I Bow My Knees Before The Father - Pastor Daniel Batarseh (Ephesians Series)

Ephesians three fourteen. Paul says, 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 the length, and the height, and the depth. And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Let's pray together. Father, our request echoes the apostle Paul's. We want to know the love of Christ to a greater degree. And Lord, it surpasses knowledge. And so help us with our limited ability to understand, to just have a glimpse, a greater glimpse of that love.

And Lord, let that love set hearts free from so much. Lord, help us understand that this love cannot be compared to any other love. And so Lord, what sometimes preaching cannot do, we pray it to happen. Reveal to us by the assistance of your Holy Spirit to know the love of Christ. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. Here we find a man that was confined by the thick solid walls of an ancient prison. A servant of Christ that was bound by feathers and chains. One who was under the surveillance of soldiers on a consistent basis. Do not forget that he is writing from a prison, and that he identifies himself as a prisoner of Christ.

Yet this one, who is so confined in a suffocating cell, was also one who had a revelation that though he himself was limited to serve the master in the way that he would desire, wanting to be face to face with his people, those that he preached the gospel to, those that he knew were the fruit of his ministry. Though he sensed that restraint, he also had this revelation that his prayers could not be bound by chains or prison doors. I bow my knees before the father as though to say, I may be thrown into the deepest dungeon that man has ever created. You may dig a cave into the center of a mountain and leave me there. I may be deserted in some wilderness or I may even be lying awake in the midnight hour of my room.

Nevertheless, when I posture myself before the father, I enter into a realm of possibilities beyond my limitations. I bow my knees before the father. Consider the access that we have to the father. That no matter where I am on this planet, when I bow my knees before the father, I've gained the attention of heaven. Perhaps there's a man who is lying sick on his deathbed, crippled by the pain that is shooting up and down his body.

And with the little strength that he has, he murmurs with his quivering lips, father. In that moment the Lord hears him. Or perhaps there's a woman, a mother of four running around town trying to fulfill her duty, and here she is traveling through public transit to her home, exhausted and overwhelmed. Yet underneath her breath, she says, father, right there, he hears her. Do you remember when the Apostle Paul was saved, when he had that wonderful encounter on the Damascus Road, and Jesus commissions this man named Ananias to go up to Paul, and to lay hands on him, and to baptize him?

These little phrases are so significant. And in Acts nine eleven, look what the Lord says about Paul. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight. And at the house of Judas, look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying. For behold, he is praying.

There's many things from that statement alone, and one of them is this that, Ananias could take assurance that something happened to Paul because he is now a man who is seeking God. He does not need to be afraid of this persecutor of the church, before behold, he is praying. And though Paul, if you know, was blind at this moment, because he postured himself before God, God saw him. See, even if you are blinded, so to speak, you can take assurance and knowing that God sees you. You can't see the next step, but he sees you.

His eyes are on you, and he gives, pay attention, special attention to those who pray. For behold, he's praying. If you ever taken a flight, I love to think of this whenever I have the chance to fly. I look out when we reach the highest altitude. I look out of the window if I'm I had the window seat, and I look down at the horizon.

I look I just see you can almost see sometimes you can see the edge of the earth if you get high enough, almost, if it's a clear day. And I just look and sometimes if you get low enough, you can see the city, whatever angle you're looking at. And I just think to myself, God, God Almighty, the earth is his footstool. Yet when a man prays, he sees past all of that and he zooms into that person and gives him his attention. It's fascinating.

Behold, he prays. We have access to him at any time, at any moment. Consider how we can call him father. Before the father, I bow my knees before the father. I can call him father.

I can have access to him like a father, a good father at least. And so he can seek him as father, but realize his posture. He is bowing his knees before the father. And so it's this blend of, as we talked about Friday, of freedom and liberty, but reverence and respect. And so yes, I come to him but I also realize who he is as my father, therefore I cannot help but bow my knees before him.

This is not speaking of a physical posture as much as it is is an inner posture. And we talked about how do we walk in that? How do we release that tension of, yes, I can call him father, but he's also king. And I believe it's coming down to the point of meditating on the fact of how you can even call him father. How you've been given that access to call him father will humble you.

I can assure you. When you realize that that's not some title that's been given to you, just happenstance or just one of the names. No. It's given by being born again through the gospel. And you realize the justice of God, the wrath of God, the holiness of God, and the love of God, and all those things blended together, it will humble you when you approach him.

People who have the lack of reverence of addressing God as he ought to be addressed have a very limited view of who he is and what he's done. I can't tell you that much. I bow my knees before the father. Let's talk about again the fact that, yes, we have access to the father, we can call him father, but think about the power of prayer. The limitless power of prayer.

We discussed how even in seasons like Paul where we have this desire and this burning zeal to do much for Christ, to sacrifice, to labor, to travel, whatever he asks of us, we're willing to do. And sometimes in seasons like Paul, we are held back, and we are restrained, and we we find ourselves frustrated because we wanna go and do yet, in his sovereignty, he's not letting us. But in his providence, in his wisdom, we know that he's writing this letter and he's writing few other letters. But at the same time, he also knows this. If I can't go, I know what can go.

My prayers can go. If I can't leave these prison walls, you know what can? My prayers can go. And so I bow my knees before the father. This is the power of prayer, that prayer not only does not know distance.

Do you know what I mean by that? That you can be praying for somebody over in The Middle East, in Russia, in China, and God. I don't know how it works, but we just have to believe that God can work on a person's heart from here. It does not know distance. But think of it this way, it does not even know an expiration date.

Your prayers don't have an expiration date, so to speak. What do I mean by that? That though the man dies, his prayers still live on. The prayers of a man outlive the man himself. And people debate about Stephen's last prayer there when he asked the Lord to forgive those that were persecuting him.

The debate is around this, Did God hear Stephen's prayer? And on behalf of Stephen's prayer, in some sense, recruit the apostle Paul because of that prayer. Because the apostle Paul, who was Saul at the time, was standing right there, and he dies in his dying breath, Lord forgive them. And not too long after that, we see Jesus appearing to the Apostle Paul, revealing himself to him. George Muller had these five people in mind that he prayed throughout his lifetime, and throughout different spans of years, they were saved one by one, except for two, except for two.

And he made a vow that he would not give up praying for these people. And I don't know the exact timing, but something along the lines of one was saved after five years, another was saved after forty years, another was saved after something in between that, but these last two were not saved. And he did not give up until his dying breath, and those two got saved after he died. The prayers of a man outlive the man. What a thrill to think about that your prayers and my prayers, if God so chooses in his wisdom and sovereignty, yes, he can answer them.

How much how much do we pray for revival and believe God for a move of his spirit? Why? Because we're in desperate need of one. But if he so chooses, let his will be done that we would be witnesses of such glory. But we must understand that we are also possibly sowing into another generation, unless the Lord comes back.

They outlive a man. And Paul knew this. Paul knew this. He already demonstrated the fact that he was a praying man in chapter one. We covered half of a chapter of Paul and his prayer request for this very same people.

Yet this man had such a revelation of prayer, so great was his faith and so great was his understanding of his need of the intervention of God, that here he is again showing, I pray. And you just see this pattern. He teaches theology, then he stops and he says, I'm praying for you. He teaches some more theology and he stops and says, hey, I'm praying for you. He had an understanding of prayer.

He was a balanced man. He was learned, but he was dependent. Oh, he could teach doctrine, but he also knew that this doctrine would not be able to dominate the man's heart unless God took it and branded it on the man. He knew that he could preach. He knew that he could teach.

He knew that he was entrusted to such a task. But he also knew that apart from the power of God, apart from the work of the Holy Spirit that takes this word and carries it, and cuts the man's heart, it will not prove to be effective. And so he stops and he prays. He stops and he prays. He teaches, but he prays.

Oh, preacher. Any preachers in here? If you aspire to be one, realize that you need to balance your study with intercession. Oh yeah, you prepare your text, but you better saturate your sermon. Realizing that even the most eloquent, even the most in-depth, even the most impressive can just skim over the minds of men, and not penetrate their hearts.

And he prays again. But he's a specific man who prays specific prayers. Ephesians one seventeen, he says in verse 16, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge of him. That the eyes of your hearts may be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might. And here he is again, he's saying, I bow my knees before the father.

He's gonna pray for something specific as well. And let's just understand this right off the bat. The substance and the subjects of Paul's prayer, if you realize up to this point, are spiritual in nature. Are spiritual in nature. By seeing this, we understand that what consumes Paul for other believers more than anything is their spiritual state.

It's how they perceive and understand the truths of God, of how they are living concerning the revelation that they have received through the word of God. You don't see him praying for things that many people pray for today. A good job, a good education, enough money to be able to travel and have a vacation. Hey, there is nothing wrong with any of those things. But many people have reduced prayer for God to just simply meet some needs in this life and are literally bankrupt in the things of the spirit.

They are literally missing out on the glorious riches in Christ because they have this limited understanding of what prayer does. It's not about God just giving you things in this life, concerning materialism, and pleasures, and experiences, even good ones. Now don't get it twisted. He says also in the word, cast all your anxieties on him for he cares for you. But many people limit their request to the things of this world.

And you look at Paul and the way he prays, and he's asking for spiritual blessings. Because when you have these things let me tell you something. When you really walk in what he's asking for, all those other things kinda just fall in the background. All those hobbies and those things that you desire so much really can be eclipsed by what he's asking for here. And so look at even the subject of his prayers.

Look how he gets specific. What is he asking for in verse 16? That according here he is. Here's his first request. That according to the riches of glory stop right there.

Oh, he has abundance of glory. He does not ever run out of the things that he's about to ask for. His resources are not limited. According to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened, what? With power.

That you may be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being. What's his first request? Number one, that you would receive strength from on high in your inner man. That you may receive strength. Why?

Because in this walk, we get weary. In this walk, we can lose focus. In this walk, we could feel like giving up. And we see here that the source of strength for you to be consistent in your Christian walk is not dependent upon how you can do in your own strength. I mean, I've just prayed this morning that you would rejoice in what we're about to discover together here.

Let me say this again. The source of strength is supplied by the spirit, And there is an abundance of strength that he wants to shower over your life. And this strength that comes from his power is necessary for so much in the Christian life. We need this power to be bold to preach this gospel. Are you a coward?

Are you afraid of people? Are you timid and wanting to share your faith? Guess what? You don't have to muster up your personality and clean up how you communicate. You know what you need?

Power from on high. You're looking at yourself too much. You realize that you're not good with your words. You realize that you're limited in your knowledge. Hey.

Stop looking at yourself. That power comes from him. The power to overcome sin in my life. And you're probably hearing me and you're saying, man, we've been talking about this for so long. Hey.

It's being repeated in the scriptures. He's talking about the very similar power that he talked about in chapter one. The same power that rose Christ from the dead now is available to you. He's saying this again. Why?

Because the Holy Spirit wants us to get it. Listen, what sin are you struggling with? And how are you fighting that sin? I don't care what it is. Listen, I don't wanna sound like I'm not sensitive.

Even the things that have been done to you, that have caused you to be this person, this sinful being, because many sins that we have in our life can be reactions and responses to the hurt that's been done to us. It could be anything. But how are you fighting it? Are you falling and then repenting and then falling and then repenting and then falling and then asking for forgiveness? And you just see this cycle.

You're not seeing victory. What are you doing with it? You know what you need to be doing with it? Getting the supply from the Spirit. Getting your strength from the Holy Spirit.

Don't buy I don't even care if it's sexual sin. Well, I'm just a guy and a lot of guys struggle with it. I don't care. That's not the Bible. The Bible doesn't tell you that.

The Bible says, this is the will of God, your sanctification. That you abstain that you abstain from sexual immorality, and that each of you learn how to control his own body in holiness and in honor. Not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. And in first Thessalonians four, you fast forward down to verse seven and eight, and he says, therefore, whoever disregards this does not disregard man, but God. In other words, if you do not like the doctrine of holiness, if you don't like holiness preaching, you're not fighting against man, you're fighting against God.

But it doesn't end there. Who, whoever disregards this does not disregard man, but God, who, what, gives his Holy Spirit to you? In other words, don't despise, don't give up, stop fighting against this understanding that you can live holy, and that God wants you to live holy even in your sexual purity. Why? Because he gives you the holy spirit to live that out.

So if you're rejecting that idea, if you're offended by that idea, if you don't wanna live in that reality, and you you wanna kinda live in this half and half this half sense of victory, and you just determine in your mind that this is how I'm gonna live because I'm human, you are not only rejecting the idea, you're rejecting the power that he wants to give you to walk holy. And he says that the source of strength, the source of power, my prayer and desire is that it would be manifested in the inner man. He says that, does he not? Why would he say the inner man? Because it is the inner man where this arena of battle is taking place.

What did Jesus say in Mark seven? Mark seven twenty. And he said, letters in red, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, out of the heart of man, come what?

This list of absolute filth. Evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, envy, slander, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and they defile a person. Can you point out any of one of those? Or can you can you relate to all of them?

I'm not a murderer. Do you hate your brother in your heart? I'm not an adulterer. Have you looked at a woman and thought what what would it be like to sleep with her? Have you ever had evil thoughts?

Have you ever envy somebody? Have you ever slandered? Do you struggle with pride? Where is all of that coming from? Your heart.

It's all from here. And Paul is so specific with his language. He says, I'm praying that you would receive strength through the power of the spirit in your inner man. That the spirit of God would so abide in you that it would overpower all of those things. Just pick one.

All of those things can be overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit. You know, the more we study the scriptures, the more this is the beauty of taking a text and just chewing on these verses and taking our time to see what the word of God is saying. The more we study, I hope the more we are realizing that this is very much, very little to do with our own efforts. I hope that we're realizing that more and more. I pray that we would rejoice in what we're hearing here.

Because what this is saying is, you can't do it on your own. Wanna be bold? Need the Holy Spirit. Wanna live in victory over sin? You need the Holy Spirit.

Wanna know how to have the fruit of the spirit? You need the Holy Spirit. So what do I have to do? Ask for the Holy Spirit. That's too simple.

Welcome to the realm of faith. That just sounds too simplistic. Yes, and because of your pride you will always struggle. You can't do anything. I can't do anything.

What you and I do is yield to the Holy Spirit. We plug in, so to speak. We abide in the vine. Have you ever seen a branch or walked by a park and heard branches struggling? Have you ever walked by a tree and you heard the murmurs of branches saying, I'm gonna try my best here.

Okay. I wanna bear fruit. Have you ever heard that? I know this sounds ridiculous, but hold on. Stay with me.

No. They are just connected to the vine. All they have done is allow themselves to be in the vine, and the vine and the life that it has supplies the branch. Rest, ease. In times of great struggle, you just wait on the Lord.

Call on him. You fall, you get back up. Yeah. But I'm abiding. I'm seeking God, and I'm getting in his word, and I'm calling up.

I'm naming these sins. I'm confessing, but I I felt. Get back up and move on. Move forward. Don't wallow in that.

Get up. Move forward. If you're gonna fall, fall forward. Don't fall backwards. And you get up, and you say, Lord, it happened, but I'm here again.

Give me victory. Give me victory. And you watch. You watch how this sense of strength will come out of nowhere. And it's not out of nowhere.

It's through the spirit. I'm praying that you would be strengthened with power through his spirit, but he has a specific result in mind of what would happen when a man prays for the indwelling and the overpowering sense of the Holy Spirit in his life. What? So that, verse 17, Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. So I'm asking that the Holy Spirit would dwell in your hearts, that he would be in your inner man.

Why? Why? So that as a result of that, Christ may dwell in your hearts. But hold on. Isn't he talking to believers?

This is strange language for the apostle Paul to be addressing Christians and saying, you know Christians, I'm praying that Christ would dwell in your hearts. I thought that happened at regeneration. So what is he saying here? He's not talking about the automatic sealing of the spirit, Christ dwelling in you and me, making us the guarantee for glory. He's not talking about that.

He's talking about something way more advanced. What he's saying is, my prayer is that the Holy Spirit would give you the power, would so work in your heart that you would allow Jesus Christ to permanently make his home in your heart. In other words, what he's trying to say is, I want you to know that I'm praying that by the power of the spirit, Jesus Christ would have every claim upon your affections. I'm praying that Jesus Christ would come to your heart, and he would take the seat of all your longings and desires. And that there would be no competition found in your heart.

I'm praying that through the power of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ would not be a visitor of your heart, but he would abide forever. The idea there is that he's praying that your heart would be completely ravished and consumed and saturated with Christ. And so that your passions are not divided, and that your pursuits are not given to other things, including Christ, but that your entire heart would be claimed for him. Now this is exciting. You thought all those other things were exciting?

This is exciting. You know why it's exciting? Because even in your desire and longing to love Christ more, you need the power of the Holy Spirit. Do you see this? That even you wanting to be passionate for Jesus, you can't do that on your own.

Even you wanting to walk as a man of God, as a woman of God, As much as it is, yes, we have to come to a place where we discipline ourselves and set priorities, but even all of that will not be persistent lest you have the power of the Holy Spirit. I mean, this is this should cause us to worship. It's nothing to do with you. Even your love for Christ has nothing to do with you. Even in your desire for him, you need the Holy Spirit to help you.

He's saying, I'm praying that you would have that power so that Christ why? Because this heart, as we read in Mark seven, does not want Christ. Yes. I know in regeneration and the new birth, we have this exchange, but we're still in this flesh. And so maybe we we don't want to blatantly live in wickedness, but we want to kind of have Jesus with different roommates in our hearts.

No. He wants ownership. And you even coming into that place is not even possible apart from him. Rest, my friends. Let that weight, that pressure, all that disappointment, all that self afflicting conviction, all of that.

Let it lift off with the revelation that Paul himself knew, you can't do anything, including loving Jesus with all your heart apart from his spirit doing it in you. That's why we pray what we pray every Wednesday. If you're here every Wednesday, one of the main things we pray for every single week, you know, that every person that represents this church, every disciple that comes to this church or is made through this church, would have this one distinctive mark about their lives, that they would have Jesus' first love. Always. Always.

And this is fascinating. Paul is not praying this for himself. Paul is actually praying this for the believers. So when we talk about praying for others, do we pray, Lord, let my brother and sister, let so and so be possessed with the spirit in such a way that they are lifted to a place where Jesus is all in all? What a wonderful request.

If you're gonna pray for somebody, make it that. Make it that. That Lord, you would completely consume them. Completely consume me. Eradicate, remove every hindrance from my heart and their hearts and let our hearts beam for the love of Jesus Christ.

He says here, I'm praying that that would be true in you, that he would make your home in you. But the requests don't stop there. It says that you being rooted and grounded love, that is the result of when Christ dwells in your heart. That when Jesus has all of your heart, you are able to be rooted and built up from a place of love, and that love manifests not just back to Jesus, but to other people. That if you wanna know how to love other people, you better know how to love Jesus.

If you wanna have a love for the lost, it starts with love for Jesus. If you want love for the brethren, it starts with love for Jesus. You wanna you want love for your enemies, it starts with love for Jesus. It's all there. And so when he takes possession of this heart, this heart now is so overflowing with the love of Christ that it spills on my other relationships, and I'm rooted and grounded in that love.

And he says, I have something else I'm praying for you. That you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth. And he stops. He doesn't give the object to which he is praying for them to know. Because when you look at the next part, it's a completely different sentence.

So when he's saying the height, the depth, the breadth, what is he talking about? It's kind of an incomplete sentence. And so there's much debate. He's talking about the mystery of Christ that he was emphasizing a few verses earlier. Or he's talking about the power of his salvation, or he's talking about who he is and his nature, or he's and people are going back and forth.

And I would argue this, it's about everything including the love of Christ. That when he's talking about the height, the depth, the breadth yeah. Okay. Fill in the blank. But I believe more than anything, it does connect with the next verse.

And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. I'm praying that you would know this love that your mind cannot even comprehend. Dissect this. For you to even understand the love of Christ, you need strength. You need the ability, the power to be able to even receive it at this level.

You need strength to understand this love. I want you right now in this moment to think about one or two, maybe just that one person that you love. Now we know we're called to love all people, love everybody, but there is somebody that your soul is knitted to, and there is a few people to which you enjoy their presence and they don't even need to say anything, you just love to be around them. It could be a spouse, it could be a sibling, it could be a parent, it could be a friend. Think of that love.

Maybe you have that David and Jonathan type of relationship that you're willing to do anything to serve them and to see God use them in their lives. Think about that intensity of that love. Compared to the love of God, the light of that love is like contrasting the heat that comes from a single candlestick to the ferocious heat that is being exposed on a summer noonday through the sun. You can't even compare it. It is so overwhelming.

It makes any other love that we might have pale in comparison. And he says, this love, I want you to understand the the height of it. The breadth, the length, all of it. Because his love is ever ending, ever enduring, enduring until the end. His love is inexhaustible, never running dry.

His love reaches down to the lowest of the low and pursues the one who attempts to escape it. The height of his love grants me access to heaven. And the length of his love endures all eternity. For no sinner is too heinous to experience it, no backslider is too far to come back to it, and no Christian is limited to explore it to greater degrees. To sing of his love is the theme of the Christian.

To meditate on his love can make the broken heart whole. You can try to deny it, but it doesn't make it any less true. And you could try to excuse it away, yet it showers over you even in your doubt. You need strength to even understand it. That's the challenge of the preacher.

You wanna talk about paradox. To come and to communicate certain truths of God that are not even fully able to be explained. To try to take these wonderful truths and try to express it in a way that people would know it. And Paul himself, I believe, knew that. That even in my language, no matter how poetic, no matter how powerful, in order for it to go into a deeper level, I must be a man of prayer, and ask that God would intervene and take this understanding of his love and make it more real to you than I can.

Does he use preaching? Yes. Does it contradict his word? No. But even in the metaphors found in scripture, notice that he uses language that we are familiar with so that we can relate to it, but it still surpasses knowledge.

It's beyond what our minds can make up. And we could try to illustrate it, and we could try to form a a type of poetic way of describing it. All those things are wonderful and they help, but we need even the Holy Spirit to know it. We need his spirit to know his love for us. And that's why, when you see this, he is asking God to unwrap this understanding of his love for the believers.

He says that, I want all the saints to comprehend. So not just the Ephesians church, for you and me today. I want all the saints. I want the corporate church to experience this love, to know this love, to explore this love, to be paralyzed almost by this love, to be constrained by this love. This is not some prayer of an insecure believer.

Listen. He's not praying that God would love them more or that they would, in a sense, ask God for more of his love. You can't ask for more of God's love. What is he asking for? That in light of his love, which is so grand and vast and wide, limitless, that our limited mind we just have that much more of an enhancement to receive that love and to understand that love.

So it's not a, God, I need you to love me more. He loves you. It's you not being able to understand that love. It's you having past experiences in your life. A father figure that did not love you.

A spiritual leader that abused you. Whatever it may be that mars that love, that that that holds you back from understanding whatever experience. And what this prayer does is it pushes through all of that. It removes the cloud and the fog from any hesitation or doubt in your mind that God truly loves you. I'm not talking about the surface level understanding God is love, God love.

The sinner says that, and still remains in their iniquity. I'm not talking about that kind of revelation. I'm talking about a revelation that so grips you, that so grips you that it would numb your mind if you were to meditate on long enough. So this is not to just fill in some insecure No. No.

No. It's not that. Why is this prayer important? This prayer is important because it is the very motivation for us to walk out the Christian life. That when we understand his love for us, we all the more want to love him back.

Even at whatever level of love you have for Christ now, it is because God first loved you. Any love that we have for Christ is not something that we initiated. Everything that we have, every ounce of adoration affection for Christ is because you first understood he loves you. And the more you understand how much he loves you, the more you're gonna wanna give him your love. The more you wanna obey him, the more you'll see how trivial and how limited the love of even the most amazing human being in your life is.

The more you will find yourself secure in his love, not even needing to be so desperate and and bring yourself so low to receive love from some person that doesn't even know what love is. It does something to us to the point where it affects the way we see things and understand things including God and his word and who we are and how we obey. This has monumental consequences. And if we wanna understand God's love, it is not divorced from a scripture. So it's in light of the scriptures.

Don't go to a place where you get into this sloppy weird love. No. This love has blood on it. It has sacrifice on it. It has giving into it.

It's an agape love. It's beyond emotion. And I believe that if we want to understand this love, we take the truths of his love from this word and we present it before God and we say, God, make this real to me. John three sixteen. Everybody goes, oh, John three c.

No. It is a glorious verse. For God so loved the world that he gave. That he gave. He loved, so he gave.

What? Did he give a righteous prophetic messenger? Did he give an angel from his choir? Did he give a beautiful cherub? No.

He gave to this sin sick world and this wicked rebellious race, the holy precious spotless son of God. And we think about Mary. How she gave what was most precious to her, to Jesus. But we also have to realize that the father gave to Mary what was so much precious to him, his son. And that's not true just for Mary, it's true for you and me.

He gave. Lord, help me understand that when you saw me, the love in your heart provoked you in the council of the Trinity to send your son to embody that love. And that love, when it's understood in this paradoxical prayer, this love that surpasses knowledge that you may know that love. It surpasses knowledge. How can I know it?

Lord, to whatever capacity that I can understand this love, let me know it. Whatever the limit of me understanding this love is on this side of eternity, let me go there even if I'm bursting from the seams. Lord, let me know it beyond the verses that I've memorized, beyond the sermons that I've heard. Let me know it in the inner man, and let let that love burn out all the other things in there that are trying to possess me. When that love is understood and when you pursue understanding that love, I believe the next part is a reality, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

This is the climactic expression of his prayer, not just about his love, but about the power and everything else that he prayed for. If you were to wrap up his prayer in that, this is this is what it would be, that you may be filled with God. Think about that. Do we understand this language? Me, filled with God, the substance of who he is.

So filled with him that I don't need to fill myself with anything else. So filled with him that other people can sense him through my life. So filled with him, that even if you cut me open, you'll see Jesus. And I would bleed his love. This love is to be pursued, is to be understood, it's to be sought after, and you better believe that it will have an effect on your life.

Go to John 14. Because if you think you can just ask for this love and live a contrary lifestyle, this verse tells us otherwise. John fourteen twenty one down to verse 23. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my father. Doesn't God love everybody though?

He who obeys my commandments will be loved That sounds like it's conditional love. He's not talking about the same kind of love. He's talking about a love that you would know, a love that you can experience. Loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. That is exclusive to those who walk in obedience to the scriptures.

Go to verse 23. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. What this is saying is that there is a greater reality and revelation of the love of God for us to walk in and experience. And you and I just need to get so desperate enough to put aside the excuses and any apathy that is holding us back and saying, Lord, I'm going to simultaneously ask for this revelation of your love, but at the same time walk in obedience to your word. And Lord, here I am by faith ready to receive what you want to give to me.

Lord, here are these verses. I want to know them. Not just here, let them burn in the inner man. God, make this more real to me. Is it about feeling?

No. He says that you would know the love of God. It's beyond feeling. Your feelings will come and go. But it's something so deep that whatever your feelings even tell you, that truth is so ingrained in you that it would literally fight against all those feelings.

You would know when those doubts, you would know when other people even express hatred to you. It just bounces off the truth that is so in you about God's love for you. Do you know that he loves you? And he's inviting you. He's inviting you and me to say, the expression of my love, yes, is expressed on the cross, and there's nothing greater than that.

And so it is not me showing you a limited view of my love, it's you being limited in your understanding that needs to change so that you can perceive and understand this love. What an invitation. What an invitation that through all of this, you and I would have the fullness of God in us. I don't wanna be three quarters there. I don't wanna be halfway there.

I want it all. I want it all. I wanna know his love that just naturally produces love songs out of me. I wanna know his love that obedience is the natural response to all things. I wanna be so consumed by his love that even if the world says we hate you, we despise you, have nothing to do with you, good riddance.

I have the love of God possessing me. And we can simply ask for it. And this is what the apostle Paul prayed for this church, and we're about to pray this together as a church. Bow your heads with me, please. Again, we've heard this so many times that the scripture reveals how the love of Christ has been displayed for the world, for his church.

But Paul once again came to that place where he said, for me. And we know that, but Lord, I'm asking that you would make that real in my own life. How deep the father's love. How vast beyond all measure. Lord, if there's anybody in here that doubts your love, that thinks your love is wavering based on their performance, Or has a tainted view of your love because of another person who unfortunately took your name in vain and represented you wrongly?

Lord, whatever the case may be, preaching can only go so far. We call upon you and ask that you would take the words from this text and illuminate them in our hearts. Lord, that we would be overwhelmed by this love. And Lord, at the same time there's this power available. This power can give us the ability to love Christ.

How foolish would any man be to refuse such such a privilege to say even in my inability to love Christ, I can ask him for it. So, Lord, we, even now, are taken back by the revelation of your love, almost breathless. But Lord with the little breath that we have, living God, we pour out our hearts in response to your love. But may it not be limited to the song that we sing, but the lives that we live. The lives that we live in Christ.

And Lord, may that love of Jesus so captivate our hearts that we would be rooted and grounded in love for other people. Help me love you. Help me love other people. Help me adore that name. I can't do it.

My heart has so many things that it's struggling with alone. Lord, if it was left up to me, I would love other things. Consume my heart. In your name we pray. Amen.

I fear for you to refuse such a privilege to seek God. Listen, do you love God or not? I'm asking with your lips, I'm asking with your heart, that you would so reject such an opportunity because of the pride in your heart. Even with that pride, you can be overcome with the spirit. It's as simple as a desperate cry saying, Lord, help me love you.

Perhaps you've looked at somebody that has a great passion for Christ and you you're inspired by that passion, and you go, oh, I would love to be that passionate for Christ. And God's willing to make you even more passionate. I can tell you this, the person that is passionate for the Lord Jesus Christ, the person that has done great things for Christ, the person that you see that is so consistent in their zeal, let me give you an insight into what their prayer life looks like. God, I need you. Help me love you.

They tarry. They fight. They do whatever it takes to understand the depths of his love through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the natural result is wave after wave after wave of his goodness that overcomes them. This is not complicated.

You're making it complicated. Just yield and surrender to him. And so as they sing and as we sing of how deep his love is, you ask him, unless that's too simple for you. Take it by faith.