Thank you, Mark, for leading us. Good morning to everyone. Beautiful morning, sunshine. We've got a couple new litters of piglets and five new lambs and still waiting on a couple calves, but it's nice to have the babies around. I got a little bit of a frog in my throat this morning, so hopefully we'll make it through with my voice. Be patient with me.

Last week, we started our study of Ephesians 3, 14 to 21, and we spent nearly the entire message establishing the truth doctrines that underlie our salvation, the why we can live a new life. We saw that in the first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul lays out the truths of who we are and what we have in Christ. Over and over again, we see him use this term, in Christ, explaining what that means to be in Christ. 

Last week, we looked at Romans 5 to 8, where Paul explains in more detail the truths of our salvation in Christ. The text before us this morning is a transition from the doctrines of who we are in Christ to the application of these truths beginning in chapter 4. As we looked at the why we can live a new life in Christ last week, so in our text this morning, Paul's going to show us the how, the means by which God intends we live out this new life and walk worthy of our calling.

So I wanted, by way of introduction, just to give a couple of examples of application of the truth in the scriptures before we get to the study of our text. If you'd turn to Ephesians 4 with me at verse 17. 

Ephesians 4.17, Paul says, "this I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness." 

So here we have a tremendous picture of the man and Adam, the world, how men live. He says in verse 20, "but you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus." 

And here's the truth. If you are in Christ, in Jesus, verse 22, "you have put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and are being renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you have put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness."

Now here we see some important truths in verses 22 to 24. And the tense of the verbs is most instructive. Paul uses the aorist tense in 22 and 24 for put off and put on. This means that one time in the past, this putting off and putting on has been completed and is finished. However, in verse 23, Paul uses the present tense to say that "you are being renewed in the spirit of your mind to these truths." 

And in verse 25, we see the practical result of having put off the old man in our death, burial, and resurrection with Christ, and the putting on of the new man, which God performed in regeneration when we believed. 

Look at verse 25. He says, "therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need."

You see, my friends, the exhortation to not lie, to not steal, these are not just laws given to follow. But there is a logical basis undergirding why I do not lie as a believer in Jesus Christ. There's a transformation that happens when I believe Jesus. I'm given a new heart, and a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit, and life of Christ in me. 

There's a transformation that happens that moves me from being a thief set on enriching myself to becoming a hard, faithful worker who provides for his own and gives to him who has need. There's a sweet reasonableness born by the truth of who I am and what I have in Christ. And this is the why I can live a new life. Why I should not lie to my brother. 

Colossians 3.9 says something similar. "Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him." 

Do not lie to one another. Why? Because it's wrong, because it offends God, because it violates his command. These things are all true, but these truths give me no power to obey the command. "Do not lie to one another," Paul says, "since you have put off the old man with his deeds." 

And this, again, refers to the death of your old man and Adam, your crucifixion with Christ. When you put off the old man and put on the new, when you moved from the realm of law, sin, and death in Adam to grace, righteousness, and life in Christ. 

In Romans 12.2, it says that now in Christ, it is my reasonable service or spiritual act of worship to serve God. It has the word "logizomai." It has the word "logic" in it. My friends, it's not logical for the religious lost man to keep the commandments to live a holy life. He has no ability to do so. He has no basis. 

He is controlled and dominated by indwelling sin. He's trying to become righteous without the life, and power, and grace of God in his life. He cannot please God. But for us, for those who have believed, for anyone who will believe, who's been regenerated, it is consistent with who we are to live a holy life by the grace and power of God. 

And I want to just drive home this point, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to really know and understand this truth, so that we might live for the glory of God. 

Let's look at our text together in Ephesians 3, at 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. 

I've given you five points on your outline. First, premise. Second, prayer. Third, power. Fourth, plan. And fifth, purpose. 

We've already looked largely at the why, the premise to holy living. But I want to look at that Romans 6 passage again briefly to point out three key words as we think about how God intends we should live a holy life. Romans 6, 1, if you'd look at that with me, we'll just read through that text. And I want you to notice the words "know," "know," "knowing this," "know," the word "reckon," and the word "yield" or "present." 

6, 1, it says, "What shall we say then, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" 

Now, this word baptized here literally means to place into it. It has nothing to do with water baptism here. It means that when we believe Jesus, we died with him, the Holy Spirit placed us into his death, into Christ. 

Verse 4, "therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, 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." 

For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. 

"Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it and its lusts, and do not present or yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace."

We see all of these tremendous truths about our salvation in Christ in these verses, but I want you to focus on those three words, "know," "reckon," "yield," or "present." These are the keys to understand how it is that we can see the fruit of righteousness worked out through our lives on a consistent basis, as Paul prays for in our text.

In fact, in our text, Paul uses the exact same concepts. If you look at Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 17, Paul says 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, 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."

When we know the truths of who we are in Christ, and when we reckon them, count them up, believe them to be true, then the result of this process in our minds results in the outward practice of presenting our members to righteousness by God's power working in us, Christ's life in us. The word comprehend in our text has the idea of understanding or knowing, just like Paul uses in Romans 6. The Greek word means to lay hold of so as to make one's own, to seize or take possession of. We could translate it apprehend in the sense of mentally grasping some idea or truth. 

In this word translated comprehend, we see the idea of knowing, of understanding the truth and reckoning, counting up, laying hold of that truth, taking it for ourselves. But in the word translated know in the next verse, we see the experiential aspect of this, or what Paul calls yielding or presenting in Romans 6. Listen to Weiss' comments concerning these words. He says, “The words to know are the translation of Gnosko, which speaks of knowledge gained by experience. The apprehension of verse 18 is conceptual knowledge. In verse 19, this conceptual knowledge passes into experiential knowledge as the saint experiences in his life that comprehension of the love of Christ for him in the sphere of his earthly life.”

Starting to feel what RFK feels like, I think, when he speaks. It's hard to get it out here. 

So in Romans 6, Ephesians 3, Romans 12, throughout the New Testament, we see the underlying truth as to why we can live a new life. And he says, this we must know, we must comprehend. And we see that we also must choose to believe what God says is true about us, that we must continually reckon these things to be so, and that by the power of the Holy Spirit in Christ's life in us, we can then yield our members to righteousness through faith abiding in him. 

We must understand this premise. And next, we see in our text the prayer, Paul's prayer in verse 14. 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." 

So this text is a prayer. As we have said, Paul has given us these great and amazing truths. Now he's praying to God that we might fully understand and take for ourselves these things and live in light of them. The words for this cause go back to the same words in Ephesians 3.1, which themselves go back to the thought of Jew and Gentile becoming one body in Christ, and this body growing into a dwelling place for God. 

On account of this, he says, I bow my knees. Expositor says, “The thought of the new relations into which the Ephesians had been brought by grace toward God and toward the Jews, the reconciliation of the cross, peace effected where once there was only enmity, the place given them in the household of God gave Paul cause for prayer on their behalf.”

We see that the Father is the source out of which this family, this body comes, is created, Jew and Gentile in one body. And so Paul prays thus to the Father. And what he prays for is power and understanding, comprehension, and experience. 

Look at verse 16 again, "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, 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."

Well first we see the power in verse 16 an amazing phrase according to the riches of his glory. This phrase "his glory" speaks of all that God is, his perfections is his fullness and it's out of this inexhaustible source that endless power and strength come. 

We could think of it this way, let's say I wanted to buy a truck for my farm and my truck's pushing 200,000 miles and it's starting to have some issues here and there and of course as you know that adds up pretty quickly these days, but it's hard thing because new trucks even stripped down work models like I buy are over $50,000. 

Let's say I want to borrow some money to pay for this truck and perhaps I go to a friend or family member who has some means and I ask them for a loan. Now they may have a couple hundred thousand dollars and they might loan me the $30,000 I need to buy my new truck after I trade in my old one and they would be lending me money according to their riches. 

They have the money but not a lot extra so this is a sizable amount for them it'd be according to their riches. But let's say I happen to have a connection to Elon Musk and I go to Elon and I say I really need to borrow this $30,000 to get this truck. Now if he gave me $30,000 that would be out of his riches you see, it wouldn't be according to his riches it would be out of his riches. 

Literally I figured it out $30,000 to Elon Musk is about ninety cents to you and me. But if Elon said, "Hey listen I want to help you out here let me just write you a check for ten million dollars then you can get a truck and some equipment whatever you need and you won't ever have to worry about money again," you see that would be Elon giving to me according to his riches. 

But my brothers and sisters, our Father owns the cattle on a thousand hills, all that is is his. He's the creator and sustainer of all things. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and his riches are limitless. 

So when it says according to the riches of his glory this is something beyond our understanding. This is inexhaustible riches, strength, grace, might, power, love, mercy in super abundance. This is what Paul is praying for out of according to God's riches and glory. 

Then he says the purpose of this resource this abundance poured out to us is to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in our inner man. So God's Holy Spirit is the source of this strength and power and our inner man is the recipient to which it is to be poured out to. 

It is our inner man, our spirit. How do we receive the power for holy living strength to live for the glory of God? By the Holy Spirit imparting his strength to our inner man according to his riches in glory, not out of his riches, according to his riches. This is God's plan. 

And remember that we noted last week that there are a series of purpose clauses in our text in the clauses which build on one another culminating in the revelation of verse 20. We see that here the Holy Spirit imparts strength to our inner man as we walk by the Spirit as we let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly as we abide in Jesus as we know, as we reckon, as we yield. 

And the result of this is found in the next verse, the next piece of God's plan for us, verse 17 "that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." This is a result. It's the next block in the building to holiness. The Holy Spirit imparts strength that so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. 

Now what does this mean? Well it's not speaking of the indwelling of Jesus Christ in the believer for that is true all the time for every believer but it is speaking of Jesus being able to settle down and be at home to be fully functional out through us in our lives for his glory. 

Jesus lives in every believer but Jesus is not always at home in every believer. We could think of our body like a house, you know in my house my wife does a lot of computer work and paperwork and tedious stuff but she can't sit down and be functional she can't be protective at her work if the house is a mess. 

Doesn't matter to me, but she can't do that. She has to clean everything up and put everything in its place so that she can sit down and concentrate and be efficient at her work. When our body, our lives, our house is a mess and we are distracted and focused on the wrong things when there is sin that's not taken care of when there's dirty dishes in the sink Jesus can't settle down and be at home and function as God intends. 

So Paul prays that God would impart strength to our inner man through the Holy Spirit to have our mind straight to be thinking God's thoughts to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that Jesus can settle down and be at home in our lives and can live his life out through us as we abide in him by faith. 

And what is the result of this? Notice our text that he says again that this purpose clause that you may be rooted and grounded in love. This is the next in the sequence that you may be rooted and grounded in love. 

What is the command of the New Covenant? 1st John 3:23, “Believe Jesus and love one another.” Jesus said they will know that you are my disciples by this, that you have love for one another. Love for each other, love for the lost, love for God. Love is the hallmark of the New Covenant believer. 

God's love poured out through us, the word rooted has the idea of securely settled and grounded love here is that love which the Holy Spirit produces and with which he floods the heart of the yielded saint. This inner spiritual condition of the heart enables the saint to comprehend, verse 18, to know, to take for oneself, and to experience to know, verse 19. 

As we said before I'll go back to those comments by least he says, “the word comprehend conveys to the English reader the idea of understand the Greek word means to lay hold of so as to make one's own to seize to take possession of, one could translate apprehend." 

Like we said before the words to know are the translation of Gnosko again which speaks of knowledge gained by experience. So we have in verse 18 again the conceptual knowledge in verse 19 this conceptual knowledge becoming our experience. Beautiful in the way the Holy Spirit wrote this so each of these things build on one another and they end in love manifest in our lives to end in fruit, the fruit of holiness. 

I'd like you to notice that there's no law here, there's no list of commands, there's no encouragement to self-effort or striving in your own power but a total dependence on and looking to God the Father to the Holy Spirit and to Jesus Christ living in and through us by faith, by grace, by his power. This is God's plan for holiness. This is God's plan for consistent fruit in our lives.

And the last purpose clause in this chain of building blocks to holiness is in verse 19 that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Turn over to Colossians 1 with me, look at verse 15. Colossians 1:15 speaking of Jesus, Paul says, "He is the image of the invisible God, He is the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created that are in heaven that are on earth visible and invisible whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created through him and for him." 

And he is before all things and in him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church who is the beginning the firstborn from the dead that in all things he may have the preeminence for it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell. And by him to reconcile all things to himself by him whether things on earth or things in heaven having made peace through the blood of his cross. 

Jesus is the exact representation of God, he is God in the flesh, and it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell. Jesus is the fullness of God. 

So when we look at our text we see that the fullness of God is the fullness which God imparts through the indwelling of Christ in the heart. Christ in whom the Father was pleased that all the fullness should dwell and Colossians 2 tells us in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is the fullness of God in us.

And now we come to verse 20, a tremendous verse, an amazing truth. But my brothers and sisters, I hope that you see through our studies that this is not a standalone verse, it is the culmination of God's plan to accomplish his purpose in you, in the church, and he tells us what that is. 

Let me ask you, what is the context here? What is it that Paul's been talking about? What does he desire for us? What does all of this doctrinal truth and knowing and reckoning experiencing mean for our lives? It means holiness, it means righteousness. It is Christ's life lived out through us for his purposes, for his will, for his glory. 

There is nothing in this context in these words that has anything to do with mighty signs and wonders or material wealth or physical healing, and yet we see so much abuse of this verse especially in charismatic circles ripping it right out of its context and applying it to my own desires, not to those of God in my life, physical carnal gain, not spiritual maturity and fruit for God's glory. 

I want to listen to just one simple passage from one of Kenneth Copeland's teachings on this verse instructs us to name and claim the power of verse 20. He says, "Do you know what will happen if you do that? All heaven will break loose in your life." And he explains what he means by that. 

He says, “Instead of walking around moaning about how broke you are and how you can't afford to give much to spread the gospel which means that you can't send me your money, you'll start thinking about the fact that the one with the power to bring God's word to pass is living inside you and you'll change your tune. You'll start saying things like God meets my needs according to his riches in glory so I have plenty to meet my own needs and give to every good work.” 

"Then the Holy Spirit within you will go into action he'll give you plans, ideas, and inventions, he'll open doors of opportunity and then give you the strength and ability to walk through them. Instead of sitting around wishing there was something you could do for your sick unsaved neighbor you'll march into his house and tell him about Jesus and lay hands on him fully expecting the Holy Spirit within you to release God's healing power and cause him to recover.” 

"I wouldn’t recommend that my friends. Instead of sitting around simply admiring the works of Jesus and reading about them each Sunday in church, you'd hit the streets and do those works yourselves and even greater works. You'll stand up boldly and say the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty them that are bruised to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." 

How in the world do these people come up with this stuff? 

Our brothers and sisters in Christ, do you see why it matters that we study the Word of God to see what he says in its context considering the intent so that we might know the truth and believe it? God's not saying in verse 20 that he will solve all your problems, that he'll make you rich and give you the power to heal, and he certainly isn't applying this messianic passage to you that was rightly applied to Jesus by himself in the gospel of Luke. 

Verse 20 is the culmination of all that we have seen in the plan of God and the purpose of this plan is to bring glory to God to produce holiness through us in order to show his power when we follow the path that Paul just laid out— the Holy Spirit imparting strength to our inner man, that we might know the Word of God, the truth, we might take it for ourselves and reckon it to be so, spiritual truth about who we are and what we have in Christ, and then Christ can settle down and be fully functional in our lives, producing His life out through us, so that we might know His love and might have that love manifest to others, so that we might be filled with all the fullness of God. 

Now, now to Him who is able. This is the culmination concerning not earthly, physical riches or health, but spiritual Christ-likeness, holiness for His glory. 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.

If we begin to know and believe what God says is true, like we studied in Romans 5-8, in the first three chapters of Ephesians, in Romans 12, in Ephesians 4, in Colossians 3, if we start to know these things and apprehend them for ourselves by walking in the Spirit, abiding in Christ, letting the Word of Christ dwell in us richly, if this becomes our focus and in comprehending these great truths we begin to choose to believe them, reckon them, and yield to God's power in us, then we will come to know experientially the life and love of Christ through our lives, as God works in us by His mighty power to accomplish His will, by grace through faith. This is the plan of God. 

We must understand this, we must be offended by those who say we are just still vile, wretched sinners, that the mature condition of our lives is one of realizing how wicked we are. My friends, it's nothing of me, I did nothing. But God changed me in salvation. All you had to do was know me before. And He changed me in salvation and regeneration. 

My old man died. He says I am free from the controlling power of indwelling sin, free from the bondage of the law of Moses, free from the fear of death. He says I live in grace unto righteousness, that I have eternal life. This doesn't mean I always feel like I have these things, or that I always experience these things, but my feelings and experiences do not change the truth of who I am and what I have in Christ. 

And the way to know these truths experientially is not by a list of rules and commands, not by pulling up my bootstraps and trying harder, but by looking unto Jesus, by realizing my total inability and my daily desperate need for Him, and then seeking to know Him, to study His Word, knowing His Word, His truth, and choosing to believe Him and reckon myself dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus my Lord. 

It is in believing Him, walking by faith, receiving His grace, and seeing His power work in and through me. It's a discipline. It's a discipline to know. It's a discipline to take every thought captive, to reject that which does not line up with the Word of God, to spend time with Jesus, to look to Him, to talk to Him, to pray with Him, to abide in Him, to trust Him. 

It's a battle for sure. But by His grace and power, it is a battle that we can and should expect to win more and more consistently in our lives. This is God's plan in the New Covenant, and His purpose is glory, glory in the church through Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. 

Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful for Your Word, Your truth that teaches us, that guides us, that reminds us, renews our mind. We have so many distractions in this world. We have so many emotions and struggles and the lies of the world to deal with that take our mind away from the truth, that cause us to think things carnal and earthly, not spiritual and heavenly. 

Help us to believe what You say is true. Help us to know Your Word, to understand what You've done in us in salvation and what You desire to do through us by Your grace and power. And thank You that You are able. You are able. We trust You, we believe You, we depend on You, in Jesus' name. Amen.