As you are finding a place to seat, you may want to move a little bit closer because we're giving you an unintentional, not quite by design eye exam today. We are doing a couple of things all at the same time this morning, and one of those is that Darlene and I have been asked to lead the worship music at the Pastors and Wives Retreat this week. And so Darlene has set up these wonderful slides that are so expressive. And this morning we realized that the print is a little bit small. And it was too late to adjust. So hopefully, Luke, in fact, can you go ahead and slide forward one or two slides and just see. Go to the next one, I think is where the song begins. If you can't see that, you may want to move one or two or five or six pews closer. That's about the size of the fonts throughout the music this morning. And it looked huge on the TV at home when we were sitting three feet away. And so what we've done is we are co-opting the first worship session for this morning's music. which is okay because it fits perfectly with where we are going in the message today. Come. Now is the time to worship. We come just as we are, and God changes us into the likeness of Jesus Christ. And we move from having no part of God to being partakers of the deity. And so the first step is to humble ourselves and come. And as we come and we worship Him, you remember the Corinthian church was apparently having some people die prematurely. And Paul addressed that in his letter to them and said, you know, the reason some of you are dying before it seems like you should is because when you come to take communion, you're coming with an unworthy heart because you are harboring sin in your heart. And so you need to examine yourselves before you partake in this so that you would not be lying to God. And that's why as we take communion we pause after the message and after the elements are passed out or before the elements are passed out. We pause for a little bit just to give you an opportunity to make sure that you are right before the Lord. And so As we come to worship, we pray, Lord, give us clean hands. Now, the scripture tells us that the one who may ascend to the hill of the Lord is the one who has clean hands and a pure heart. And so even as we're asking him to give us clean hands, there is also something else that we're studying in Ephesians that is that we have a responsibility in that as well. Not only is he putting on a new self, but we are to be putting on a new self. Not only has he taken off the old self so that we could be recreated, but we are to be continually taking off the old self, taking off the fleshliness of us. And so as we are asking him, Lord, give us clean hands. We're bowing our hearts. We're bending our knees before you. Make us humble. We're turning our eyes from evil things. Lord, we cast down our idols, anything that we have placed in between us and you. Give us clean hands. We can't earn those clean hands, the clean hands are the hands of Jesus, that we are in Him. And that allows us to ascend to the hill of the Lord. But we also then need to obey the Holy Spirit and allow our hands and our hearts to be cleaned. To do that, we need to humble ourselves before Him. We'll have that new verse in again today, and we're going to go through it a couple of times, a little bit more than usual. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. As we come before him, it needs to be in that attitude of humility. When we ask humbly, Lord, help me to be clean before you. Then he hears our prayers. When we ask in pride, we're singing the song, give us clean hands, but I'm okay with the Lord. I don't need that really. My hands are pretty clean. God opposes the proud. So we need to come before him in complete humility. And then the wonder of wonders out of his amazing grace, our chains are gone. Father in heaven, as we come before you today, Help us to humble our hearts before you. Help us to cast down every idol that has raised itself up this week, this morning. Help us to be a generation that seeks your face. Help us to be a people whom those around us can see something happened to you. Why is it that you have joy? Why is it that you have peace with the universe or whatever they think of? Why do you have peace? We can be prepared to give an answer. It's because of the amazing grace of God that saved a wretch like me. I once was bound in sin and in my fleshly, selfish, conceited, deceptive desires. I was blind. But in Christ, now I can see. And my chains are gone. I've been set free. My God, my Savior, has ransomed me. We offer this time to you now, in Jesus' name. Amen. And again, today I'd like you to turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter one. There are quite a few parallels between Colossians and Ephesians where we'll actually spend our time today. And I really appreciate this one passage here in Colossians one where the reminder of what we looked at in Ephesians chapter one comes back again. and rather than read Ephesians 1 again for the fourth, fifth, or sixth time, I'm gonna take us to Colossians and see it from slightly different wording, but still focusing on this wonderful Christ who has been the willing sacrifice to pay for our sins, the amazing grace of God who sent Christ and said, I have an inheritance for you. And here's what you must do to earn it. And Christ who said, gladly, for you, I will give my life. I'm reading out of the Pew Bible, page 1142. It's not printed on that page, so I had to think for a minute. What's one less than 1143? We want to read the verse 23 verses of this, and if you would like to stand and read with me, I invite you to do so. Beginning in Colossians 1, verse 1, let's begin. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, through the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae, grace and peace to you from God, our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints, the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world, this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. You learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. For this reason, since the day we heard about you, We have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, but now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation If you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel, this is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Lord, what an amazing, amazing gift this is, that you would take us who were alienated from you, who are enemies in our minds and in our actions, and reconcile us to yourself through Jesus Christ's physical body through death. And that you have redeemed us to yourself to present us to yourself with his righteousness on us because of his sacrifice for us, so that we can ascend the hill of the Lord so that we can stand in your holy presence, not because of what we have done, but because of what Christ did on the cross. Lord, we ask that you would then help us to grow in our knowledge of Jesus. Help us to get to know him better and better and better and better. so that the knowledge of Him would fill us with all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that we might live a life that is worthy of Him, so that we might live a life that pleases Him in every way. Everything we think, everything we desire, everything we say, everything we want to say, everything we do would please Him. Lord, we ask that you would help our lives to bear fruit in every good work as we grow in the knowledge of you. And we pray that when we realize that we cannot withstand that the temptations or the tests or the trials that you send our way, or that Satan comes and desires to sift us and to prove that we do not love you, Lord, when we realize and help us to realize it quickly, that we can't stand in those tests. Help us to remember that the power that raised Jesus from the dead resides in us. The Holy Spirit himself resides in us. And his power is sufficient for our weakness. Lord, we ask that you would help us to be obedient, out of love, and out of gratitude. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Today we are in Ephesians chapter 3. I invite you to turn there. We're going to work through verses 14 through 16, where Paul says, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I bow my knees before the Father that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit, in the inner man. For this reason I bow on my knees before the Lord. I just realized I set, I've got two sets of notes I'm operating from and I set one of them down. We'll just trudge along. So, no. There they are. Caleb, could you grab that set of white papers that's on the little table and bring them forward for me? Yeah, thank you. I need to make sure that I proceed at the same pace as you. I have a lot more detail in these notes than in these notes, and so I don't want to get ahead of you or fall behind you. For this reason, we've been created in Christ. We had been separated from God. Now, not only are we no longer separated from God, but we are His dwelling place. then you can't get much closer than that. For this reason, what is the reason, what is he talking about? Well, because Christ, chapter two, verse five, has made us spiritually alive. Chapter two, verse 10, we are his workmanship created for what he has prepared for us to do. Verse 19, we're no longer strangers and aliens, rather we are fellow citizens with the saints, the members of God's own household. Verse 20, We are built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. Verse 22, we're being built together into a dwelling of God in the spirit, and therefore our new identity makes us the dwelling place of God. By definition, if we are in Christ, we are the dwelling place of God, for all of the deity is in Christ. If we are there, God is there. If we are there, God's power is there as well. And so Paul is praying for this reason that we would be able to live by the fullness of that power. Not only that, but he and, I jumped ahead of myself there, sorry. We had this great divide, we had been dead in our sin, Chapter 1 verses 1 through 23 this God who is omnipotent After 2 8 through 10 put us into Christ and John 15 says if we are in him he is in us and So we have this interesting Relationship How much power do I have none You might say that I am impotent. Not like I'm an impotent man. But I am impotent. Impotent. And the God who is omnipotent, who has all power, all ability, all knowledge, all holiness, all righteousness, That God dwells in this impotent doll of me. Galatians 2 tells us that Christ is in us. Ephesians 4.15 says we are the body of Christ. Colossians 2.18 and 19, we are the body of Christ. Colossians 3.3, our life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3.17, we are to let the word of Christ dwell richly in us. Ephesians 5.18, we are to be filled with the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 12.9 and 10, when I am weak, then God is strong. He allows me to make my best effort or to come before Him and say, God, I can't do it. Only you can do that. And so in view of God's greatness, His eternal greatness, Paul says, I bow my knees before the Father. Where is he? Jesus told us he is in heaven. We are to pray our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. We are to acknowledge and reckon him as the Holy One. Thankfully in Christ, we don't need to fear to come before him. We are able to walk into his presence, not based upon our righteousness, for if it were based upon us, we could never get clean hands or pure hearts, because we can never undo our first sin. Even if we didn't have all of the rest of the sin, we could never undo the first one. We could never pay for the first one. And it's not just that, but it's that we are born with a heart that is in rebellion against God. And so even if we could pay for all of the acts of sin, we could not pay for the person of sin, who is by nature an object of wrath. that because of His love for us, we don't need to fear to come before Him. We don't need to appease Him because Christ's sacrifice appeased Him. We don't come before Him like the pagans who say, I hope I'm bringing enough gold. I hope I'm bringing enough incense. I hope I'm bringing enough meat. I hope I'm bringing enough grain. I hope I'm bringing enough wine to please my God so that I can have a day where the hail and the sleet do not fill my crops. Paul says, I bow my knees before the Father. Interesting side question. Is he giving us a prescription, telling us that we ought to bow our knees when we pray? Or is he giving us a description of what he is doing? In other words, is it necessary for us to pray on our knees? Interesting, in Genesis 18-22, you have Abraham standing before the Lord as he prays. 1 Chronicles 17-16, David sat before the Lord. Matthew 26-39, Jesus fell on his face and prayed. Okay, so which is it? Face, knees, sitting, hands, any of the above, all of the above. One guy said the most effective prayer I ever prayed was while I was stuck upside down in a well. So why does he mention the knees here? He's showing us the submission before God. David said, come, let us bow down before God, our creator. Paul is saying, I am submitting willfully to the one who is far greater than me and demonstrating to you the passion of my prayer. In Ezra 9, we have Ezra confessing his sins while on his knees before the Lord. Daniel 6.10, kneeling three times a day, praying, knowing that he was going to be sent to the lions. Acts 20.36, Paul's last meeting with the Ephesian elders whom he's writing here. They knelt together and prayed. It's a sign of a reverent prayer. Then he goes on, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. Not in the generic sense that we are all a part of the family of God because we have all been created by God. That's not what he's talking about. Because being created by God, yes, there's that creative sense in which he is our father. But the sense that the scripture talks most about is not the creative sense. The scripture calls us to come into relationship so that God would be our spiritual father. Every family here then is not talking about the Fadges and the Heaths and the Irelands and the Bournes and on and on, but it's talking about those who are spiritually in his family. The key word here is in heaven. All those believers from the Old Testament, together with all those believers from the New Testament, God has given each of us a name that only he knows. We are named in his family. And spiritually, there are two fathers. Remember, Jesus talking to the Pharisees said, I am of my father, you are of your father. Your father is the devil. He was a liar from the beginning. And unfortunately, all who are not with Jesus are against him. There are only two choices. There's not a third choice. Wait and see. I'll sit on the fence and just wait and see how it all plays out. That choice is for Satan because it is not for God. And so we have then, he gives us to, he prays that according to his riches in glory, riches of glory are precious to the believer. What are some of them? I'm just gonna list through them real fast. I think you have them in your notes, but chapter one, verse three, spiritual blessings in the heavenlies. One verse four, chosen in him before the creation. Verse seven, given redemption and forgiveness. Verse nine, the revelation of the mystery of his will. Verse 11, given an inheritance with his son. Verse 12, being made into the praise of his glory. Instead of hot chicks of wrath, being made into the praise of his glory. Instead of being the ones who, you see the burn pile out here and you think, you know, that's just The fire's gonna come and it's gonna consume that. Instead of that, you see the pile of us and you see that God has redeemed us and made something brand new out of it that brings praise to his glory and greatness. Being sealed with the Holy Spirit, verse 13, which is the spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge of him being sealed with the Holy Spirit. Enlightening the eyes of our hearts so that we could know the hope to which he's called us, verse 18. being made alive with Christ, chapter 2, verse 5, being raised and seated with Christ in the heavenlies, verse 6, shown the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ, verse 7, being brought near to God, verse 13, in Christ by His blood, being given peace with God, verse 24, and more and more that is listed in many places throughout scripture. Not that God would just give us these riches, but that we would be strengthened by God according to the riches of His glory. That we would be strengthened by God according to the riches of His glory that now belong to us in Christ. That's the wonder of it all. It's not just that he is the... Let's put it in human terms here. It's not just that he is this amazing, amazingly rich and wealthy person. We could talk about wealthy persons. In our Bible study, I gave some illustrations from David Beckham, who is a football player in England, a soccer player. If somebody gave out of his wealth, it would be like a millionaire giving a gift of $100 to something. You think, boy, he's got lots more that he can give. That's one of the things that when I see people who are fabulously wealthy putting up a charitable thing, and I set up this foundation so that you can give. Wait a minute. How much are you giving this foundation? But it says he gives according to his wealth. Now at the time that this stuff was put together, Beckham was worth about 320 million pounds. Trying to remember, is a pound a dollar and a half today? Something near that. On his 33rd birthday, his wife gave him a golden laptop computer. cost her 10,000 pounds. On his 26th birthday, he gave her, his wife, some cross-shaped earrings valued at 200,000 pounds. For his birthday, he invited all of his family and friends to travel with him to Marrakech, Morocco. It cost him 50,000 pounds for that birthday party. His wife received a pink diamond ring, 850,000 pounds. The eldest son's 21st birthday, he gave him a private concert from Stormzy, and I have no clue who Stormzy is, but they charged 100,000 pounds. The greater your wealth, the greater the gift must be in order to be considered according to the riches of your glory. God is not limited by human wealth. He's the one who made it. And so when it says that he gives to us according to his riches and glory, or Paul is praying for us that we might be strengthened according to his riches and glory, He's not talking about a limited gift. He's talking about all you need with an abundance left over. Paul's prayer on behalf of these others. Paul's prayers were on behalf of others. One exception in Ephesians 6.19, he says, pray for me that I might have the boldness to take advantage of every opportunity to share the gospel. That's what he prays for himself. For the rest of us, he prays that we would be strengthened according to the riches of God's glory in Christ. One of the things about the health and wealth preachers is they're very attractive to the unbelievers. God will help you get rich. I couldn't believe I was listening to, and I've heard three or four different ones do this. The first time I heard it was with Oral Roberts. When I was a child, my mom and dad loved to listen to Oral Roberts. And he said, you may be down to your last $100 in your checking account. If you really trust God to multiply your wealth, send that $100 to me. And I thought, what in the world are you talking? Well, it's seed faith. You plant the seed of $100 and God will return 1,000 to you. That's not what Paul is praying about. The riches of His glory are precious to the believer. It's that spiritual blessings that He has given to us in the heavenly places. It's being chosen for Himself before creation began. It's being given redemption and forgiveness. It's having Him make known to us the mystery of His will. It's having an inheritance with His Son. It's being made into the praise of His glory and sealed by His Holy Spirit. It's being given the spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge of Him. It's having the eyes of our hearts enlightened so that we might know the hope to which He has called us, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, the immeasurable greatness of His might that raised Christ from the dead, seated Christ far above every name in the heavenlies, put all things under Christ's feet and gave Christ as head to the church who created all things by himself and for himself and is being made alive with him, raised from the dead with Christ and in Christ, raised up and seated next to the Father in Christ and with Christ in the heavenly places far above every name and every authority and every power and everything that has any authority both now and in the age to come, and being brought near to God in Christ and being given peace with God. Then one that he refers to as we go on a little bit later, and it happened already in two in chapter two of being made one with the Jews. before God, no longer enemies with God, and no longer enemies with the chosen ones of God, but both at peace in Christ with God. Now remember, he's not praying that God would give us these riches. He already has given us these riches. He's not praying that God would somehow give us more than He's already given us. He has given us all Instead, what he's praying is that we would be strengthened by and according to the riches that now belong to us in Christ. In other words, that we would be able to live in a manner that's worthy of the calling to which we've been called in the next chapter, verse one and two. That we would live in a manner that's consistent with the spiritual wealth that is ours in Christ. The story is told of a bag lady who lived in extreme poverty and died with great riches stuffed into her mattress. And a woman wanted to surprise her mom, and when this bag lady had died, she had this mattress, and she was going to give it to her mom, and she thought, you know, this mattress is just lumpy. And she threw it out and bought a brand new mattress. I'm sorry, who was the daughter of the bag lady? Threw the mattress out and bought a brand new mattress and back lady says, what did you just do? There was a million dollars in that mattress. Or the man who dressed up like a tramp and sold toiletries from door to door, this is in England. And then at the end of the day, he would come home, take a shower, put on his black tie dinner clothes, Get into his chauffeured limousine be driven to a private airport where he would fly to Paris for dinner You live like that we've got vast riches of God They're available to you But you only access them occasionally The omnipotent God dwells within these impotent vessels of clay. That we would be strengthened. The word there for strengthened is dynamis, dynamic power. Again, the word that we use to label what dynamite is, nitro-glycerin, solidified and hardened so that it can be controlled. Remember the stories of people trying to transport nitroglycerin and how careful they had to be and suspend it so carefully. And boy, you don't want to go over that rock. Oh my goodness, that was close. Somebody, Nobel, finally figured out how to stabilize it. Once he stabilized it and realized its incredible portableness and power and what it could unleash in warfare, he tried to repent of his sin and therefore established the Nobel Peace Prize, trying to make up for the war that he unleashed or the greater ability in war. that we would be strengthened with power. That power is greater than dynamite. It's the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead. You throw a piece of dynamite into a grave, the body does not come out raised from the dead. This power is so far greater than that, that when Jesus said, Lazarus, come out, Lazarus came out. Not in tiny little pieces, but still wrapped up in his grave clothes, so he said, go free him so he can move around. The power of God is so great that it does not destroy unless it desires to destroy. It is able to give life and life abundantly. That power exalted Christ far above all others and it raised us up with Christ into the heavenly places and gave Christ to the church as our head. He doesn't just pray that we would be strengthened with power, but that we would be strengthened through His Spirit, the one who sealed us in Christ, verse 13 of chapter 1. Verse 14, the one who guarantees our inheritance in Christ. Chapter 2, verse 18, the one who unites us before the Father. Chapter 2, verse 22, the one who builds us up into the dwelling place of God. Chapter 3, verse 5, the one who has revealed the mystery of God. Chapter 3, verse 15, 16, the one who strengthens every believer. And as much as I would love for him to have prayed that you might be strengthened with power, though I've been working out, He says, with power through his spirit in your inner being. That's what that slide that we talked about earlier in the music time was about. That our inner being would be able to recognize, not only just recognize that the sins of this world, the desires of the flesh, the lusts of our eyes, the pride of life, that all of those things would not only that we would be able to recognize that they are against God, but that we would also have that power strengthened by God's Spirit in our inner man so that we can turn away from those things. That they might no longer have power over us. That they might no longer be the thing that when we're walking by something and our eye catches sight, And our head turns and our mind immediately starts to think, when can I engage in whatever this desire is? That the power we would recognize and reckon as the authority in our life, so that though we are not freed from the presence of those sinful desires, we are able to turn our back on those evil desires and follow after God. The inner being Romans 7.22 says is where we delight in God's We delight not only to read it, we delight not only to ruminate on it and think about it, but we delight to, as Joshua 1.8 says when he says, I will meditate on God's word, it's not the word ruminate, it's the word mumble. And I will keep mumbling it, so that I keep hearing it, so that I'm constantly thinking about it, so that it can't be overpowered in my mind. We delight in God's Word and we desire to obey. And God is the one who gives us that desire, the will to do it, and who also gives us the power to obey. It's the place in 2 Corinthians 4.16 where we are being renewed day by day. I made it through today. I don't know if I'll have enough strength to make it through tomorrow too. Don't worry about that. God pours out grace upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace, grace replacing grace. As we use the grace that he has given to us, he is already pouring out the grace that we need for the next moment. As we use that grace, he's already pouring out the grace that we need for the moment after that. And he always gives us what we need when we need it. Not early and not late. And Romans 2, 29, in our inner being, the spiritual man is where we can see the wonder of God's covenant. That we see this wonderful covenant that he made with Abraham and that we are allowed to enter into through Christ. that we would be no longer held captive to sin, but to God, Romans 8, 9. I want to take you there as we close this sermon today. And by saying we close this sermon today, actually there's four more hours. No, I want to close with these thoughts, and we'll do them fairly quickly. Why do we go back over these things over and over again? Because we need to be reminded. We forget so easily. We are no longer held captives to these sins. Romans 8, 9, you are not in the flesh. You are in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. If you don't have the spirit of Christ, you don't belong to Christ. So either you are in him or you are not in him. The wonder about this passage is that he describes fleshly livers versus spiritual livers. And we're not talking about that physical organ inside of us, but those who live according to the flesh and those who live according to the spirit. Those who live according to the flesh, Romans 5, 8, 5 tells us, they set their minds according to the flesh. They set their minds on the things of the flesh. Those who are of the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. Verse six says, the mind that's set on the flesh is death. The mind that's set on the Spirit is life and peace. The reason the mind set on the flesh is death is verse 7, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God. It does not subject itself to the law of God, and it is not even able to subject itself to the law of God. Verse 8, it cannot please God. In verse 13, if you live according to the flesh, you'll die according to the flesh. that the spiritual livers, the ones who live according to the Spirit, we, verse 9 said, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. And if we don't have the Spirit of Christ, we don't have Christ. If we do have the Spirit of Christ, we have Christ. In verse 13 again, if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, the flesh, you will live. So how do we gain this strength? Be filled with the Spirit. That's how Paul says it in Ephesians 5.18. Be filled with the Spirit. Well, how do we know what that looks like? He gives us an example here. Don't get drunk with wine. That's dissipation. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. What happens as we're imbibing more alcohol, more wine or things, and not just having some wine with dinner or something like that, In Timothy, Paul describes it as one who loves to sit by the wine, to linger by the wine. Just a little bit more, thank you. Yeah, just another shot, yeah. You know, another, let's go to a scotch and soda this time, and just lingering by, and pretty soon, the spirits of the alcohol, that's why they're called spirits, Take over the mind. Mind loses its inhibition. It loses its self-control. It loses its ability to think clearly and becomes controlled by the spirits. So in opposition to that, he says, instead of that, be filled with the spirit. That our mind would not lose control, but that would yield control through the Spirit of God. That the things that He wants us to think would be the things that we think. The things that He wants us to say would be the things that we say. The things that He wants us to do would be the things that we would do. The way that He would react would govern the way that we react. be filled with the Spirit. That's still so nebulous. How do we get our hands around that? In Colossians 3, he gives the same description of what it sounds like when we are filled with the Spirit, but he labels it differently. He says, let the Word of Christ dwell richly within you. With all wisdom, teaching, admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and singing with thankfulness in your heart, that sounds an awful lot like Ephesians 518. Speaking to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and make melody in your heart. In Ephesians, he concludes it with always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father. In Colossians, he concludes it with, Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Sounds like the same outcome. Here the command is, let the peace of Christ, I'm sorry, let the word of Christ dwell richly within you. As we grow in the knowledge of God's word, we find that God's Word is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness so that you and I may be thoroughly, completely, perfectly equipped for every good work that God gives for us to do. To do that, we need to have a mind that has been transformed and is being renewed I jumped ahead of myself here just a second. Oh, and growing in obedience to God's word, Colossians 129, for this purpose, I labor and strive according to his power, which mightily works within me. I need to work at becoming obedient. How do I do that? I flee from sin. 1 Corinthians 10, 14. Idols of every kind. Anything that gets in the way. Flee from it. Temptation, unfoolish, harmful desires. 1 Timothy 6, 9, and 10. Flee from those things. Youthful desires. 1 Timothy 2, 22. Flee from those things. 1 Corinthians 6, 18. Flee from sexual immorality in every form. And fleeing from those things, we turn our backs on them and flee toward God. James 4.7 says, if we resist the devil, and it's not the capital letter D here, We resist the demon, we resist the devil of the temptation, whatever it is that is pushing us away from God, pulling, drawing, trying to entice us away from God, resisting it, and it will flee. Resisting it in God. And then one more out of James. Don't just be hearers of the word, be doers. not just hearers, but doers. Father, let it be so with us. Okay, let's close out here. That you would be strengthened according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus by His power in the inner man and by His spirit in the inner man. One of the things that we must do for God's power to work in our inner man is we must reckon ourselves as dead to sin. Sin can no longer exercise authority over us. We must participate in that battle by God's Spirit who is strengthening us in our inner man according to His riches in glory and grace and in Christ Jesus. And we cooperate. And we have to be willing to say when temptation arises, when the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life rises up and looks us square in the face and says, hey, you really do enjoy this, don't you? that we need to reckon ourselves as dead to that, and turn our back on it, resist it, and say, no more do you exercise authority over me, and turn away and turn toward Christ. And when we do, we find that it is God who has put that will into our hearts to turn away, and God who has given us the power to turn away, and God who has given us the strength to follow after Him. And the more we draw away from those things and we draw toward Christ, the more we get to know Him. And as we get to know Him, we are able to join into the fellowship of suffering for Christ, who endured every kind of temptation that we endure, and yet was without sin, who humbled himself and became obedient to the law of God on our behalf so that he might be the first one who was able to obey the law of God And in him, we are able to become obedient as well. And he was the one who died under the law of God, but not for his own sin, but for our sin, so that we might be made alive under God and his grace. Let that be where we live. Help us to desire it. Help us to be willing to discipline our body for it. Help us to reckon ourselves as dead to sin and alive to Christ. Help us not to set our minds on the things of the flesh. Help us to set our minds on the things of the Spirit. that we might live to You. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.