Unlimited Power and Incomprehensible Love - Ephesians 3:14-21

One of the traditions I've started when we began having grandkids is I would go through the Bible and find a verse that I was going to pray for them, kind of a verse for their life, that I wanted to pray. And for example, Lincoln, our newest one, for now, our newest one, we have another one coming, Micah, January, what? January 17th, the next one added to the crew there. But Lincoln, in Acts chapter 11, he was born in November, in Acts chapter 11, it writes about Barnabas being a man full of the Holy Spirit and full of faith. And I pray that for little Lincoln that one day his life will demonstrate a life full of the spirit and full of faith. There's a proverb in Proverbs chapter 2, Miles was born in February that says that understanding will watch over us. And I pray that for him that he would understand the word of God, and the wisdom of God's word, would watch over his life. Little Oakley, who only lived for 14 hours. She was born at 818, 818 in the evening, and Romans 818 says, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. When I pray for sweet Oakley, I pray about her, I think the Lord, that there's glory in the future that's greater than the suffering we endured in the circumstances surround her very short life with us. This all started with Marcy, who was born. She's 4 years old. She was born on March the 16th. And so I looked through the Bible. My grandkids born earlier in the year. It's a little easier. There's more chapters of the Bible. Ephesians 316. I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his spirit. I pray for Marcy that the Spirit of God, in her, would strengthen her according to all the glorious riches of God. Now, why do I tell that? Because Ephesians 316 is our verse today. We're in Ephesians chapter 3. And I've been praying this for 4 years for Marcy. So when I got to this, my mind immediately went to my prayers, for my grandkids, and the challenge that I think is a great challenge to take on of praying the scriptures, praying the scriptures. I don't want your prayer. I don't know what your prayer life looks like, what you pray for, what you pray about, but I want to challenge you to let the Bible guide your prayers, to let the scripture be the prayer prompts in your life. And the coolest thing is when there's actual prayers in the Bible. You can see, but prayers that someone prayed, that God recorded in the scriptures, and we can read those prayers to see how we ought to be praying. And that's what we have before us today. Ephesians chapter 3, verses 14 through 21 We've been walking through this book for a few weeks. We've come to this prayer that Paul, the writer of the letter, is praying on behalf of the recipients of the letter. Paul, the apostle, one of the early missionaries of the church, is praying for this church in the city of Ephesus, and we have, before us, the request that he was making of God on their behalf. It provides a wonderful model of how we should pray. Let's jump in and look at the beginning of this, and then I'll tell you a little bit where we're going with the latter verse of this. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14. By the way, it's on page 977 of the Bible under the chair in front of you, if you want to grab one of those. If you didn't bring a Bible with you, if you did bring a Bible, turn to page, turn to, I don't know what page it is in your Bible. Turn to Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14. He begins his prayer this way, or his statement passes this way. For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. Our pastor said it opens with the phrase for this reason. Now, you see a phrase like, for this reason, that should cause you to say, for what reason? What is he saying? What's the context here? What has he said leading up to this? And so we look at the verses that lead up to this, and we find that he's not really talking about the things he just said, because if you go all the way up to chapter 3, verse one. Take a look at that. Chapter 3, verse one, verse 14. Just kind of skim up the chapter there. He says the same phrase there, for this reason. For this reason. And so Russen pointed this out last week. If you notice, he starts chapter 3, for this reason, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ, Jesus, on behalf of you, the Gentiles, and then there's a little dash there. Everything that followed from verses 2 through 13 that Ruston preached last week is kind of a digression. It's like he was saying something, and then he goes, and then he starts talking about this and he goes, oh, wait, let me go back to what I was saying. So he comes back to, for this reason. So the, for this reason, actually points us to chapter two. What was chapter 2 about? In chapter 2, he said, you were dead in your sin, but now Jesus has made you alive. You were far from God, but now Jesus has brought you near, and he said, you were divided into different groups, Jews and Gentiles. Jesus has united you into one family. So here's what he's saying. When I think about what God has done, God took you from spiritual death to spiritual life. God took you from being far from him and brought you near to him, and God took 2 groups of people who were divided with great animosity and brought you into one family. When I think about what God has done, it drives me to my knees in prayer. It brings me to knees in prayer. These things, everything I've been sharing, everything I've been writing, when I consider that, it causes me to pray to God on your behalf. Now, he says he bows his knees. Bowing our knees is a physical posture of prayer. We can certainly prey on our knees, but you don't have to prey on your knees. The cool thing is you can pray in any posture. You can pray lying in bed at night, you can pray on your knees at the side of your bed. You could pray, sit in a chair, you could pray with your head bowed, your eyes closed, and your hands folded. You can pray, driving down the road. I don't recommend praying with your eyes closed when you're driving down the road. I try to pray when I go for runs. It doesn't last very long. Anybody do that? I'm like, hey, God, just want to leave you this great day. I'll talk to you later, God. And I just kind of try to stay alive for a few miles and then I pick up my prayers again when I'm walking to cool down. You can pray in any posture. But what does bowing our knees indicate? Bowing our knees is showing an expression of humility, submission and urgency. When we get on our knees, we're saying, God, I'm bowing in humility before you. I'm saying to God, I'm submitting to you. I'm saying to God, God, this request on my heart is so urgent that I want to get on my knees before you and ask you to answer this request. So kneeling doesn't always have to be the posture of our body, but kneeling should always be the posture of our heart, the attitude of our heart. We should always be, even in a heart posture, knelt before him in submission, in humility, and urgency as we come before the Lord. So you said, when I think about what God has done in your life, what God is doing in your church, it brings me to my knees, before the Father, from whom it continues here, verse 15, from whom every family in heaven on earth is named. To play on words here in the original language, you don't catch it in the English translation, but the Greek word for family and father are very similar words. He's doing a little play on words here. You are one family because you call on one father. Because of Jesus, we're all one family. We're united with all the saints who's gone before us, all the saints around the world, all the saints who will follow Jews in the future, we're all one family because we call on one heavenly Father. So what he's saying is here, I recognize what God has done among you in your life. Here's what I want God to continue to do in your life. And so I'm bringing these requests before the Lord. So today what we're going to do is we're going to look at these 3 requests that he makes on their behalf. And I want to encourage you to write these down. I want to encourage you to consider making Paul's prayer your prayer list this week. I don't know what you're praying for right now, what's going on in your life, what you're bringing before the lore, but I want to challenge you to make this, let these scriptures guide your prayer list this week. What are you praying for yourself? What are you praying for your family? What are you praying for those you care about? What are you praying for our church? These requests make a great prayer list. Write these down, make them your prayer list this week. My hope is that you would desire and pray that God would allow the things that Paul is praying for to be true in your life in the lives of those you care about. Let's jump in and see what he's praying. Three requests. Number one, he's praying that the limitless power of God would grant us inner strength. Pray that the limitless power of God would grant us inner strength. Look at verse 16. Bowing my knees before the Father, asking this. Number one, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. His 1st request is they would be strengthened with power. Now, notice a few things about this. Notice, 1st of all, he said, I'm praying that this power would come from the riches of his glory, or it would be according to the riches of his glory, that from God's glorious, unlimited resources, he would strengthen you. It's not just out of his riches, but it says, according to his riches. God's ability to bless you is in accordance with his limitless, unlimited power to bless you. Think about this way. I saw the news last week, Elon Musk just became a trillionaire. That's crazy, to get my mind around that. I'm going to guess, Micah, that Elon Musk kids get better Christmas gifts than you get, right? Now, I'd love to bless you with whatever Elon Gibbs, his, he has got like a dozen kids, I think, does he, something like that. So a lot of kids to buy for, but he's got a lot of money to buy it with. He can bless his kids to a degree that I can't bless my kids. Nobody can say to me, well, Elon's kid got this for his birthday. Well, Elon is a trillionaire. And so what we're saying here is God has our father in heaven, has unlimited resources. And according to the riches of his glory, He grants us this inner strength by the spirit. We live in a day where our in our earthly life, our resources are limited. Is there ever cause you stress, the limited power in your life? You ever something to run out of power? Just this morning, I was every Sunday morning, I open my sermon up on my laptop, give it one last look, change anything, and then I send it over to my iPad, I can use to preach from. This morning, I wanted to change a couple things. I thought of laying in bed this morning or in the shower. add a little quick thing. Oh, my laptop, it's like red battery, like almost dead. And my charger is in the other room. Not gonna go get it. But instead I'm like, I gotta hurry. I gotta hurry. My battery's gonna die. You ever get that situation where your charger's not in the other room? and your battery's about to die. That stress on you and you're about to run out of power. Does that happen to your cell phone, your cell phone battery ever go down, ever cost stress? It did when our kids were younger and they had cell phones. We had a road trip. Now cars have like 5 or 10 different ports all over the car. We had like a cigarette lighter with the thing in there. you know, charge it. And the kids will go, my battery's dying. Well, so is mine. What's your percentage? I've got nine. Well, I've got four. And there's like this thing of whoever the lowest percentage got to plug this thing. My cell phone is, the kids don't even know. When I was younger, we ran out of minutes. It wasn't just the battery. Like, you're gonna let talk for so many minutes and then your phone quit working. What a day that was. You run out of power. Isn't it good to know that we call upon a heavenly Father who has unlimited power, unlimited resources to bless us. One of my favorite things about Facebook is being friends with Gail Perkins, and reading the story she tells about her kids. Anybody friends with Miss Gale and read the stories, the adventures of the Perkins family? I love this one the other day. Andre wanted to go to the World Cup. And Gail said, we can't go to the World Cup. Those tickets cost 1000s of dollars that Andre said, you spend 1000s of dollars on your van all the time. And his mine was, we clearly have 1000s of dollars because I remember when our van broke down and it costs 1000s of dollars. So what's the difference between fixing the van or buying the World Cup tickets? Because Ms. Gale has limited resources. You can have a van or you can go to the World Cup. You get a walk everywhere, or you can watch a soccer match. Those are your choices, right? We don't have to put God in that position where his, he has choices about how much he has to bless our lives. He has unlimited resources. He's going to bless us with inner strength, according to the riches of his glory, because of his spirit that dwells within us. As followers of Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. We saw this in Ephesians chapter one, verse 13. When you heard of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, you were sealed with the promised holy spirit. You're blessed with the Holy Spirit. And because the spirit lives in us, we have the inner strength. And notice what he says here in his prayer request. My prayer is that you will have strength in your inner being. You see, so often my prayers are about my external circumstances. God, fix this external circumstance of my life. Paul's prayer is, God, give them the inner strength to endure whatever is set before them. We look not to the external answers that we want that we desire, but to the internal strength we need to endure whatever comes our way. Well, God has the power to grant you any request. God has the power to intervene in every situation. He will not always answer our prayers the way we desire him to answer our prayers. So often our prayers are for, fix this thing, Paul's prayer is, give them strength, give them strength. A friend of mine many years ago, his mother was diagnosed with ALS. And I was told him I was praying for him, praying for his mom, and he said, Pastor, it's hard to know how to pray because I'm praying for my mother's healing. I want God to heal her. He said, but I know he was a nurse. He said, I know as a medical professional. No one has ever recovered from this diagnosis. This is always, 100% of the time, a terminal diagnosis. See, I'm asking God to do something that I want him to do, that know he can do, but I know the majority of times he doesn't do. How do you pray for that? I thought of that when we walked through this with Oakley, our granddaughter who had tried to be 18, praying for a healing, knowing God could heal her, but I know that 1000s of parents every year pray for healing for their baby with this, and God doesn't answer that prayer, the way they want God to answer that prayer. And so it's unlikely that he's going to answer my prayer because typically he, that's a prayer. He doesnt answer the way people have prayed that prayer. And so what am I asking God for? I'm asking God for the inner strength. I don't know how he's gonna answer my external, my prayer for external intervention. But I do know that he gives me inner strength from his unlimited resources. So what is he praying here? He's praying that whatever they face, whatever they go through, that God would, according to his unlimited resources, give them the inner strength that they need. It reminded me of a song, a Christian song from the 90s. I went back and looked this up. It's kind of plain in my head when I was thinking about this point. Um, It's called sometimes he calms the storm. listen to the lyrics of this. Sometimes he calms the storm. With a whisper, peace be still, he can settle any sea, but it doesn't mean he will. Sometimes he holds us close and lets the wind and waves go wild. Sometimes he calms the storms, and other times he calms his child. That's what inner peace is. Sometimes the storm's gonna rage, but Jesus is gonna give us the inner strength to go through the storm. Pray that God from his limitless power, his unlimited power, would give us the inner strength to face whatever comes our way in life. Second request, pray that Jesus would make himself at home in our hearts. Pray that Jesus would make himself at home in our hearts. Look at verse 17. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So we Spain, that Christ would give you inner strength, or God would give you inner strength through a spirit, and then that Christ would dwell in your heart's due faith. Now, what does this mean? He's praying for Christians. These are people who have put their faith in Jesus, who are children of God, followers of Jesus. And he prays that Christ would dwell in their hearts. So the 1st thought I had when I read this. As I 1st glance at this, is that wouldn't they already have Christ in their life if they're followers of Jesus? John 14, 23, Jesus said, if anyone loves me, I will, excuse me, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and he will come to him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Jesus will make us home with us. Revelation 320 Behold, I stand at the door, knock anyone who hears my voice, and opens the door. I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. So I already have the presence of Christ in my life. Why is he praying that Christ would then dwell in my heart. You see, the request is not that Christ would be in their hearts. The request is that God would, a Christ would dwell in their hearts. It's not praying that Christ would be in their heart because Christ is in their heart. He's saying something different. He will dwell in your heart. Now, what does it mean for Jesus to dwell in our heart? Look more closely at that. And discovered this word in the original language means to settle down, to make yourself at home. Some translate it this way, then Christ will make his home in your hearts. Make himself at home. Use that phrase ever, make yourself at home. What do you mean when you tell someone, make yourself at home? You're saying, my house is your house. You need something to eat, go get out of the kitchen. You need something to drink, go use something to drink. You just relax. My house is your house. This is your place. I want you to be at home here. That's what he's saying. Not just Jesus to be a guest, but to Jesus, for Jesus to make himself at home. to settle down, to make it his home. One scholar said, he is a permanent resident in every saved person, but this is a request that he might have full access to every room and closet. Every room and closet. We noted a couple weeks ago, we noticed a lot as our studies through scriptures, that, um, Christ dwells with us and in us and among us. It doesn't dwell in a building. You have to go to a temple or church building to meet with God. He's with us all the time. Jesus is with us all the time. Now, that's comforting, but it's also a little sobering, isn't it? It's one thing to say, Jesus is with me wherever I go. Yeah, but guess what? Jesus is with you wherever you go. It's one thing to say, Jesus is in my heart. Yeah, but does he have like full reign of your heart? Is he guess? You have those people you love them as guests, but you wouldn't want them living with you. Don't name any names. Don't look sideways. Don't nudge anyone. Some of you, Quinn, you're looking at your mom. I don't know which one wanted out there, but you have a guy, Quinn, good to have you visit him for the weekend. When are you going back home to college? You know, your parents are going to say that later? Your dad later is going to say, son, can I get your suitcase for you? Can I carry it to the car? We have this for you, you want them in your home? Do I want them as a permanent resident in my home? You want Jesus to be a guest in your life, an occasional visitor? Or will Jesus be at home in your heart? Does he have free reign in your heart? I'll say to people, make yourself at home. I don't really mean like you get into every room of the home. Several years ago we started having people that would stay with us. living in our guest rooms, we kind of take in different circumstances. And I put a lock on my office door, one of those little combo things you got to punch to get in. I got some stuff in there, you know, files and financial stuff. And I just want one room in my house that's kind of locked off, right? And then we started renting rooms of our house to people as all the, if I get around all the kids. And we started renting our guest rooms. And we recently rented a 5 Ecuadorians for the World Cup. And my wife's like, do you know these people? I said, nope, but I know someone who knows them. And a friend of mine said they're friends of hers, and then I found out later, she just met them in line at Starbucks. And so like, this story got crazy. So, how do you know him? How do you know Tiffany? They're like, oh, I met her at Starbucks at the airport? I'm like, all right, so make yourself at home. So I went out and bought a couple of those, like, couple more of those doorknobs that have the little thumbprint lock. And so now I've got another lock on my bedroom door and I've got another lock on the basement door. And so I say, make yourself at home. Now, there are 3 rooms you can't get in, but make yourself at home. Now, don't we do that to Jesus sometimes? Make yourself at home. I'm going to lock a couple of doors here that you don't get access to, Jesus. No, this says, he gets the whole heart. He gets every room. He gets every closet. Paul's prayer is, I want Jesus to be at home in your heart. I want him to dwell as a permanent, all access, resident of your life. And when he does that, things begin to change. How many of you men, when you got married and your wife moved in, the place started to look different than it did when you were single? I remember I lived in an apartment in Springfield. We got married. my wife moved in, she started changing things. She flipped the toilet paper around. Apparently, I did that wrong. There were like pictures on the wall, no more posters with sticky tack, like actual framed pictures hung on nails. There were plants in my home that needed to be watered, didn't care for. And my home began to look different because my wife moved in and said, if I'm going to live here, the place is going to look different. That's what Jesus does when he moves into our heart. He dwells in our heart. He makes himself at home in our heart. This is Paul's prayer. The spirit of God would give you the strength for Jesus to have full rein in your heart. And then he says, Because ultimately, I want you to experience the incomprehensible love of Christ. You see all these build on each other? It's kind of like a maybe a pyramid, you have the 1st request, and then the 2nd one, and then the 3rd one, or one writer said it's like a telescope. I pray this, and then I pray this, and then I pray this, as these unfold. Jesus gives me inner strength. His spirit gives me inner strength to make Jesus a permanent resident who dwells in my heart. He's at home in my heart. And then so that I can experience the full love of Jesus. Look at verse 17, 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. See, his 3rd request is that they would comprehend, to whatever degree possible, the great love of Christ. Having been rooted and grounded in love, he says in verse 17. You have your roots in Christ. And that has now become the foundation for continued growth in Christ, just as a tree with strong roots, continues to grow, you having your roots in Christ, will continue to grow. And your comprehension of the love of Christ in which you've been rooted. So he's not talking about a fuller intellectual knowledge of Christ. He's talking about a deeper experience of the love of Christ. We see this in 2 words. In verse 18, notice the word comprehend, comprehend. And then in verse 19, notice the word no. What do these words mean? Comprehend could also be translated to grasp. It means to know something experientially, not just intellectually. It's a strong, deep understanding of the love of Jesus that comes not through just studying it, but through experiencing it in your life, the full implications of the love of Jesus. I want you to fully comprend it. Verse 19. I want you to know it. What does this word know mean? This word no in the original language meant to know by experience. Not just, you read about it, you heard about it, but you know it. You've experienced it. It's a real thing and you're alive. A relational, experiential, encounter with the love of Jesus. In fact, he even says it surpasses knowledge. It's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it? He said, what I want you to do. I want you to know something that's not fully knowable. It's not that you can't know the love of Jesus. It's that you can't fully know it. You can't fully understand it. It surpasses knowledge. It's not unknowable. It just can't be fully known. It has to be experienced. And there's no limit to it. He says, I want you to know this love that extends, notice he says here, I want you to know the breadth and the length and the height and the depth. I want you to fully understand all there is to the love of Christ. There are no limits to his love. No one is beyond the reach of his love. No group is exempt from his love. You think about that through the lens of the book of Ephesians and everything he's been laying out. His love is wide enough to include Jew and Gentile. His love is long enough to extend those to those cut off from him. His love is deep enough to bring the spiritually dead back to life. His love is high enough to raise us up and seat us in heavenly places. You're not beyond the reach of his love. He doesn't just love the world. He loves you. You firm you say many times, there's a difference between saying Jesus is, thus savior and Jesus is, my savior. A lot of people say Jesus is the savior of the world. He's not their personal savior. I think you can apply that same idea here. A lot of people say, God, for God so loved the world, but they don't understand. God loves you. God loves you. You're not exempt from his love. He sees every flaw. That you hide from others. He sees the filtered version of your life, that others don't see, and yet he loves you. He loves you. One of the things will happen a lot at Northland, people will come here that coming to church is kind of a new thing for them. Maybe they don't have a relationship with Christ. They haven't really given much thought to the spiritual side of their life and they'll begin attending Northland, and they'll come a few weeks and I'll get some time with them. And they'll say something. This happens a couple times a year. have this conversation. They'll say something like this. Pastor, love coming to Northland, but man, I just don't know if I fit in there. I said, what do you mean? And they say, everyone at Northland really has everything together. And they say, my life is a wreck. There's a lot of baggage in my life, right now, there's a lot of brokenness in my life. There's a lot of stuff, frankly, that I'd just be embarrassed to even tell you about. He goes, I come to Northland, and I see all these people that have it all together. Oh man, you don't even know. Some of you are nodding your heads, like, you know, and I'm looking at you nodding my head also. Yeah, we I know, right? We know there's there's brokenness, and there is a lot of junk in our lives, but we put the mask on on Sunday. So what do people see when they show up on Sunday? They see the masks that we put on that mask the brokenness of our lives that we want to hide. And we realize, hey, God sees through that mask. He knows the brokenness of your life. He knows the junk in your life and he loves you. He loves you. He sees the unfiltered version of your life. How many of you, my wife, my wife and my daughter will both do this. I'll take a selfie and they said, let me look at those before you post that. And they go through my phone. And they say, okay, you can put that. put this one. oh, and they'll say, oh my gosh, why would you put that? You know, my hair is this or that. And I'm like, I don't know, it's fine to me. We put the filtered version of our life out there. Y'all, this summer. You going to put the that awesome vacation selfie where everyone's smiling. You're not going to post the chaos of the minivan. moments before that picture was taken. The argument you had with your wife because you weren't leaving on time. The argument she had with you because you weren't loading the SUV the right way. We don't put those out there. We put the smiling happy picture. God sees the junk and he loves you. There's nothing beyond his love for you. No one is beyond the reach of his love. We see it all throughout scripture. Moses, the murderer, Rahab, the prostitute, Zaccheus, the swindler, Peter, the denier, Paul, the persecutor. none of them were beyond the reach of God's love. I love it. I was thinking of the verse of this hymn. We're going to close with it here in a little bit. The love of God. I think maybe one of the most powerful verses of any hymn ever written, the poetry of this. Could we with ink, the ocean fill? And were the skies of parchment made? Where every stalk on earth, a quill, and every man ascribed by trade. To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. You cannot exhaust. The height, the width, the depth, the breadth of the love of Jesus. The celebrity, he has for you the love, we should we pray, that we experience, those we love experience, that are, those in our church experience, that depth of Jesus' love. Then he concludes his prayer. A couple of things at the end of his prayer, one. is an expression of his confidence in God's power. Notice verse 20. Now to him who was able to do far more abundantly, that all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. It's almost a little kind of a weird written verse. He's trying to find the right words to express the inexpressible power of God. Now to him who was able to do far more abundantly, far more abundantly, that all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. He's made a bold request of God. And now he's expressing his confidence in God's ability to answer those requests. There are no limits to God's love. There are no limits to his power. He's able to do far more abundantly. Look at the different ways. English translators have brought this over in English, able to do far, excuse me, able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think, able to accomplish infinitely more than what we might ask or think, or one translates, it's immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine what we can even come up with in our mind. Notice what he's saying here. God can not only do what you're asking. He can do more than what you're asking, he can do what you're even thinking. He can do more than what you're thinking, he can actually do abundantly more than what you're even thinking. They like this. like, here's what I ask of God. God, I ask you to do this. And Paul said, he can do that. Guess what you also do. He can do not just what you ask, but what you think, what you imagine. I can't even, I didn't ask him for it. I can even imagine asking him for it. He goes, now take what you ask, take what you imagine. God can do far more than that. And actually, God can do abundantly far more than that. He's like, you see the progression here? He can do way more than your imagination can even come up with. In your wildest imagination, What would you like to see God do? Paul said, I'm praying with confidence that God is able to do far more than I can even come up with. And then he concludes with his desire for God's glory, his desire for God's glory, verse 21, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. All that God does, he does for his glory. Our highest aim, our greatest desire, should be for the glory of God, for God to be glorified. The ultimate goal of our existence. It's the ultimate goal throughout all generations. God works in our life by his power, for his glory, and then we get to reap the benefits of that. What do we do with this? Consider these prayer requests that Paul prayed on that behalf of the Ephesians. Make them requests for your own life. And for those in your life, pray for inner strength. I don't know what your circumstances are right now. He may or he may not change the external circumstances of your life, but he can give you the strength to face them. Pray for the inner strength, according to the riches of his power. By his spirit in you. Second, Give Jesus access to every room. Give Jesus access to every room. Is he at home in your heart? Are there rooms you've locked off to him? Give him free reign, full surrender of your heart to him. Rest in Christ's love. If you never trusted him, if you never turn from your sin, to put your faith in Jesus today can be the day where you turn to him and trust him as your savior. Have you wandered off from him? You've not wandered beyond the reach of his love. You can turn to him. and return to him. And then pray with confidence. There are no limits to his love. There are no limits to his power. He is able to do far more than you can imagine. And finally seek his glory. Is God's glory the greatest desire of your life? Is that desire reflected in your prayer life? Professor in seminary years ago? who said, this is how we can tell that we're really consumed with the glory of God? When we're praying for something, if we can pray God, this is what I want you to do, but if it would bring you greater glory, to not answer my prayer, what I ultimately want is your glory. Would I be willing to say to God? I want your glory to the degree that even if you have to say no to my request for you to get greater glory. That's how I know, that I'm able to pray for the glory of God in my life. Pray that he'll strengthen us for his glory, that he'll show us his love for his glory, that will give our hearts fully to him for his glory. And that he'll put his power on display in our lives, his unlimited, unmatchless, incomprehensible power, on display in our life, for his glory. Let's pray together. Father. I make this my prayer. For our Northland church family. God, would you grant us? according to the riches of your grace, strength in our inner spirit. God, would Christ dwell fully in our hearts? And God, would you allow us to experience the breadth and length and depth of your love? Would you show us your love that surpasses all knowledge? Would you reveal to us your power to do more than we ask or think far more abundantly? And most of all, God, would you be glorified in our lives? In our families, in our church. Would you be glorified? We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.