm just blinded. And I open the door, and I step outside. Wham! And it slams behind me. I couldn't see a thing, because, you know, blinding to darkness. Well, across on the far side were, it appeared to be, two-story tall windows, because I know it was on a slope. So it looked like these real tall, skinny windows went from the ceiling to the floor, and there was the gym. And then to keep the spectators from running out onto the gym floor, they had a metal rail about this high. Well, I wondered, I wonder what's outside that window. So I decided I'd just jump over the rail and walk over to the window. So I'm climbing up on this rail and I'm about to step off and my eyes finally got right and I perceive that those weren't two-story windows. No, wait, no, I'm sorry, I got it wrong. I thought it was a one-story window with a shiny reflection on the gym floor. What it was, was a two-story window all the way down. And I was one-story high and the gym floor was way down yonder. Well, anyhow, I just about jumped off, and whoo, and then it comes to you and you go back. Well, this is God's love. We know a little bit of it, but it's like God wants you to focus, woo, and see what this thing really is. It's so much bigger than you ever imagined. You can't even think about it being. And you're supposed to be rooted and grounded in this thing. So I don't mean to cast stones. There's a church around here. It's Church of Christ. It's up on the corner. And it said, come study the Bible with us. Well, you know, I'm sure they have good motives and all that. But I'm thinking about it. You know, it's not about Bible study. What is it about? It's experiencing the love of God, being rooted and grounded in love. And if you just know the Bible, you become like a Pharisee. The only purpose you're studying this thing is why? To change you. You experience this stuff. Years ago, there was this church planter I knew, his Dutch background. And he used to joke, if you ain't Dutch, you ain't much. Well, it's the same with this love thing. If you don't have love, Paul says you're what? Nothing. Nothing! So, you don't study the Bible so you'll know the Bible, let's say you'll know God. You go beyond the printed Word to the living Word. One thing I find interesting is if you look there, We're given four different breadth, height, length, and depth. Most things, when you think about those kind of dimensions, we really only need three. So why are there four? One thing in this same passage, he's already kind of mentioned rooted and stuff like that. So I almost wonder if he's alluding to kind of think about a tree or something like that. You've got the breadth, length, and height that you can see above the ground, but when you really, you know, if you're talking about the rooted and grounded, most trees have a large root structure going on down underneath, so that's that depth. That's good. That you don't even, you know, you can observe from outside and see a certain amount of this, you know, breadth and length and height, but not until you really, you know, are grounded in it that you can experience the full depth. That's good. Amen. Amen. We kind of do naturally In most cases, we love and appreciate our parents. But the depth of that appreciation happens when all that those parents have done that they've never told the child begins to unfold later in life. And the appreciation for that parent grows to a level of depth and love that is beyond explaining. Because you never knew. You said, I didn't know that you guys went through that when I was this age, or you did that for us, and you did that, and you sacrificed this. And that's never on the surface, because the parents don't even have the words to explain it. In most cases, they don't explain it. Very definitely. That's good. Louis Armstrong was asked what jazz was. You know what he said? He said, if you have to ask what it is, you'll never know. And it's the same with love in that sense. This is a divine thing poured out by the Holy Spirit in your life. If you don't have it, you probably may be able to wake up and take up spiritual inventory here. But if you say you do have it, but we need more of it. Okay, now Al. It's sort of like breathing. If Christ is not at home in our hearts, then we have to work hard to love others. And that's sort of like being told, hold your breath. It requires effort. When Christ is at home in our lives, it's like breathing normally. You no longer have to be told to do it. It just happens. You're naturally supernatural. That's right. It's a Holy Spirit thing and we need more of it. So going back to what Aretta started off with, Jesus commands us, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another. Peter said, love one another earnestly from a pure heart since you've been born again. Those two things go together. Who wants to guess the Greek word for love? Sagape. Agape and Philae, they're almost synonymous. They mostly overlap. Agape tends to be a conscious decision to benefit the other person. Philae tends to be an emotional thing, you just can't help it. It's when you just like somebody. So, what he's saying is, we gotta love each other. Now there's some people here, I just don't like very much. But, I gotta love you anyway. And you might not like me. The point is, we gotta love each other. And really, it's more than just a, I'm gonna do this thing. But actually, God's gonna work on you so that we actually do want to do it. You enjoy doing it. You see what I'm saying? And then you end up liking them. Yeah, that's true. Amen. Romans 5, 5. God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. First John 4a, going back to I think what Adam said, anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. All right, once we have these first three things, we'll be in a position to have ability, this word strength in English both times is two different Greek words. We'll have the ability to what? To comprehend that which is, the right, the height. length and depth, evidently, of this love that we're into. And look at this, number five, to know Christ's love, there it is, which surpasses knowledge. Do you see the oxymoron here? Really and truly, I don't know that much about electricity, but I have experienced it. Haven't you? Okay? And that's God's love. We can experience it and He wants us to have a supernatural revelation of it so we can start to know that which is beyond knowledge. That's right. Bible study versus no time. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. And I think a lot of it, you know, even with our, you know, relationships with other people in our lives, you know, there are plenty of people that we have experienced the love from them and we know that love. Yeah. If you try to talk about knowledge of it, as far as, can you explain it? You can. So I think in some ways it's different types of no. One of them is that you know it in the fact that you have experienced it. You know it personally. Yeah. Whereas the other one is just saying, this is beyond explaining. That's good. It is. It's beyond explaining. Going back to that whole setup that Paul gave about the Jews and Gentiles becoming one, we can't really maybe relate to that necessarily. Again, go to this situation that just happened in Boston, where any cultural clash different worldviews, and I know I should love people who actually want to harm me. They might even want to kill me, might want to destroy my way of life, which some of it is worth getting rid of. You know, not the way they're doing it. But if we truly, we start off, I think, if we obey the Lord, we start off praying for our enemies. But if we truly experience the love of God, we'll actually come to a place of truly they will truly have their eyes open, rather than just praying out of duty and trying to love Him. Amen. That's what you want, right there. Amen. You start with praying out of duty, but you get to the point where you really love Him. Amen. So, for them, of course, it was a Jew-Gentile situation. They were radically different cultures getting together as one in the church. And finally, the last thing is, he prays that they would be filled with all the fullness of God. What does that mean? Well, I think as Dallas has indicated, it really means these first five things happening, but beyond that, when you're filled with something, twice more in this letter he talks about filled with something. What does he talk about? What's the famous verse about being filled with something that's in Ephesians? Filled with the Holy Spirit. Here, he wants you to be filled with God the Father, and what's the other thing he says in this letter about being filled with? Well, I don't remember that, but he says filled with Christ. There's the Trinity again. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? By the way, it means the same thing that this means. What does it mean? You show the fruits of the Spirit, is that what you said? You start manifesting that? That's right. If you're filled with rage, what does that mean? You're controlled by rage. You fly off the handle, you use your temper, usually. I mean, that's the idea. You're dominated by it. You're filled with joy. You show it. You're filled with Spirit. You show it. You're filled with God. You're dominated by God. And what's happening? You're experiencing His love. You're strengthening your inner man. And you want to be a slave to righteousness. Spells out. Good. What's that word you use? Parsimonious? Cool! I like that word. All right. None of us want to be parsimonious. Paul concludes this with an apt and pretty fancy Amen. So let's read his Amen, which is the last paragraph, which is 20 through 21. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. How does he describe God's ability in verse 20? You ever heard there was so many people you couldn't shake a stick at? That's a lot of people. How abundant is God's ability? It's more abundant. You can't, yeah, you can't even think about how ability it is. That's how he describes it. And according to what he said there, where is this power at work? In you! So, can God strengthen you with power through the Holy Spirit, you inner man? Oh, buddy, can he? Can he pour out love in your heart? Can he help you know the unknowable of love? He can do that. Somebody said, could God make a rock so big that he can't pick it up? And you know what the answer to that is? Yes, and then he'd pick it up. So he can do that. He can take knotheads like us and pound his love into us to make us like this. But you need to pray about it. You need to pray for it. We need to pray each other. Now, Wednesday night, next time, You have a prayer meeting. This could be a good thing to pray in that prayer meeting. Al? I think the thing that's exciting for us is that when these conditions are met, God can then use us in His unlimited ways. And until they are met, He is limited in what He can do through us. He might have to use a rock instead, but He ain't gonna use us. So what? Who's brave enough to tell me something that you learned about prayer today or that you had forgotten? Well, you need to do different. I didn't realize it was a prayer of enablement. I like that. She likes that idea of being a prayer of enablement, yes. Let's say, by posture, I mean, we don't always bow on our knees, but when you're earnest and... And God uses it to help us to know those deeper things. Yes, sir? My most pressing need, and I think perhaps it's not inaccurate to say everybody's most pressing need, is for submission to the feelings of God. Amen. Every day. All the time. Amen. Sometimes we shoot first and ask questions later, which is not good. Mr. Baker. What I learned about Prairie is that talk to him like I would talk to you about an issue. Forget about, you still see God as God. You still see him as holy, reverent, and all that. But it's like he's your father. And I go to talk to my dad. Don't say, I know there's a little bit of a difference. I don't walk. I don't feel my heart beating fast. I feel comfortable for my dad. I talk to him. And I talk to him as like he's a person. I don't. And he's there just to listen. Sometimes you, through your course of prayers, listening to yourself as you're praying, not just simply running your mouth. You can run your mouth in prayer. If it's a time when you need to let emotion out, if you need to go beat the wall, if you don't understand Boston, I know you're a sovereign God, but it makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why did that six-year-old have to go? I don't understand. And actually, Lord, I'm really upset. You just letting out the emotion. Some people are afraid to say, how can you even talk to God like that? Because He's allowed me to come and pray. And He knows what I'm going to say to Him. And He's not short to tell me, hey, you're wrong. He's not going to pounce on top of my head if I'm coming to Him from the depths of my heart. If I'm saying, Lord, I'm angry with you. I don't want to be, but this is how I'm feeling. So you talk to Him like He's sitting in a chair with you. Well, before we do the Lord's Supper, going back to this big picture of love, which seems to be a big component in this, perfect love casts out fear. So when new people come in the church, are you the ones that runs over and talks to them? Or are you kind of uncomfortable and you never talk to them? You go talk to somebody you know. Well, if you loved them, whether you love yourself, you'd go talk to them. If you sit next to somebody in church, you don't talk to very much. Do you talk to them or you just Not talk to him. See what I'm saying? Get past yourself. What if you don't like people like Dwayne to wear hats? Do you sit at a different table? On purpose? Or do you force yourself to go talk about hats with Dwayne? Well, it doesn't matter what it is. What if you just don't like, the way Matthew combs his hair, or the fact that Nathan, I don't like the way he plays guitar. I'm just not going to talk to him. Well, you see what I'm saying? I'm making up stupid stuff so I don't offend you. But the point is, some of us are shy and we don't need to be. What it is, you don't care about that other person that you're running from or that you're not talking to. And some of us here, you don't like. You better get over it, love them, and go take interest. Some of us here do things that make you uncomfortable. Because that's not you. So? The Jew-Gentile thing was a lot of discomfort. You love them enough to love them despite these things that make you uncomfortable. Are you sure what I'm saying? Okay. This message was produced by the New Testament Reformation Fellowship, reforming today's church with New Testament church practice. Permission is hereby granted for you to reproduce this message. To learn more about New Testament church life, you can find us on the web at ntrf.org. God bless you as you seek to follow Him in obedience. May your faith in the Lord Jesus be strengthened and your daily walk with Him deepened. do do Oh.