Ephesians 3, 14 through 21. In my Bible, this section of the scriptures has a heading called Prayer for Spiritual Strength. The focus of our thoughts this morning will be on verse 20. Hear the Word of God. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power. through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God. 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. And if we were able to read the entire book of Ephesians in one sitting, we would find that Ephesians is really divided into two sections or two parts. Chapters one through three are doctrinal in nature and they are concentrated on the blessings that we have based on our union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And then starting in chapter four, we find that there are practical applications that are applied because of our love for Christ. And Paul answers questions about what everyday behavior is going to look like because of the love of Christ in you. And in the first three chapters, God's blessings are so uplifted by the Apostle Paul that he breaks out in prayer twice in the first three chapters. The first time when he prays in Ephesians 1, 15 through 23, he prays that the Ephesians might know God's power toward them, that they would know God better. And that certainly is something we would like to know, that they would know God's riches for them. that they would know God's power for them and in them. And then he continues. And now we get to chapter three and we have the second prayer. And in this second prayer, Paul prays that the Ephesians might know God's power at work within them as compared to God's power towards them. And so in this particular prayer, which we have just read, he prays that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith. And then he prays that Christ would dwell in their hearts, that Christ would be part of their thinking process. Christ would influence their decision-making. Christ would motivate the way that they think. Their attitudes, their decisions, every aspect of their life would be influenced because Christ is in them. He is influencing how they think. And then he prays that the Ephesians would be rooted and grounded in love. And isn't that a wonderful theme, the theme of the love of God towards us? And we spoke about it in the Lord's Supper message, about the love of God and what it means to us. And Paul's prayer in our passage shows Paul's passion in desiring that the Ephesians know the love of Christ. and that they comprehend what the love of Christ is, and that they become filled with God's love. We read in Ephesians 3 verse 18 a statement, and we can just see that Paul is trying to use expressive words in describing God's love to them. And we can just kind of picture Paul. He says, I want you to know about the love in such a way that you know what the breadth of the love is. You know what the length of the love is. You know how high love is. You know how deep. God's love is for you. In other words, love is just a huge thing. And we can see how Paul is trying to express God's love to the Ephesians. It's huge. There's a magnitude to it that we can hardly imagine. And it's for those who are in Christ. Paul's prayer for the Ephesians isn't just for the Ephesians. It was preserved for us. And what we learn is that love goes beyond the head. You may know about the love of Christ, but the love of Christ needs to get into your heart. It should be motivating to you. Knowing about the love of God is different than having the truth of the gospel within you. The doctrine of Jesus, the doctrine of God, are not mere intellectual exercises. They impact our entire being. They impact our spiritual life. They impact our social life. They impact our demeanor, the way that we behave just around other people. And so some people place a great importance on their demeanor. Does your demeanor reflect the love of Christ? It impacts your desires in life, what it is that you want to do because of your love for Christ. And so Paul, as he concludes his prayer, he begins his conclusion with what we would call a doxology, a little burst of speech just praising God. And so this doxology was based on teaching about the love he had towards Christ and the love that he so desired that the Ephesians would show towards God and towards one another. This particular doxology has been described as thrilling. It's been described as a wonderful expression of praise and adoration. I think you could say that about most of the doxologies that Paul wrote. Doxologies are thrilling. They should warm the heart. And so Paul begins with the word now. And when someone says now, it means that something came before now, right? He's saying because we've done all this stuff or talked about all this stuff, now here's what's going to come next. And he begins with this Now, what was it that he had been talking about? Let's just refresh our memory again. And this passage is so rich, we can rehearse it over and over again. Paul is building up in this particular section of Ephesians to this doxology. And you can't understand this doxology without knowing what came before. And so, we just read in chapter 3, verse 16, Paul prayed that the Ephesians be strengthened. With what? With the power through his spirit. We read in verse 17 that Paul prays that Christ would dwell in their hearts. We read in verse 17, Paul prays that the Ephesians would be rooted. and grounded, kind of a double metaphor there, a farming metaphor and a building metaphor, rooted in love, that your roots go deep, and then grounded, have a good foundation on the building that you're building, a double metaphor here. But he's saying your love needs to be deep. It needs to be strong. And then in verses 18 and 19, Paul prays that the Ephesians would be filled with the fullness of God. And he's talking about the love of God, that you would be full of what God has for you. And the Ephesian Christians may have been thinking, Paul, these requests that you have for us, They are something else. I can't imagine that I can meet all of these requests. Paul, aren't these more aspirational in nature? Are these like stretch targets? Maybe you've been in business, say, okay, your boss has given you a stretch target, something that would be really nice if you could accomplish, but I don't really expect you could, but maybe if you do, it would be wonderful. Is that what Paul is giving us? Stretch targets? You would say, well, let's be more practical, Paul. Let's think about this for a minute. You have prayed for us to do these things that I think are impossible for me to do. And Paul now says it is possible to achieve these blessings. And he's gonna explain why it's possible. That's what Paul is going to do. Paul writes in this doxology, God is able. Remember those three words. Paul writes God is able to do. To do what, Paul? Paul is able to do far more abundantly. What are you going to do, God, that's very abundant? Paul. writes, God is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ask or think. Wow, isn't that an amazing passage? All those blessings that Paul has been writing about, praying for the Ephesians earnestly are possible, Paul says. They're not aspirational. They are not impossible. They are possible because God is able. Now I want to talk about how God is able. If you were a Christian here today, you know that God is able. Because you are a Christian, it's very clear to you that God is able. Because God has done something for you that is much more than you ever thought. or asked for. Before you even thought about things, did you pray to God and ask him to be your God? You might have, but just think about it. In Ephesians 1 verse 4, it says that he, that is God, chose us in him before the foundation of the world. The reason you ask God to come into your heart is because God already had chosen you, had brought you before his mind, before the foundations of the earth. Your being a Christian is no accident. It's not because all of a sudden you decided you needed a God and here was a nice, convenient God. You became a Christian because God put that in you. He planned for you to become a Christian. That's more than you would have ever thought on your own. Did you cry out to God because you realized that you were so sinful and you didn't want to go to hell? No, you would probably live as if there were no hell or you would just use hell as an expletive. And you would say, okay, I'd like to live my better life. and you go to the self-help section of the bookstore and try to improve yourself. There are people who know nothing about God, and missionaries, one of their primary tasks is convincing them that they're sinful. But you know that you're sinful. You know that sinners are condemned to hell. But God, in his infinite mercy, gave you much more than you would have ever asked for. Much more than you could have imagined. And he sent his son over 2,000 years ago. to pay for your sins before you even realized you were a sinner. God gave you much more than you would have asked for. If you had not been prompted by God, your life would be no different than all those other people that you rub elbows with on a daily basis who have no regard for God or a limited understanding of God. Or they live and think about a different religion. But God did this for you, even though you didn't even know that you were going to be God's child. When Paul writes about God, he said, God is able. Do you believe God is able? This word is used over and over in the New Testament. We read in 1 Corinthians 9 verse 8, God is able to make all grace abound to you. so that having all sufficiency at all things at all times you may abound in every good work. God is able to make his grace abound in you so that you will abound in good works. That's how God is able. We read in Hebrews 2 verse 18, because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. God is able to help you when you are tempted. You believe God is able to do that when you are tempted? Yes. God is able to help you when temptations We read in Hebrews 7 verse 25, consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Those he is going to save, he is saving to the uttermost. There's no doubt that you are saved if you are saved. You are saved to the uttermost. We read in Romans 16 verse 25, Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel. So God is able to strengthen you in the gospel, in your knowledge, and in the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. He strengthens you. We read finally in 1 Timothy 1 verse 12, I am convinced, Paul writes to Timothy, that he is able to guard until that day which has been entrusted to me. God is able to guard you, to keep you secure until that day. It is clear that God is able to do anything anything that is needed to save you, anything that's needed to protect you, anything that's needed to strengthen your faith. And God is not only able, but God, we read in our passage, is able to do these things in abundance. Think about one of the attributes of God. Think about God's goodness, and when he gives us goodness, his goodness, God will not hold back any good thing from those who walk uprightly. He's not going to hold it back. We read in Romans 8 verse 28, and we know, Paul writes, that for those who love God, All things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. Everything that happens to you is according to God's purpose. And every purpose of God is done out of His goodness. It's hard to understand sometimes. Things that happen to us don't seem that good, but God tells us they are good. Consider God's willingness. God is willing to supply all our needs. We read in Philippians 4 verse 19, and my God, Paul writes, will supply every need of yours, he's writing to the Philippians, according to the riches in glory in Christ Jesus. And he's talking primarily about spiritual needs, that you will be satisfied with Jesus Christ, your salvation is satisfying. You don't need to look to add to your salvation some other benefits. Being saved is the primary benefit of being a Christian, isn't it? And I have promises, I have all kinds of things that God has given to us, that we would be satisfied spiritually, not dissatisfied. And God is willing to give us everything we need to satisfy our minds that we have been saved. There is not one situation. There is no problem. There is no trial or tribulation that dismays God. God knows it all. We can't thwart God's plans for us. We can't outsmart God. We can't deceive God. God cannot be tricked. Whatever God's plans are for us, those are God's plans for us. God is sufficient to meet our every need for salvation. He is sufficient for our life, all of life's needs. He is sufficient for our comfort. We read in 2 Corinthians 3, verses 4 and 5, such is the confidence that we have through Christ, Lord God, not that we are sufficient in ourselves, to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency comes from God. Paul emphasizes that we are dependent on God. Therefore, if God is able, and if God is able to do for us more abundantly, then God is able to do for us more abundantly than we ask or think or imagine. What a God we have. We're reminded of Isaiah's words as he spoke about God's compassion for his people in Isaiah 55 verse 9. He says, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, So my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. The Bible gives us some examples of how God blessed people abundantly. We read in Genesis 15 verse 3 that Abram, he's Abram at this point, Not Abraham yet. He's Abram. Abram had had a discussion with God. And God had told him that he was going to have offspring. And now some time has elapsed, and God's having another discussion with Abram. And we read in Genesis 15, verse three, and Abram said, behold, He's questioning God. You have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir. He's kind of telling God, you promised us and it's not here yet. It hasn't happened. And so God does something for Abraham. He brings him outside. We read in Genesis 15 verse five, it must have been night and said, look toward heaven and number the stars. And if you are able to number them, then he said, so shall your offspring be. If you look at a nice bright sky and you look at the Milky Way, it's impossible to number all those stars, isn't it? Abraham's descendants are still with us today. He had a child. That child had children. Those children had many children. They are still around today. Thousands and thousands of years later in Israel, all over the world, there are people who are descendants of Abraham. But in addition, there are other descendants of Abraham, people who have been adopted into his family. They are his spiritual descendants, as Paul so aptly describes. They're sitting right here. Right before me are Abraham's descendants. They're spiritual descendants. They're grafted into his family, into God's family. And they are throughout the world. And so that promise made to Abraham was far more than he could imagine. He could look at the stars and say, give me one. And little did he realize that that Milky Way with all those stars were representative of his physical descendants and his spiritual descendants. Abraham was blessed more than he could imagine, more than he could ask. He just wanted one. Isn't this an example to us that we can come to God with those difficult situations and we can explain what it is that we want but there will be times when God is going to give us much more than what we had prayed for and what we had taught. We are to lay our prayers before God and expect that God will give us an answer. And we'll talk about that in just a minute. Second example, and we could give many examples, but we'll just give a second one. Jacob. Remember Jacob? He had to go on a trip real fast. He wasn't able to prepare too much. He had made his brother extremely angry at him, Esau. He had gone and gotten a blessing as a first born when he was really the second born from his blind father. His mother said, I don't want you to marry any girls from around here. All the Canaanite girls are no good. You have to go home. You have to go to my home. I know there's some nice girls down there. Jacob left to find a wife. And it seems like he didn't go very well prepared because we read that he had to sleep outdoors, practically, and he had to lay his head on a rock. And he had a dream. And that dream was some dream. And after that dream, God revealed himself to Jacob. And it seems almost as if Jacob had some doubts about God, whether that God of his father and grandfather was really there. And after he awakened, after having this vivid dream, Jacob made a vow and he said in Genesis 28 verse 20, if God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God. Doesn't he sound like kind of a doubter? Well, in the intervening times, he did find a wife. He found several and he found several concubines besides, but he found a wife and he was blessed by God. And almost 20 years later, when he found his father-in-law rather unbearable, he decided he better go home and see if his dad was still around or his mom. We read in Genesis 30 verse 43, thus, the man, let's talk about Jacob, increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants and camels and donkeys. He was a rich, rich man in 20 years. What did he ask God? He asked, okay, keep me safe. Give me some food to eat and some clothing to wear. That was his request. What did God do? God gave him more than he could imagine. He was kept safe. He was now a rich man. He had plenty of food. He had plenty of clothing. Jacob was greatly blessed by God. The abundance given to him by God didn't because come of his wisdom or his initiative or his strength or his abilities on his own. They came because God had blessed him with a certain amount of wisdom. God had blessed him particularly with abilities. And all the qualities that you have have been given to you by God. They have been given to you by the power of God's spirit working in you. That God will bless you sometimes more than you ask or think. And so how do we respond to this doxology knowing that God is able? We should be humbled. Why? Because often we pray with low expectations. I include this phrase in my prayer. I pray, if it be your will, oh God, And isn't that kind of demonstrating I have low expectations? I'm not sure if I'm going to expect an answer to my request. If it be your will, OK, I'll accept whatever you do, God. But really, with our petitions to God, We don't tell God what to do for us. When we pray to God, we lay out our situation. And so we say, God, I'm taking this class. I need to pass the next test to move on. This is a situation I'm in, God. And I'm not telling God, give me 100 on this test, or at least a passing grade, or whatever. No, I am laying my problem, my issue, my petition before God. If it be your will, God, I can pray that. I would like to pass this test. I would like to move on. We are to lay our situation before God. And we will expect that God is going to answer that question in his way and his timing. We do not tell God what to do. We know nothing is too difficult for God. If God wants us to get a hundred, he is gonna put a spark in our head and we are gonna learn everything we're supposed to learn. But if we don't have that spark, that initiative, we're just praying because it's the last thing we can do because I know I'm not knowing this material. And we say, God, please let me pass the test. God might allow you to fail because he has something else in mind for you. And so we lay our issues before God. We know that nothing is too difficult for God, don't we? We read in Jeremiah 32 verse 27, behold, God told Jeremiah, I am the Lord. Don't forget that. The God of all flesh. I am the God of this entire world of every single person who lives in this world. Is anything too hard for me? God asked Jeremiah. Well, what do you think Jeremiah said? Yes, God, some things are too hard for you. No, Jeremiah accepted the word of God. And he did what God asked him to do, even though it made no sense to him at that time. Is anything too hard for God to do? But secondly, we are encouraged, we are shown that God should be viewed as infinitely sufficient. The psalmist had a very interesting expression in Psalm 81 verse 10. God is speaking, I am the Lord your God, God says, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Okay, we know who you are. And then the psalmist uses this expression, open your mouth wide and I will fill it. Kind of a picture of that little chick in the nest and the mother bird coming with a big fat earthworm and stuffing it down the little chick's throat. God says, open your mouth wide and I will fill it. God is sufficient. We are encouraged. Thomas Manton, who is a Puritan writer, said God's bounty is not only ever flowing, but it's overflowing. God's bounty for you is always there. in abundance because God is able. And then lastly, we are challenged. William Carey, he was a tenacious person. He wanted to be a missionary to India, and he became a missionary to India. But one of his sayings that has come forward to this day, ask great things of God. expect great things of God. God asks us to bring our hard problems to Him. He asks us, tell me, what are your deepest needs? And you bring your deepest needs before God. You lay them out, God, this is what I desire. And let God answer you for those needs. We pray, we want to say what are our spiritual deficits? Where in our spiritual life could we improve? God, help me praise you more. Help me glorify you more. God, I just want to get closer to you. And you lay that out before God. God is able. to abundantly answer that prayer in ways that you may not even understand. And if you doubt your faith, you lack assurance in your salvation, you come before God and say, God, I think you're there. I believe you're there. But my heart needs to be filled with your love so that I know for sure that you're there. God is able to answer those kind of questions. If you seek after God, God will come and fill you with his spirit. And so God will bring you more than you can ask. for imagine God is a.