Thank you, Mark, for leading us with great songs this morning, speaking about the sufficiency of Christ, what God has given us, what He expects now from our lives, and how He works that out. And that's just what we're going to talk about this morning. 

We're continuing in our study of Ephesians, and we've come to what I believe is one of the most important texts in the Scriptures for our understanding of how we should live a holy life as God intended when He saved us. We're trying, as Paul has been, to get to his prayer in these verses. But just as he did, I feel that we need to make sure that the doctrine he wants us to clearly understand is, well, clear. 

So before we get real deep into the how in this text, in part one of this message, I want to look mostly at the why. Why it is we can now live a holy life. Paul's been teaching us the why, the doctrine in the first three chapters of Ephesians. And there's another text that really fully develops these truths in relation to what he's going to pray for, and then exhort us to do in the last three chapters of this book. 

I believe the most important text in the Scriptures for understanding why we can live a holy life in Christ, no surprise here, is Romans 5 to 8. These truths are taught in a multitude of places in the New Testament, but this section of Scripture most fully develops the truths of what God has done in us in salvation and regeneration and who we now are in Christ. 

How our relationship to indwelling sin, to the law of Moses, to death itself has changed, and how we are now to live under grace, unto righteousness, possessing eternal life. These truths tell us about the great salvation work that God has done in us, and how He has totally transformed us into new creations in Christ. And because we are new men, we see the truth, what Wiest calls the sweet reasonableness of living like new men. This is the why. 

And these are perhaps the most important truths we can understand that we must set and continually ponder in our minds. They need to be well understood before it is possible for us to implement the how in application. It's interesting that in this book of Ephesians, it's most clearly laid out in structure or pattern how the New Testament works. 

You'll notice as you study this book that the first three chapters are doctrinal truth. We've been studying that; we're about to finish that. These are what we call indicatives, or just proclamations of truth. Paul's simply explaining who we are, what we have in Christ in salvation. There are no commands, no imperatives to do anything. He wants us to know the truth about salvation, who we are, what we have in Christ, before we try to live these things out. 

It's not until chapter 4, and then the last three chapters, that Paul begins to implore us, command us, to live out these truths in our lives. Very simply, my friends, you cannot apply truth that you do not know and understand and believe. And I'm afraid that many, if not most, in the evangelical church today are trying to base their holy, fruitful Christian living on that which is not truth, that is not who we are and what we have in Christ, and they're using the wrong tools, the wrong means and efforts and disciplines to try to accomplish these things in their lives. 

It's like if you're going to build a building on your land, let's say a simple shed, and you have some two-by-fours and nails, and you're going to build a wall. Now the wall is our goal, and you and I have the same goal, a straight, symmetrical, plumb wall. And we're going to get there by measuring and cutting the boards to length, and using nails to put them together in just the right way to make a beautiful, sturdy wall for our shed. 

We have the same goal, like holy living, like Christlikeness, for the glory of God. But let's say for purposes of illustration that you understand the tools you have been given for this project, and you have a tape measure and a saw and a hammer and some nails. Let's say I have less understanding, and I get a square and a knife and a stapler. So you go to work measuring, cutting, laying out the wall, and you take the hammer and the nails and put it together, and you tip it up, and it's just right, and it's beautiful. 

But I, setting out to do the same, take my square and try to measure with those little numbers on the side, and then I take my knife and attempt to cut the two-by-fours to length, and then I use my stapler to hammer in the nails; it's not so beautiful, is it? We had the same goal. We understood where we wanted to get, but there was a great misunderstanding as to the why and the how to build the wall, and the correct tools for accomplishing this goal. 

It seems that this is the way it is in the church today. So many not understanding who they are, what they have in Christ, not understanding the nature of the salvation that God provides through Jesus Christ, not understanding what He has done in us through regeneration and our death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus, not really grasping the power that works in us, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ in us, the power of God working through us, not understanding God's intent in saving us, His plan and purpose for us in the church, and not using the right tools to accomplish this grand and glorious goal and intent that God has for each believer in Jesus Christ. 

And we hear teaching about how you're just a sinner, that you are still somehow in Adam as well as in Christ, that the law is binding on the believer as a rule of life, a tool for holiness, like a stapler hammering nails. It's just not that effective. All these things must be sorted out and understood by doctrine first, by the truth of our salvation in Christ and all that this means, and then we must understand how God intends to work out holiness in our lives to make us like Christ. 

We must know these truths, we must believe these truths, continually reckoning them to be so, renewing our minds to them, and choosing to believe and trust God and commit ourselves, our lives to Him. And then we must trust in His life, His power, His grace to accomplish His work of sanctification through us. This is what our text is about this morning, and these are the truths we'll endeavor to understand and then apply in our lives for our holiness and for His glory. 

Let's look at Ephesians 3 and verse 14. “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, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, 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, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen.” 

Well, I've given you five points on your outline for our study this morning. First, we're going to look at sin and sins; second, regeneration; third, who are you; fourth, God's plan for holy living; and fifth, prayer for application. 

Well, in our text, Paul is praying; he's praying to our Father in heaven that we would understand all the glorious truths that he's just written about in the first three chapters concerning our great salvation in Christ. This is a prayer that God would make these things clear to us, that we would fully grasp and understand the great truths of who we are in Christ, and that by His power and grace, the power of the Spirit, the power of the life of Christ in us, the exceeding and great power of God, these things would become consistently true of our outward living. 

That we would, as we will begin to see in chapter four, apply these things in our lives for our good and His glory. So this is a prayer for our understanding and for His life and power to be effective in and through us. And again, we must be continually reminded of the foundational truths, and we must think on them and consider them and reckon them if we are to apply them and have them become effective in our lives by His power. 

You know, when I'm building a shed or a barn or a cabin, do you know what I so often have to do? I've built many of these things; I don't have any skill or talent in it, but I've built many of these things. I have a basic idea, knowledge of how to do things, but when I'm in it, I'm having trouble remembering. I have trouble with knowledge about various aspects of what should be used or how it should be done, so I have to call my good buddy, Ron Heft, because he knows these things. 

He's an expert, a great source of knowledge when it comes to building, and I need to remember; I need to be reminded and to think on it and get it straight in my mind before I can implement it in my building project. Lately, he's been giving me the answers I want, which is abnormal; it's good. 

And so it is with implementing the truths of my salvation, the why, the doctrine, the who I am and how I should live; I forget these things. I get a little cloudy in my head when the world comes crashing in, when my emotions get the best of me, like Mark said, when I watch the news too long, when I hear poor teaching or I get bad advice, I get confused. I have to go back and continually renew my mind to God's Word, to the truth, to the indicatives, to the foundational truths of my salvation, so that I might implement them in my daily living, the building of my holiness by God's grace and power in my life. 

And so I want to spend some time on the why before we get to the how in our text, to refresh your minds, to renew our minds to the truth. And we begin this in Romans 5 with sin and sins. The elders and I are in the midst of an ongoing study together, much of which concerns, at the moment, sanctification and holy living and a scriptural understanding of it. And we are currently beginning a section of study on Romans 5 to 8 with an emphasis on Romans 7 and how that fits in, and the topic of our study now concerns an understanding of sin and sins. 

Let's look at Romans 5 together, and we'll just briefly go over this to establish the point. Romans 5, 12, please. It says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin. And thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the offense, for by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, for the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by the one man's offense, Adam sinned in the garden, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification unto life, and that speaks of the imparting of the divine life to us. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous.” 

And we'll stop there for now. In this section of Scripture, Paul is establishing the fact that every man born in Adam has sin; the principle, the law of sin is in him. And we most accurately, biblically, call this indwelling sin. It's a power; it's a force; it's a beast, like we see in Genesis; it's a beast that dwells in us. That sin that dwells in us is inherited from our Father in the flesh, Adam, and along with this also the condemnation of physical death. 

This is what Paul's establishing in Romans 5, 12-19. We're all sinners in Adam in that we have the power or principle of sin in us, dominating and controlling our inner man, our spirit. And the fruit of this is seen out through our physical body, our members, in acts of sins. 

Now, as we see in Romans 3 and 4, and many other passages, when Paul talks about justification, he talks about sins. Think of 1 Corinthians 15, 3, when he talks about Jesus' death for us; he talks about our sins. “For I delivered to you, first of all, this is a great summation of the Gospel, 1 Corinthians 15, I delivered to you, first of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Or Hebrews 1.3, “who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.” Or 1 Peter 3.18, “for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God.” 

Paul dealt with justification in Romans 3-5 up to verse 11. Christ's atonement for our sins, as Jesus took the wrath of God in our place for our sins on the cross, and we know that God was satisfied with His full satisfactory payment for our sins because He was raised from the dead. In 5.12, he begins a discussion or teaching on sanctification. 

So he's moving from justification, positional righteousness in Christ, to sanctification, actual righteousness in our lives, okay? So in 12, he begins a discussion on sanctification, and in particular, he contrasts the man in Adam with the man in Christ, particularly their respective relationships to sin, indwelling sin, and law and death. 

The man in Adam has this sin dwelling in him, and this sin dominates him, and the strength of this sin is the law, and the result of this is death. For the man in Christ, he lives under grace, unto righteousness, and he possesses eternal life. He still has sin dwelling in him, but his relationship to it has changed. 

Now the change that Paul wants us to understand that God has affected in salvation and regeneration, our union with Jesus and his death, burial, and resurrection, is a result of our death. So we're not talking in this section of Scripture, Romans 5 to 8, about sins, about our personal sins per se, or justification itself; Paul has already covered that. Now we are learning about actual changes that occurred in us when we believed Jesus, when God caused us to be born again, regenerated, when he crucified our old man in Adam and buried us with Christ and raised us a new man with Jesus. 

So whereas justification is purely positional in Christ, and this is the first aspect of our salvation, regeneration is an actual work of God in us, effecting an actual change in us in our relationship to the sin that dwells in us, to the law, and to death, and moving us from being in Adam to being in Christ, and all this entails. 

So stay with me here; we're going somewhere glorious. When God saved us, regenerated us, He recreated us; He gave us a new spirit; He indwelled us with the Holy Spirit; and Jesus Himself came to live in us. And now, as we see in Ephesians 1:19, the very power of God that raised Jesus from the grave works—and this is the two hard words for us—it works in us. 

That same power of God that raised Jesus from the dead works in us for His purposes, for His glory. So the point is this: we are no longer who we were. We are new creations in Christ. The why of the Christian life is this: who are you in Christ? Do you know who you are? 

Let me tell you this good news: you are not who you were in Adam. You are not partially who you were in Adam; you are not one half in Adam and one half in Christ. If you have believed Jesus, then by the grace and power of God you are in Christ. And that's why we see Paul emphasize this truth over and over and over in these first three chapters of Ephesians; he uses this term, “in Christ.” 

And this means some very important things are true of you in relation to this indwelling sin, to the law, and death, as well as to grace, righteousness, and life. And this is what we must know. 

Look back at Romans 5 with me at verse 20. Romans 5:20 says, “Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.” Now look at verse 21; pay close attention to these words. “So that, this is a purpose clause, so that, as sin reigned in death, what's that talking about? When was that in your life? In Adam. As sin reigned in death, that's before you heard the gospel, it's before you believed Jesus, it was before you were born again and God recreated you. Sin, indwelling sin, was reigning in you.” 

So it says, “As sin reigned in death in Adam, even so, in the same way,” he's saying, “just like that, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So here's the contrast between Adam, being in Adam, being in Christ. 

After establishing the truth that Adam's sin brought the condemnation of physical death and the principle of indwelling sin to every man born in Adam, and the great truth that Jesus' death on the cross brought a new life, divine life, to everyone who believes, Paul gives us the purpose in verse 21: “as sin reigned in death, even so, that grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

This is the purpose; this is the truth contrast between the man in Adam and the man in Christ. When God saved you, and just ponder for a minute the lengths He went through to do that. You were His enemy; you were against Him; you were a sinner by nature. 

And God, while we were yet sinners, sent Jesus to become a man to condescend and take on flesh to live a perfect sinless life and then die a death He didn't deserve, a cruel death on the cross, separating Himself from the Father, bearing our sin in order to save me. And additionally, He not only paid for my sins, but He also gave to me everything. We sang all those hymns this morning, just blessings ten thousand beside, right? Abundant grace; God's given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. 

Not I, but Christ through me is how God does it. We see all of this; we have everything we need. God has fully equipped us to live a holy life because His intention in saving you was that you live a holy life. So that's God's expectation for you, and it should be your expectation as well. 

So what Paul's been doing in the first three chapters of Ephesians is trying to help us to understand this, to understand the greatness of our salvation and who we now are. So he fleshes this out for us in the following three chapters in Romans, beginning at verse 2, concerning our death affecting this change. 

In Romans 6:1, he says, “What shall we say? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” And we often hear that Paul got this; we get this when we preach the gospel, right? We say it's by grace through faith alone, and they say, “Oh, well, you can sin all you want then, right? I mean, it's by grace; just sin all you want.” That's a misunderstanding of what happens when you believe Jesus. 

Look what Paul says here: “Shall we just go on in sin so that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” What sin is it that we have died to? Verse 6 explains it further: “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” 

In Adam, indwelling sin controlled and dominated the inner man and caused the body to be controlled outwardly, resulting in continual sinful acts. We see this in Romans 7:5 as well. He says, “For when we were in the flesh, in Adam, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.” 

So when Paul uses the phrase “body of sin,” he's talking about this physical body controlled by that indwelling sin. And 6:1 to 11 explains to us that when we believed Jesus, we died. That old man died. God crucified the man in Adam with Jesus on the cross. That old man in Adam died, was buried, and was raised a new man just as Jesus was raised to glorification. 

And our relationship to indwelling sin has changed. Paul says now we are dead to sin, so that this body controlled by sin has been rendered powerless, made ineffective. Romans 7:6 explains that now we have a different process going on in Christ. “But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” 

This is most fascinating because in Adam we were under the law. We lived by the letter. But Paul is teaching us in 7, 1 to 6 that when we died, we also died to the law as a way, as a rule of life. And this law is the Mosaic law as a whole, including the Ten Commandments as Paul makes clear in the next verse, giving “thou shalt not covet” as his example. And we died to the law for an express purpose. 

It says, “Therefore, my brethren, you have become dead to the law through the body of Christ in order that you may be married to Jesus, another, to him who was raised from the dead in order that you should bear fruit to God.” 

So our death was necessary—death to sin, death to the law—in order to live holy. If we want to live holy lives, if we want to bear fruit through our members, we must first die to the law. He says the same thing in Galatians 2; turn over to Galatians 2:19 with me, and we'll look at what Paul said there as he describes what happened and now how he lives the life he lives in Christ. 

Galatians 2:19, look what Paul says. He says, “For I, through the law, died to the law.” This is the same thing he covers in Romans 7 in his personal testimony. He says, “I thought the law was to bring me life.” He was in Judaism, right? Keep the law, keep the ceremonies, then get eternal life. You're working your way there. 

So Paul says, “I thought my life, my righteousness, was to come through the law. But what did he say in Romans 7? When the law came, when I understood the law, I died,” right? Because I understood how far short I fall of God's perfect standard. 

So he says the same thing here summarized in Galatians 2:19, “For I, through the law, died to the law in order that I might live to God.” Look what he says: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” 

In regeneration, I died with Christ. I was crucified, died, and was buried, and was raised to newness of life, a new man, a new creation. And in this death, my relationship to indwelling sin changed. My relationship to the law changed. My relationship to death changed. I no longer am in bondage to fear of death. Men all their lifetime in Adam are afraid to die. Would you agree with that? 

When you become a believer in Jesus Christ, you are released from that fear of death because you know that death is only a transition to something much better. This is what Paul says is the purpose of God and salvation, in order that I might be holy. The contrast in Adam, under law, sin, death, in Christ, under grace, righteousness, and eternal life. 

This is who I am. This is why I must live a new life, because I am a new man. You can think of it with a silly illustration, you know what I mean? Let's say it's the NBA all-star game, and there I am, and I'm all suited up, right? I'm all stretched and warmed up, and got my socks on, and my warm-ups peel off, you know, and I'm sitting on a bench next to Michael Jordan. And the coach comes over and he goes, “Jordan, get in there; we're behind.” 

Michael goes, “I don't know; I don't know if I can hit a bat; I don't know; I'm just really bad at this.” And I go, “No, send John in!” I'd be like, “I'm going to go out there and get him, right? I can do this.” 

Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all; except for Larry Bird, but anyway, he is the greatest basketball player of all time. That's who he is. So how do you, what do you expect is going to happen when John goes out there? It's going to be ugly. But if Jordan goes out there, what do you expect? You expect him to win the game; you expect him to hit the, and if it's Larry Bird, you expect him to tell the other team where he's going to shoot and hit the shot, and then hit the shot. 

So it's who he is. And what Paul's telling us is, we aren't who we were; we are now holy; we are now righteous; we are now equipped with everything, including the very power of God living in us. We should expect to live holy lives. And we see this all through this section on sanctification. 

We see a contrast between the man in Adam and the man in Christ so that we might know who you are, so we understand the basis, the foundational truth for the application of holy living that begins in the Book of Romans in chapter 12 and in Ephesians chapter 4, where we're going next. And this is the case throughout the New Testament. 

This is who you are. Think 1 Corinthians 6, 9-11. Those people in Corinth were doing some things that Christians ought not do, right? And what did Paul say? He'd say, “Listen, you're breaking the law. You're offending God.” Yeah, and that was true. 

What did he say? He said, “Don't act like that. That's not who you are. It's who you were, but you've been washed. You've been sanctified. You've been justified in the name of God. Act like who you are.” Same thing, 1 Corinthians 3. The Corinthians were out of line, and he says, “You're acting like mere men.” Get it straight. 

It's like a football coach coming in at halftime saying, “You're playing like a bunch of little girls. What is this, a ballet?” Does he mean they're little girls? No. He's saying, “You're acting like something you're not. Stop it.” 

So you see, my brothers and sisters, we must know, we must understand, we must believe the why we can live a holy life in Christ. We must know the doctrine. We must know the indicatives that underlie the imperatives if we're going to live them out. We must have the knowledge of why, and we must use the right tools if we're going to, by the grace and power of God, build a consistent holy life in Christ. 

So when a man teaches that we as believers in Christ are still vile, wretched sinners, when a man applies Jeremiah 17:9 to you, when a man teaches that we are in Adam and in Christ with somehow two natures, when men say things like, “Well, you know, we're going to sin. I mean, that's how it is.” 

When they misunderstand texts like Romans 7:14 to 25 and they hand a crutch to believers, excusing their sins, telling them they should expect to live in sin continually, when they bind men with the yoke of the law as a rule of life and point men to the law as a means of holiness, when in fact the Scriptures say that the law is the strength of indwelling sin, Romans 7:5, 1 Corinthians 15:56, in all this we undermine these foundational truths, the why we can live a new life in Christ. 

And when the Bible implores us to renew our minds, to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, to reckon, to abide, all of these things are commands to know the truth of who we are in Christ, to believe them, to live in light of them, in full dependence every moment of every day on Jesus Christ. He does it. 

Let's look at Ephesians 4:1. Ephesians 4:1. This is where we're going after next week when we finally get to our words in Ephesians 3. “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.” 

Now Weiss summarizes what we've been saying with a comment on this verse; I want you to listen to his comment. He says, “We come now to an important dividing point in this letter. The first three chapters contain doctrine; the last three, exhortation. This is the proper order, for only in doctrine, I love this, can we see the sweet reasonableness of the exhortations and obtain the necessary power and technique to obey them. In brief, God says in chapters 1 to 3, I have made you a saint. And in chapters 4 to 6, He says, now live a saintly life.” 

You see the holy living, do you see the commands to be like Christ as sweet reasonableness for your life? Do you expect that? You think, “I really should be holy?” Because I am holy. 

It's reasonable for me to live a holy life because of what God has done. I just need Him to do it through me. I just need to look to Him. The words “walk worthy” literally mean with equal weight. In other words, Paul is saying, based on all the foundational truths we've just learned about who we are, what we have in Christ in the first three chapters, "I beg you, I beseech you to walk worthy of our calling, to walk outwardly, to conduct ourselves in a manner equal to the truths of who we are in Christ." 

Be consistent with who you are. This is the consistent admonition of the New Testament. You are new men, so it's right that you live like new men. This is God's intention when He saved you. This is the purpose of crucifying your old man and raising you a new man and dwelling you with the very life and power of God so that you might live like new men. And this for God's glory and as a witness in this world of the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

We see this in Romans 12 as well. You're familiar with that passage. Stop being conformed to the world and be being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Paul says, “Stop being conformed by the world.” Conformed refers to the act of an individual assuming an outward expression that does not come from within him nor is it representative of his inner heart life. 

The expanded translation is “stop assuming an outward expression which is patterned after this world, an expression which does not come from nor is it representative of who you are in your inner being as a regenerated child of God.” The word “transformed,” present tense, be being transformed continually, how? “By the renewing of your mind.” The word is “metamorphame,” which speaks of the act of a person changing his outward expression from that which he has to a different one, an expression which comes from and is representative of his inner being. 

Change your outward expression from that which you had before salvation, an expression that came from your totally depraved nature and was representative of it, to an expression which comes from your regenerated inner being and is representative of it. My brothers and sisters, we are to do this by the renewing of our mind. That is knowing, believing, and reckoning what God's Word says and that we are new men, holy and righteous by God's grace. 

This is a biblical definition of sanctification. And this is accomplished as we know, believe, and reckon what God says to be true as we abide in Christ, commit ourselves to the one who judges righteously, depend on Him, look to Him, and realize our need for Him every day. This is God's plan for holiness, based on the foundational truth of who you are and the resources He's given you in Christ. 

And our text is Paul's prayer that we would know and understand and believe and experience these things. Now we're just going to overview our text this morning and then come back next week and do a proper exegesis of these words as we strive to understand and build on this foundational truth, this new life. 

Ephesians 3, 14 to 21 is a series of what are called “hinnah clauses” in the Greek. And what these clauses do is to give purpose or certainty, but what we see here is they're linked together. And Ephesians, let me see, I'm going to read Romans 15:4 first to give you an example of this clause. 

It says, “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.” We might have hope. Galatians 3:14, the same thing. “So that we, by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” 

Sometimes the word “might” or “may,” especially in the English, implies what? Like the Packers might win. Doubt, right? Implies doubt. But with this clause, this purpose clause, it's meant to move that from doubt to certainty. 

So Galatians 3:14, again he says, “He redeemed us, so that,” there's your purpose clause, “so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” That means we will, by faith, not doubt, okay? 

So that is the purpose phrase; there is a purpose here, not doubt. So that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit. Now, in our text, we see a series of these clauses. There's something for you to think about this week, as we look to next week. 

Look at verse 16, Ephesians 3:16: “That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, 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 know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” 

You see the series of those clauses there? When we start to apply, I'm sorry, when we look at the way they're linked together, these things build on one another, okay? So it's a process. Paul's expounded all of these great truths in the first three chapters of this letter about the salvation we have in Christ, who we are in him, and he wants to move on to the application of these truths. 

He wants to exhort us to live in light of them in equal weight outwardly with who we are inwardly, but first he feels compelled to pray, to pray to God for our understanding of first why and then how God intends for us to live wholly, a prayer for understanding and application is what this is. 

So we've covered the why, but I want you to notice in our text, which gives us the means, the plan, the how, that it's all about God and His power and His grace. He writes, “The Holy Spirit imparts strength to your inner man.” Where's my strength come from? From the Holy Spirit. Jesus lives His life in and through us. We come to know the love of Christ. We are filled with all the fullness of God. That's when this fruit comes. 

And this is a process. These things build on one another and when we know and understand who we are, what we have in Jesus, when we start to apply these truths, when we renew our minds and reckon the truth and fix our eyes on Christ, looking unto Him, walking in the Spirit, looking to Him not to ourselves, think about this with me: we don't see the law in this passage. 

We don't see the law in Romans 5-8 other than to say we're no longer under it. We see no self-effort or pulling up our bootstraps. The battle of the Christian life is not one of self-effort but is one of the mind striving, agonizing. Yes, there's a real battle; there's a real struggle every day. But this struggle is one of the mind. Renewing your mind to God's truth, choosing to believe Him and depend on Him and taking every thought, every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. 

Taking the error, the emotions, the worldly influences into line with the truth and choosing to believe God. That's the battle. It's not that we're antinomian; we're not against the law, right? It's not that the law of God isn't holy and righteous and good; it is just not God's means for producing holiness in our lives. 

Like using a stapler to drive a nail, it just doesn't work. I can put the Ten Commandments on my refrigerator, come home every day and evaluate how I did. As long as I'm just trying to be good and trying to keep those laws, I fail and I fail and I fail. It’s when I get my eyes off of myself and I start to pray for others and I start to pray for opportunities to witness and I start to talk to Jesus and I start to depend on Him that I see Him produce the... 

It's really hard to feel anger well up in you and then say, “Jesus, please help me do what's right,” and then yell at your wife. That's hard, right? Because what I have to do is feel that emotion well up and say in my mind, “She did just as well, I'm going to do that to me,” and I'm going to... Right? Then I can yell; then I've rationalized it; then I've conceived that sin in my mind. 

But if I'm abiding in Christ and just depending on Him, looking to Him, spending time with Him so that He's comfortable, that’s what our text says we'll look at next week; He’s feeling at home in me. Then He can work. He doesn't have to be up cleaning up my house all the time. He can relax and be effective, okay? 

In the new covenant, God has made a better way than law keeping, the way of regeneration and freedom from sin and law and death and a new heart and a new spirit and His life through us, imparting strength to our inner man. The very life of Jesus in us, living through us as we abide in Him, and the love and power of God poured through us. 

I can't do it. I don't know if you can do it, but I can't do it. I can't live the Christian life. Only Jesus can live the Christian life. But I can believe Him; I can trust Him; I can depend on Him; I can renew my mind to His truth every day and set everything else in my mind and in the world straight. I can do that by His grace, and He can do it through me. 

Sin still dwells in me, but I’m dead to it. I don’t have to obey it anymore. I’m free from its controlling power, and the Spirit now witnesses with my spirit and tells me that I am a child of God. I’m in agreement. I want what God wants most of all in my spirit. I want to live for Him. I want to be a witness. I want to love my wife. I want to be an example. That's what I most want. 

And God tells me the things that will bring that to pass. That's what we're studying. The reason why I can now live a new life and next week more how. And what we have to learn is the last verse: He is able. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than you could ever ask or think according to the riches of His grace. According to His riches. We'll look at that next time. 

Let's close in prayer. Father, we're so thankful for Your Word, Your truth. We're so thankful that You tell us the truth and that we can believe You and trust You and depend on You, and we're thankful for what You've done in our lives, saving us, justifying us, also regenerating us, making us new and empowering us to live the life that You desire for us in order to bring You glory and that men might see the genuine nature of the transforming power of the gospel in our lives. 

Help us to understand that it's reasonable; it's logical for us to live a holy life, and that there's a sweet reasonableness to us living in a way that glorifies You because of what You've done and what You've promised to do in us. In Jesus’ name, we pray.