The Power of Prayer: Insights from Ephesians 3 with Don

Join Don as he dives into Ephesians chapter 3, exploring the profound essence of prayer. In this enriching session, Don emphasizes the importance of being 'all in' when praying, understanding prayer beyond just asking for needs, and aligning it with God's will. He discusses how to renew our prayer life and avoid falling into repetitive prayer patterns. By examining Apostle Paul's prayer life and focusing on Ephesians 3:14-21, Don encourages a deeper connection with God and the unleashing of His power in our lives. Learn how to incorporate diverse types of prayers, navigate challenges with spiritual strength, and comprehend the immeasurable love of Christ.

00:00 Introduction and Greetings
01:20 Upcoming Sermon Topics
02:47 The Importance of Prayer
03:49 Learning to Pray
06:44 Common Prayer Patterns
07:41 Avoiding Prayer Ruts
09:51 Diverse Types of Prayers
13:17 Paul's Prayer Life
14:29 Paul's Specific Prayers in Ephesians
20:49 Unity in Christ's Family
21:35 Paul's Prayer for Strength and Love
23:18 The Infinite Power of God
23:47 Understanding God's Love Through the Universe
26:44 The Inner and Outer Man
27:53 Paul's Suffering and Inner Renewal
30:11 Christ Dwelling in Our Hearts
34:06 The Power of Prayer
38:02 Comprehending God's Incomprehensible Love
41:31 Invitation to Experience God's Love

Transcript

Hey, you have a Bible Tonight we're going to the book of Ephesians chapter three. We're gonna spend all of our time in Ephesians three tonight, and there'll be a lot of verses that will not be on the screen. And so I'm gonna ask you to open a Bible and be ready to read with us there in just a bit. So good to see all of you this afternoon.

Hope you had a good Lord's Day afternoon. Trust that you are refreshed and ready to study with us for just a few minutes tonight. As we continue talking about, thinking about being all in, is that up there? No, not yet. All right. Let's see. There we go. Alright. Living for what? Last Preaching used to be a lot easier without technology, I can tell you.

So good to see all of you this afternoon. I, I wanna tell you how much I enjoyed being with you this morning. I've always enjoyed being with this church family. Over the course of the past, many, many years we have been together, but this morning to renew acquaintance with you is just such a pleasant thing.

And then to make acquaintance with many of you who are new to this church family. I was here last, what a, what a good morning. You all are always so very gracious and hospitable. You always make a, a guest feel so welcome among you and I appreciate that more than I can say. Just so good to be with you.

I'm glad we can study together today and Lord Philly, Monday through Thursday night, tomorrow night we're going to talk about, about lion in winter. We're gonna talk about some of the challenges that our adversary, the devil, puts in our way as we try to navigate our way from earth to heaven, the obstacles that he places in our way, and we need to be thinking about that and try to talk very practically about that Tuesday night.

The Lord willing, we want to talk about weeping and joy. The statement out of the Psalms that weeping may endure for a night, but joy, joy comes in the morning. And if you have, if you have any mileage on the odometer of your life, I'll guarantee you that you have experienced both sides of that equation, both weeping and joy, and we want to talk about that, Lord willing, on Tuesday night, Wednesday night, we want to talk about fighting the war for truth, the truth of God.

Absolute, absolute truth is certainly under attack. And so we want to talk about how the Bible addresses that and how we as God's children trying to reflect He who is the truth, how that ought to affect us. And then Thursday night, we want to talk about, sing to me of Heaven. We used to talk a lot about heaven.

We don't talk about it nearly as much anymore, but Lord willing, Thursday night we want to talk about it in terms that are biblical and practical. And so hopefully, hopefully these things that we have ahead of us would be beneficial. Again, we're all trying to navigate our way from earth to heaven. And hopefully this will help us in that, in that endeavor.

You can see that tonight. We wanna talk about prayer just a little bit and some very simple thoughts about prayer. Not long ago I heard a story about a gentleman. He and his wife were getting ready to go out for the evening. His wife had gotten dressed and she was ready to go, but she was looking in the mirror and she was not happy at all with what she was seeing.

And she said to her husband, she said, you know, I look old and wrinkled and ugly. There was just silence. And she looked at her husband and said, I need you to pay me a compliment. And he looked at her and he said, you have perfect eyesight.

Well, that was the last he was ever heard of. Of course, there's still looking for his body somewhere, but it's an illustration of the fact that we need to be careful about what we ask for, what we think we want to receive, and so. That's kind of what we want to consider tonight is we think about, as we think about prayer and what we ask for, and are we asking according to things that God tells us to ask.

I wanna begin with a simple question I I want to ask you tonight by way of beginning, how did you learn to pray? Think about that. How did you learn to pray? Now, research indicates that 80% of Americans say that they pray. 80% of Americans say they pray. Now, some pray longer than others. Some pay pray better than others, but most Americans pray.

So I want to ask you, how did you learn to pray? Did you take a class on prayer or did you attend a workshop on prayer seminar about prayer? Did you read a book about prayer, maybe a track or maybe a pamphlet about prayer? How did you learn to pray? I would imagine for most of us, the answer would be that we watch someone else pray and we begin to mimic what we saw and what we heard.

I think in many ways, prayer is more caught. Than it is taught. And so I would imagine for most of us, we had somebody in our life. Now that may have been a mom or a dad, or maybe a grandparent, maybe an elder, a preacher, maybe it was a friend, but you heard how they prayed. That resonated with you in some way, and so you began to adopt the language that they used when they prayed.

It's kind of like what Children's do with their parents, you know? It. It just seems like for most of us, we begin to copy some of the mannerisms and some of the terminology of our moms and dads. And it's not because we, we don't sit down at a desk and look at a video monitor and try to get those voice inflections that our parents had or maybe the mannerisms that we had.

It just happens, doesn't it? We turn into our parents in many ways. I, I got a new pair of glasses not long ago in downtown Tampa, and I took my glasses and I was walking back to my car and I was going past one of those large buildings in downtown Tampa with a big plate, glass plate, glass windows.

And I looked, I looked in that glass and I thought, wow. I saw a reflection. I, I said, wow, that that old man looks like my dad. Well, that was me. I mean, that was just me. And that's kind of what happens with us, isn't it? And the same is true I think, with prayer, that we begin to mimic what we hear in others.

Both in terminology and phraseology. It's why you can. You can go to our churches throughout the length and breadth of these United States, and you can hear a lot of the same terminology, a lot of the same phraseology in our prayer because we have copied those kinds of patterns. It's easy to prove how strong prayer modeling can be.

I can do that I think with a very, very simple question. We'll have some audience participation here, and so I want you to raise your hand if this applies to you. How many of you in this audience, when you pray. Close your eyes, raise your, raise your hand for me. Look at that. It's just, it's just everybody.

You close your eyes when you pray. Why do we do that? Well, because that was modeled for us. How many times has closing your eyes in prayer modeled in scripture? I believe the answer to that is zero. I don't believe there's a single time in the Bible where prayer and closing one's eyes are connected together.

So why do we do it? Well, we do it because it was modeled for us. Now it's great practice. I do that. It helps me concentrate, but it was, and it is modeled for us and so that's why we have picked that up. Well, that's true about many things in prayer. I. So there's good news and bad news about prayer patterns.

I think on the one hand, the good news is that prayer patterns can bring individuals together, and by that I mean you hear somebody else pray, it resonates in your heart. You begin to adopt some of that terminology, and when you do that, it reminds you of that person. I do that in a regard to a prayer with my dad that my dad is long gone now, but every public prayer that I ever heard my dad pray, always.

He included one phrase, and when I pray, sometimes I will include that phrase as well because it provides a tie with me with my dad. That is very comforting to me. But now the other side of that is the bad news is that prayer patterns can become prayer ruts. And that's certainly true, isn't it? That we can begin to say the same thing over and over again without a lot of thought, a lot of heart going into that.

We're just kind of going through the motions by rote. So how do you know if you're in a prayer rut? That's a fair question, isn't it? How do we get stuck in that kind of a rut, and how do we know if we are there? Well, I think there's some obvious criteria there. One would be if you repeat phrases methodically, that if you just repeat phrases kind of in a, a robotic kind of way.

And it's easy to do that, isn't it? Have you ever been driving, have you ever been driving out in west Texas on some of those stretches of road that just go on forever? I mean, you can't even see the rise and it seems like it goes on. And have you ever been driving out there and you kind of wake up and realize you've been driving for miles and you haven't even thought about driving?

It's easy to do that, isn't it? And I think sometimes it's easy to do that with prayer as well, that we hit the play button, as it were, and the words come out. And if we're not careful, they come out. We really need thought because we have said those words before. Or secondly, you have very little desire to pray.

It's kind of a duty rather than, rather than a devotion to God or you pray, but it feels like work. Prayer really shouldn't be work. Now, there are times that we agonize in prayer because of a circumstance in our life that drives us to our knees. And so I understand that. But by and large, prayer should be something that brings us joy and makes a a wonderful opportunity to be with God.

Or you pray, but it seems pointless. Have you ever prayed and you kind of feel like Jeremiah, when he wrote the Lamentations in chapter one and he said, God, you have put a ceiling over the heavens. You ever felt like that you're praying, but you just wonder if your prayers actually making it to the years of God?

Let's be honest. It's so easy to fall into that kind of a rut. It is so easy to do that praying. Be maybe again a again, if you, if you've lived very long, if, if you've probably been there at some point in time. But the good news is that we don't have to stay there. Let me take that off for just a second.

The fact of the matter is that falling into a prayer rut may be normal at times, but it is also optional. Nobody has to stay there. And so tonight, if you looked at that list and that that kind of, you saw yourself in that list, I don't want you to des spare about that. I think, again, that happens to most of us.

Maybe not all of those elements, but some of them. But you can do something about that. You don't have to stay there. So. How do we refresh and renew our prayer life? I want you to look at this passage with me outta Ephesians six and verse 16, and this is a familiar passage where Paul says, look, I want you to take the helmet of salvation and the, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and I want you to pray in the spirit on all occasions.

Look at this with all kinds of prayers and requests, and with this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying. All the Lord's people. But the phrase that I want you to notice in that, in those two verses is that there are all kinds of prayers and requests. Have you ever thought about that? Paul is saying that there are all different kinds of prayers and requests and you say, well, how many kinds of prayers are there?

Well, there are a lot. I mean, think about ity two at beginning of verse one, where Paul said, look, I would therefore that prayer and supplication intercession to giving you thanks be made for all men. Well, there are four kinds of prayers right there, or maybe you've heard sermons of Bible classes that talk about the, the prayer acrostic praying, praying acts.

You've probably all heard that, right? Adoration, confession, Thanksgiving and supplication. And the Bible does talk about all of those various kinds of prayers. And so there are all kinds of prayers. Well, why, why are there all different kinds of prayers? Well, the answer is because we have different circumstances because life is not static.

Think about it this way, think about, think about the clubs in a, in a golf bag. And so if you, if you golf or you know anything about golf, you know that in a golf bag there are just multiple kinds of clubs. Well, why? Well, because you don't use a driver to put, and you don't use a putter to drive, and a sand trap requires another kind of club.

And if you're making an approach shot, that requires a different kind of club as well. And so you have all these different kinds of clubs for the different circumstances that you face on a golf course. The fact of the matter is that life is not static. And so we face all kinds of different circumstances on a fairly regular basis in life, and so it requires different kinds.

A prayer. A prayer that you pray to God when you have just gotten the best promotion at work that you could imagine is going to be much different than the prayer that you pray to God if you have just lost your job, the prayer that you pray to God. If you have a child that was just baptized into Christ and you're standing in the baptistry with that child.

It's going to be much different than if you've got a child that is wayward and rebellious against you and against God. A prayer that you pray to God asking you to be spared. When you are, when you're concerned, you think that perhaps you have a, a disease. It is about to be diagnosed. It would be serious.

And you are praying about God to that, that's going to be much different than the prayer that you pray to God if all those tests come back negative and you are told that actually everything is just fine. And so in those circumstances that are radically different from each other, you will pray radically different kinds, a prayer.

The problem with prayer rut is that we get stuck on one club. We get stuck on that one club, that one prayer. We pray that one prayer over and over and over. And we forget that there are other prayers in other ways. That we can pray to God. But I would say to you that old prayer patterns can be erased with new prayer models.

And so again, like, like that golf bag with different clubs, there are all kinds of prayers and all kinds of different postures of prayer that is spoken of in the Bible and all kinds of requests that we can read about in the Bible Tonight. I wanna focus a little bit on the prayer life of the Apostle Paul.

Every three or four years at Temple Terrace, I teach a quarter on prayer. We do our quarters on Sunday and Wednesday, and so I end up with about 22 classes on prayer and always in that class, one of the sessions or one of the segments will, will focus on the prayers of the Apostle Paul. And every time I, every time I teach that class, and every time I teach that section, I'm reminded that so often I don't pray like the apostle Paul did.

I want to pray like Paul, and yet oftentimes I don't pray like him. Let me ask you tonight, what are the top three things for which you pray? What are the top three things about which you pray? Now, I would imagine probably it might well be something like your family that most of us pray every day for our family.

Maybe it's about your health. Most of us pray about our health, and often we pray about our health for ourself and for our family. And so those would be conjoined and, and maybe you pray. About your job, about your work environment, what you do on a daily basis, or maybe you pray about your finances. Those are about, I think, probably the four most common things that individuals pray for.

Have you ever thought about what the Apostle Paul prayed for and what he prayed about in the book of Ephesians chapter three, where ask you to open a moment ago? Paul tells us what he prayed about. Look at the screen with me for just a second. In Ephesians three, Paul says. Here's what I'm praying for. I pray to have a spirit of wisdom and discernment, and I'm praying to have knowledge of the will of God.

And he said, I'm praying to have increased knowledge of God himself. And he said, I'm praying for strength for my inner being, and I'm praying for help in comprehending the love of God. Those are the things in Ephesians three that Paul said he was praying about. I want to ask you tonight, how many of those things find a regular prey place in your prayer life?

Let me ask you this. How many times in the in the epistles does Paul prayed for or we're told that he prayed for sick people? The answer is zero, to my knowledge. Nowhere does Paul say, I'm praying for this person who's sick, or do we have an example of him praying for somebody who was sick? Zero. Now, is that club in the bag of prayer?

Absolutely. It is. Certainly. It's in James chapter five. James said, is any of you sick? You need to call for the, for the shepherds of the church and let them come and pray over you. Well, why would that be? Well, because if anybody ought to be on speaking terms with God, it should be the shepherds in your church.

And so there have been occasions that I've called for the shepherds to pray. Not so much for me. We had a case about five years ago where my wife went through about 20 months of, of a dark, dark time with, with illness. We, she was on a ventilator for many days. We really didn't think she was going to live, and I called for the elders of the church to come and pray for her.

So certainly that's appropriate. I think probably Paul did pray for people to get well. I, I can't imagine that he didn't pray for Timothy, this young protege that he cared about love so much who had these illnesses that Paul talked about, referenced on one occasion. I, I can't imagine that he didn't pray for him.

And do I pray for people who were sick? Absolutely. And am I going to continue to do that? Yes, I certainly am. But what I'm saying is that we need to be really careful, ladies and gentlemen, that our prayers don't just become a Christmas list that we're offering to God on a daily basis. I mean, how would we appreciate that?

I thought about this when I was preparing this lesson. I, you know, when my son Josh, I, my son Josh, has grown now, he lives in Atlanta at his own family, but, but he, he finished college at Western Kentucky in Bowling Green, Kentucky. And I, and I got to thinking about that, what, how would I have felt. When Josh was at Western, he called me and he said, Hey, dad, how, how you doing?

I said, well, I'm doing good, Josh. How are you? Well, good Dad. It's good to hear your voice. Well, I'm good to hear your voice and I'm glad, glad you called. And he says, Hey, dad, I just, I just want to thank you for what, for what all you sent me last week. That was really helpful. I said, well, son, you're welcome.

I'm, I'm glad that I could do that, and I'm glad it was helpful for you. And then what if he had said, now dad, here's my list for this week. I'm not sure that would've said very well with dad. And I wonder sometimes if that's the way we sound to God, that when we pray to God so often we begin with those words.

God, we're so thankful that we can talk to you and thank you for the good day and thank you for the blessing that you've given us and we really appreciate that. And we really love you and the, and Jesus and Holy Spirit, and thank you for your word and thank you for everything you've given us. And now, God, here's my list for today.

We begin to tick off a long list of what we want God to give us again. Now, don't misunderstand me. Please don't misquote me about that. Is it appropriate to ask? Yes, I would. Therefore, that prayer, intercession, supplication, intercession, give you, thanks be made for all men so we can pray for those things.

The very word prayer comes from the old Latin. That means I pray thee, I ask of thee. So we can certainly do that. What I'm saying to us tonight, ladies and gentlemen, that that maybe there needs to be a little more depth to our prayer, where we're also thinking about what Paul prayed for when he prayed for a spirit of wisdom and discernment and knowledge of God's will and knowledge of God himself, and strength for his inner being and helping comprehending the love of God.

So I want you to read with me in Ephesians chapter three in Ephesians three, beginning. Verse number 14. Let me go back from that just a second. In Ephesians three and beginning of verse 14, listen to what he says. He says, for this reason, I bow my knees to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.

I wanna stop there for just a second. A little bit of background before we're really going. We're really going to the remainder of those verses in chapter three, but let me say just a word about how he introduces this. He begins it in verse 14 and says, for this reason, I pray I bow my knees to God. So we probably ought to know what the for this reason is.

Well, the for this reason goes back to everything that he has said in the first three chapters as we have it divided in our Bible. But in particular, perhaps like chapter two at beginning of verse 14, where he says in chapter two and 14, Jesus Christ himself is our peace. He has made moth one, he has broken down the middle wall of separation.

He is abolishing his flesh, the enmity between, between these two. And so listen to what he is saying here. He's saying that Jesus Christ came into this world to restore a broken humanity. Does he do that individually? Yes. Chapter one, in beginning in verse number seven, in Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to riches of his grace.

He does that individually, but he also does that with humanity. That Jesus Christ came to take away the differences that make no difference to God. Let me say that again. Jesus came to take away differences that make no difference to God in the context it's Jew and Gentile, but it would be other differences.

Jew and Gentile, black and white, male and female, old, young, blue collar, white collar, rich, poor, Longhorn and Aggie. Well, maybe not that last one, but everything else. And the point of it is that Jesus Christ came to make us all one in Jesus Christ. And he says because of that. I bow my knees to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.

Have you ever thought about that? God has family in heaven and earth, and you know what most of us do as well? I. Most of us have family in heaven and earth. I have family in heaven tonight. My mom and dad are in heaven, and so I've got family in heaven, but I've also got family on earth. I've got the physical family we talked about this morning, but I've also, God, as Jesus would say, these are my mothers and fathers, and these are my brothers and sisters.

You are my family on earth as well. And so Paul says because of this, because of what Jesus Christ has done and because of the family of God. I bow my knees to the now let's read what he says. I bow my knees to the father. Verse 16. I pray to God they, he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you being rooted and grounded in love. May be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, and that you may know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge and that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Kim was able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we have ever asked or thought according to the power that works in us.

The Himm be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever, and amen. We don't have the time tonight to unpack all the layers of that, but I would like to mention just two or three things quickly before we stop tonight. If I may. I want you to notice that Paul began and he said, look, this is a prayer for the power of God to come to bear on this world and on our life.

That's what he prays. I pray that you will, you will come to know something that you will be strengthened with might through the spirit in your inner man. In verse 20 that you would understand that God's power is able to exceedingly, abundantly above all we ever ask or thought through his power that works in us.

This is a prayer for the power of God to come to bear on this world and our lives. The challenge, ladies and gentlemen, is that when we begin trying to think about the power of God, we are at a disadvantage at that. Our disadvantage is how is it possible for a finite mind to grasp the infinite power of an infinite God?

How can we begin to wrap our minds around that? Lewis Giglio in one of his writings said, you know, maybe one of the ways that we can at least grasp onto something about the power of God. Is to use our universe as a measuring stick. And so in one of his books, he talks about this and he says, I want you to, I want you to visualize how, how large the earth is, how big the earth is.

We can do that because we've all seen pictures of our blue planet from space, and so we all can kind of wrap our minds around the size of this earth and goog. Leo goes on and he says, well, I want you to realize that for as large as this earth is, you can fit the earth our earth. You can fit it 1.3 million planet Earth you can plant, you can fit it 1.3 million times into our son.

So think about that. It would take 1.3 million planet Earth to compose the size of our son. And so we talk about God being the God of heaven and earth. But the fact of the matter is that God is more powerful than 1.3 million Earths. But googly goes on and he says, but. The sun is certainly not the biggest star in our universe.

The biggest star in our universe is called Canis Majoras. And if you ever looked at Latin a little bit, think about that. Canis dog, Majoras big. This is the big dog. This is the big dog in in the universe, and it really is. I mean, you think about Earth down there and you look at how it compares to Canis.

Majoras Can Majoras. I read. There are four quadrillion earths could fit into Canis Majoras. Now, I don't know what a quadrillion is. I'm not, I'm not good with math, but thankfully I know how to use Google. And so when I Googled it, what I found was that there are 1 million billions in a quadrillion. Well, that cleared it up for me immediately.

Well, what I'm saying is go on and he says, think about it this way. He said, if you, if you think about the earth as a golf ball. He said, imagine the great state of Texas and every square inch of ground for the state of Texas is covered with golf balls. And they go down into the ground four feet deep and you pull out one single golf ball.

That would be the earth in comparison to Canis Majoris. And here's the point that he is making. We pray to the God that created Canis Majoras. That's the God we pray to. So no wonder in verse 20, Paul would say, our God is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above anything that you have ever asked or thought.

No wonder God said in Isaiah 66 in the beginning of verse one, the heavens, the heaven is my throne and the earth, it is merely my footstool. No wonder he said that. No wonder the Bible is forever saying, is anything too hard for God? No wonder the Bible says. Man, this is impossible, but nothing shall be impossible to God.

This is the power of God. And where is Paul praying that God would deposit that power? Paul prays that God would deposit that power in our inner being. Well, what does he mean by that? Well, in Greek thought, there was an outer man and there was an inner man. The outer man is what you can see. We understand that your physical body and you know, and I know that in American culture, our world is all about, is all about the outer man.

I mean, you think about that, whether it's, whether it's billboards or magazines or television ads, whatever it may be, they almost all have something to do with the outer man, how you need to take care of it, make the outer man better. But I would say to you, ladies and gentlemen, regard to the outer man that if you are built, if you are built like the incredible Hulk, or you have all the money of Bill Gates, but you don't have any strength and your inner being, your life's gonna be a mess.

Pauls prayed that God's power would come to rest in our internet. Now, our inner man, our thoughts, our feelings, our beliefs, our heart, our soul, Paul said in two Corinthians four, therefore, we do not lose heart for though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. The Outward man is pering.

Have you ever thought about that in regard to Paul? When Paul wrote those words, ladies and gentleman, he says, by the way, the outward man is perishing, but the inward man can be renewed. When he said the outward man is perishing, I've gotta tell you, he, he knew exactly wherever he spoke. Have you ever thought what Paul's body must have been like by the end of his third missionary journey?

It must have been decimated to the point almost to be unrecognizable. It had to be terrible. By the end of his third missionary journey, he writes in second Corinthians 11, he says, you know what, I have been beaten with stripes 195. I've taken 195 stripes to the back of my body. And he says, I have been, I have been beaten with rods three times.

And he says there on multiple occasions, I have been thrown into the bottom of a pit or ravine. And people have stood above me and dropped boulders on me trying to literally beat the life out of me. Stoning was, was, was capital punishment. It was designed to kill a person and somehow through the providence of God, he had survived that.

You put all that together, ladies and gentlemen, and his physical body must have been absolutely just decimated. But he said, even though the outward man is perishing the inward man. Can be renewed. And so when you read Paul's writings, he's, he's saying, look, my inward man is renewed in the love and the grace and the mercy and the power and the hope of God every day.

The same can be true for you and me. Ladies and gentlemen. You are more than a physical body. You are more than a physical body. You have a heart and a soul. And Paul is saying that we need to pray God's power into that. And here's the great news about that. Your inner being can't be destroyed. Your inner being can't be destroyed.

Age can't destroy it. Regret can't destroy it. Memory loss can't destroy it. Cancer can't destroy it. A dysfunctional marriage can't destroy it. A bad relationship can't destroy it. Your inner being can't be destroyed, and that is true. Provided ladies and gentlemen, provided that Christ is dwelling in your hearts through faith, and that you are rooted and grounded in his love.

The point, listen to me, the point of praying this prayer in Ephesians three is not, it is not to extend your life. It's not to make your life easier. It's not just so that you can give God a daily Christmas list. The point of praying this prayer and experiencing the power of God is to unleash the presence of Jesus Christ in your heart.

And somebody says, wait a minute, Don, I thought. When I became a Christian, I was baptized. I thought that Christ came to dwell in my heart right then. Yes, he did. Yes, he did. I'm not denying that. But what I've asked you tonight is to what degree did he do that? To what degree did you allow Christ to come and dwell in your heart?

I wonder how many people, I wonder how many people have become Christians and said Christ. You know, you're, you're welcome to come into my life. I want you to come and live my life. But now here's the deal. Jesus, you're gonna have to sleep on the couch. And so I want you, I want you to go sleep on the couch and if, and, and I'll take care of my life.

And if something comes up that I can't handle, I'll come and wake you up and you can take care of it. And once you've taken care of it, then I want you to go lay back down on the couch and go back to sleep. And that's not what he's wanting to do. Ladies and gentlemen. He wants to dwell in us that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

The word dwell is interesting. It means to inhabit a space, and so it's saying that Christ doesn't wanna just have a place in your life. He wants to have the complete place in your life. I mean, the best way I know how to illustrate that is have you ever, have you ever gone to the hardware store and bought and bought some spray insulation?

Because you, you've got a space that you need to absolutely completely seal, and so you buy some spray insulation. When you put that nozzle on that aerosol can and you spray that spray insulation and it comes out as a liquid. Did just stay as a liquid? No. What does it do? Poof. It fills every bit of that space.

That's the word dwell. Paul saying, I'm praying that Christ may dwell in your heart that he will fill every space in your heart. Could it be sometimes, ladies and gentlemen that, that we want Jesus, whenever we're in trouble to do some repair work? And what he really wants to do is renovate. He wants to completely renovate our life.

He wants to occupy every single space of our heart and soul and mind to be so alive in us, and everything becomes filtered through here. So let me say this again. The point is to unleash the presence of Christ in our heart. Why? Because as Paul would say, you have Christ in you, the hope of glory, and if Christ is in you, listen to me.

If Christ is in you, it will change you. If you have love in you, it will change you. If you have hatred in you, it will change you. If you have cancer in you, it will change you. And if you have Christ in you, the hope of glory, it will change you. And so if he doesn't want to just do repair on us, he wants to totally renovate us.

Our work, our leisure, our money, our sexuality, our entertainment, our family, our relationships, our habits. He wants to rule. All of it. Why? So that it can be said of us that Christ lives in us. We need to pray for that power to come into our life because ladies and gentlemen, that can change the world.

Whether we're talking about the world in the, in the largest sense of the term, or whether we're talking about our world, our individual world, that can change us. Here's the point. The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that world change. It begins with heart change. And heart change always begins with prayer, whether it's again, the world or whether it's your world.

It begins with heart change and heart change begins with prayer. Halls argue in Ephesians three is the prayer should always be the first option. It should never be the last resort. It should be natural to us. When I was writing this lesson, I, I thought about it. I just, I just taught some principles on leadership at Temple Terrace, and I thought about it in the book of Nehemiah.

In the book of Nehemiah, chapter two, verse four, it says this, Nehemiah said, then the king said to me, what would you request? And Nehemiah says, so I prayed to the God of heaven. I want you to track with me for just one more minute. We'll be finished. It may well be that the most important eight words in the book of Nehemiah are those.

So I prayed to the God of heaven before Nehemiah responded to the king. He prayed to the God of heaven. The text doesn't say that. Nehemiah said, king, if you'll excuse me for a minute, I need to go into this other room. It doesn't say you did that at all. It just says the king asked him a question. What do you want?

What would you request? He says, I prayed to the God of heaven. Right there in the middle of a conversation, Nehemiah prayed. It's the very definition, ladies and gentlemen, of an aerial prayer, prayer that is shot from your heart to the very heart of God. I don't know what Nehemiah said in that prayer.

Maybe it was as simple as, God help me. Maybe it was, help me know what to say. God, be with the king's heart, be with my heart. I don't know what he said. I just know that he prayed to the God of heaven. What a great lesson is found in that, ladies and gentlemen. He prayed to the God of heaven. Think about, think about.

Think about how that could change your day tomorrow. If you could just remember to do what Nehemiah did that in the midst of a conversation, just just to pray to God, to pray to the God of heaven, right then and right there. And so you're at meeting, you're at a meeting at work tomorrow and there's an important decision about to be made and somebody ask for your input and you pray to the God of heaven.

You need to have a conversation with a child tomorrow, and it's an important one about, about behavior and about important matters. What, what if before you turn the the knob to enter that door, you pray to the God of heaven. Or what if you're sitting in an exam room with your doctor's office and you're waiting for the doctor to come in with the results of tests and you pray to the God of heaven?

Or what if you and your spouse have a serious conversation that must be had if you just prayed to the God of heaven? Praying to God in those situations as Nehemiah experience brings God into our lives. Nehemiah knew what he was going to say. He knew what he needed to request. He had been thinking about that and praying that for a month he knew what he was going to ask, and yet still he prayed to the God of heaven.

I wanna encourage you, ladies and gentlemen, to try Nehemiah's approach to pray. Pray before you speak. Pray before you answer someone before you, before you text or send an email. Pray before you talk to your spouse or your boss or your kids. Pray to the God of heaven. Short prayers. Specific prayers.

Genuine prayers. Prayers to help you know what to say and how to say it. Prayers to open the heart of another person. Prayers to open your own heart. Prayers, prayer to listen, prayer for strength, prayer. That all will understand prayers for your attitude. So I pray to the God of heaven. Have you ever thought about the fact, ladies and gentlemen, that all the good things that happened in the book of Nehemiah happened after those eight words?

After those eight words? Everything good happened. The walls were built. The king granted permission. Nehemiah led. The word of God is read, worship is restored. But all of those things happened after Nehemiah prayed to the God of heaven. No wonder, no wonder we are enjoined in Ephesians three. Pray to pray that God's power would come into our lives.

Ephesians three. Verse 18. I am praying. Paul said that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height of the love of Christ, which passes knowledge and that you can be filled with all the fullness of God. Now isn't it interesting he said, I'm prayed that you will comprehend the incomprehensible.

I'm praying that you will understand something that passes knowledge. I want you to understand, he says something about, about the love of God. About how wide and long and deep and high is. Have you ever thought about that? Paul says, I'm praying that you will comprehend this to understand that God's, that God's love is wide enough to include everyone, every sinner of every race, of every nation.

God's love is wide enough to include everyone, and God's love is long enough to last every day. I think that's hard for us to comprehend sometimes. I'll guarantee you, there are people in this room who stood maybe in an audience just like this, and, and somebody stood by your side and promised you, I'm gonna love you until, until one of us buries the other, and they did not.

God is not like that. His love is long enough to last every day, and his love is deep enough to reach everywhere no matter what you've done. His love is high enough to cover everything. His love is. Wide and long and deep and high. I will tell you the point of that, ladies and gentlemen, that's not a prayer.

That's not a prayer of intellect. That's a, that's a prayer of experience. It's a prayer of experience to come to know the height and depth and length of, and the breadth of God's love, and you say, how can I ever do that? I'll tell you, the way you do that is you go to the edge and you realize that God's level will go even further.

That's what Paul is saying. I want you to comprehend the incomprehensible. I mean, I know he says, you think you can get your mind around the love of God? It will go even further. I think at some point in time, if we're honest with ourselves, if we are just be honest with ourselves, we'll realize how far we've gone, how high and wide, and long and deep we've gone in our sin.

Those times that we say and we pray to God and say, God, I can't believe I got that far off track and that you still love me. Have you ever said that? Have you ever just bowed on your knees before God and said, God, I can't believe I went that far. I can't believe that I got that angry, that I was that carnal, that I was that greedy.

I was that lazy. I was that lustful. And God says, I love you still. And when you do that and you understand that, then you begin to understand what you are rooted and grounded in God's love. God doesn't love you today and throw you away tomorrow. God doesn't love you on Sunday and forget about you on Monday when you go to work.

He is always there for you. And Paul says that, that is what I'm praying for, but it is with that caveat as we talked this morning, that God expects us at some point in time to make a U-turn in our life and to come to him, honestly confess where we are and come home to it. God. God will accept a broken heart, but you gotta give him all the pieces.

You can't hold anything back. And Paul says, if you'll give him that kind of a heart, then his power will come to reside in your inner man and you'll experience more of the love of God than you ever imagined. If you need to experience that love tonight by coming a child of his. He's waiting for you tonight.

Maybe it's through God's providence that you're here tonight and have the opportunity to be buried in baptism, as you said this morning, so you can rise to walk in newness of life. Or maybe it's God's providence has allowed your life to be spared to this point tonight because God, like the father, the prodigal in Luke 15 is waiting with open arms for you to come home.

If you need to experience that love tonight. Be right with your God. This invitation's for you. Let's stand and let's sing.