Faith Love Thanksgiving and Petition Part 2

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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Please stand for the reading of God's Word. Our Old Testament reading this morning is

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Jeremiah chapter 9 verses 23 through 24. Thus says the

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Lord, Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might.

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Let not the rich man boast in his riches. But let him who boasts, boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the

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Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

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For in these things I delight, declares the Lord. And our

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New Testament reading is 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 12 through chapter 4 verse 6.

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Since we have such a hope we are very bold. Not like Moses who would put a veil over his face that the

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Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened.

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For to this day when they read the Old Covenant that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away.

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Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the

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Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the

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Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the

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Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

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For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.

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But we have renounced disgraceful underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word.

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But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

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And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.

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In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

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For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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You may be seated. Ephesians 1 chapter 1 verse 15.

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For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints,

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I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the

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God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him.

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Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might.

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That he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.

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And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

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Let us pray. Oh God in heaven, here's your word opened up, and if I'm going to be quite honest, it's a terrifying thing to think that you have tasked me with expositing your word.

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Lord, it would just be so easy to run away from such a calling,

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Lord, but here I stand and I ask, Lord, that you would use a weak, weak vessel like me to speak truth to a people that need to hear it.

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Lord, we're all in desperate need of hearing your word. We're all in desperate need of hearing your good news, that though we are sinners, there is forgiveness and life found in the

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Savior of the world. And so I ask God that I would make your gospel clear, that I would make your word clear, that it would be understandable, and that you would work in hearts to receive what you have declared.

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My God in heaven, the people before me are in many different situations, numerous, but one thing that we all share in common is that in all of our situations, we desperately need to see

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Jesus in it. So I pray God that you would reveal Jesus to each one of us. Lord, the beauties of the risen

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Christ, and that it would have a way of changing our lives today for the glory of your great name and for our good.

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And so God, I ask for your spirit to help us in this endeavor. May you be glorified and may it be for our good, now and into eternity.

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In Jesus name, amen. Well, if you remember, we just got through these lofty things in Ephesians 1, of all the spiritual blessings that's found in Jesus, verses 3 to 14, of all these lofty things that Paul has labeled for us, the beautiful spiritual blessings that are found in Jesus for those who have faith in him.

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Remember, we labeled it as charis, or karis, charis, I guess sounds better, chosen for adoption through redemption for an inheritance that is sealed.

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So we have these lofty blessings that Jesus has offered or given. That is, we are chosen for adoption through redemption for an inheritance that's sealed for us.

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And we left by talking about how the sealing of the Holy Spirit makes the work of those spiritual blessings active in our lives today.

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And so the emphasis that we're still going to carry with us, that you need to carry in your heart and mind, is that the blessings that are laid up for you in Jesus and your faith in him is not meant for just it to just be pie in the sky and something that's pretty nice on paper, but doesn't actually affect your life today.

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The Christianity of that flavor doesn't exist. Christianity is deeply, all the beauties that are in the heavenlies and the spiritual that Jesus is one, and it always bursts out in our life today.

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It must be doing that work because it is a marvelous work indeed. And this is the way

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Jesus is glorified, and this is the way that it's for our good. And so as we're continuing forth now in this prayer of Paul in light of all the beauties that's found in Jesus and this great work that he's done for his people,

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I want you to keep in mind that this is not just pie in the sky, but it's meant to be beheld and enjoyed today.

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You are meant to live an exciting life in Christ in light of these beautiful doctrines that we have laid up for us.

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In light of being chosen for adoption through redemption for an inheritance that's sealed, that is supposed to affect and change your life today.

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But the thing is, many times in our sin, in our short -sightedness, in our laziness, in our dot -da -dot -da -dot -da -dot, so often those things, doctrines, become nice on paper, pie in the sky, but really

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I haven't felt it in my heart for quite some time. And so it's so important for us to look at the Word, look at what

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Paul has for us here in Ephesians, and challenge ourselves. Oh, I want this to be mine, and I want to experience it and enjoy it today.

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And not just something that is dry and on paper only for tomorrow.

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So again, these doctrines, I find that these verses help it to go from pie in the sky to at home in our hearts today.

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And Paul has offered already as an example for us. If you noticed a couple weeks ago, we talked about how

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Paul lived a life of thanksgiving as he witnessed these blessings in real time before him.

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Now again, we talked about the Paul who's in prison. He's not living his best life now. In fact, it would be very easy for us to be so discouraged in that situation of being in a

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Roman prison that certainly we wouldn't have a lifestyle of thanksgiving. But here we have

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Paul saying for this reason in verse 15, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord and your love toward all the saints,

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I do not cease to give thanks for you. So there's Paul living his worst life now, and he's not ceasing thanking

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God. Why? Not because he has a good lawyer and he's on his way and he'll get out soon, but because he hears that there is a people that have faith in Jesus and are loving the saints.

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Now why is that so significant? Because what is the fountainhead of all the spiritual blessings that God has laid out for people?

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What's the fountainhead of that? What's the thing that unleashes it all to us?

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It's our faith in Jesus. That's the beginning of our experience of God's love and beautiful spiritual blessings, of adoption of all these blessings for us.

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It starts with your faith in Jesus, and it shows its genuineness in your love for the saints.

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And so Paul is hearing about this in Ephesians. I hear of your faith in Jesus. So that tells him that there is spiritual blessings being manifested in these people, and it's being proven true by the fact that they're loving each other.

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That shows the sealing of the Spirit, of applying genuineness to their faith in Jesus, that they truly are experiencing the blessings of God.

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And so this man who's in prison, who, I don't know, I would struggle with discouragement, he's instead living a life of thanksgiving because he's hearing of the display of the spiritual blessings.

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So notice how those spiritual blessings are revealing itself in his day, in his daily life, even in the midst of circumstances that would typically cripple people.

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No, instead he's living a life of thanksgiving. The spiritual life or the blessings of Christ isn't just pie in the sky for Paul, but he's living a life of thanksgiving as he's hearing of it revealed in people, their faith in Jesus and their love for the saints.

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Now, of course, does that have the same effect for us? Are we sensitive to the way

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God is working in each other as a church? Do we have a life of thanksgiving as we witness

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God working these spiritual blessings in each other, as we see righteousness being displayed in one another?

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Do we have the same kind of life of thanksgiving? Oh, praise God, Lord, you are working in my church.

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Or are we so caught up in our circumstances that we hardly ever consider to thank God for the way

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God is displaying his righteousness in others? Is the spiritual blessings of Christ so affecting you today that as you see it in others, you are filled with thanksgiving for the righteousness that's displayed in them, for their faith in Jesus and the way they are showing their love for one another?

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Even this past week, as tumultuous and difficult as it has been, what have we seen on display?

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Faith in Jesus and love for the saints. And this should encourage our hearts in that situation that even in this difficult situation,

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I am filled with thanksgiving in light of that. Are we sensitive to the display of the blessings of Christ around us that produces a life of thanksgiving today or not?

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Well, I think we should follow Paul and ask God to give us sensitivity to the way he is revealing himself in these spiritual blessings in those around us.

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But notice, it's almost seamless, the way Paul does this in his prayer now after this. He says, when

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I heard of your faith and love for the saints, he says in verse 16, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

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So notice he goes from thanksgiving to petition. And he's going to go on to petition now.

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So notice the seamlessness. You almost don't even recognize that he's life of thanksgiving and now petition right going forth from that.

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I'm thankful you have faith in Jesus. I'm thankful for your love for the saints that you're displaying, the spiritual blessings in your life.

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And now he's not going to stop with thanksgiving, but he's going to seamlessly go on to petition.

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And the petition is going to reflect what he's thankful for, that you would increase more in the blessings of Jesus.

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And this is exactly how our prayer life should be, should it not? We are sensitive in thanksgiving and our prayer life to the way

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God is working among us, even though it's not the full reality, it's not the full inheritance, but beloved, it is revealing itself if you have eyes to see.

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And we go on from thanksgiving into petition. What you are thankful for to God and what you're asking of God reveals your heart.

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Are you, like Paul, overwhelmed with thanksgiving for the spiritual blessings in Christ? And so it dominates your thanksgiving, it dominates your petitions.

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Oh, that we would grow more after this. I'm so thankful to behold this and I want to grow more after this.

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Does this dominate it, your prayer life? Or are we so stuck in the physical and of the lower blessings of God that we cannot get off of that?

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We need to follow Paul here. He has a thanksgiving heart attitude in his prayer and it goes seamless unto petition.

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Oh, that you would grow more in this. This is only going to happen in our lives if we are seeking the upward prize and call of Jesus Christ.

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Just like Philippians 3, Paul says, I seek the upward call of Jesus. This is

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Paul's dominant vision. This is what he's doing. And so as he's doing it, as he sees it in others, he's thankful and he petitions.

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Oh, Lord, may it increase more and more. I guarantee you if we are a community of believers that our mind is dominated with this, we will see growth upon growth upon growth.

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We do not want to be lax, we do not want to be lazy, but we want to set our eyes upon the beauties of Jesus in the sky and may it then enter woven in our life today as we live a life of thanksgiving and petition.

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What is this petition? Because if you're anything like me, I look at my prayer life and I'm like, well,

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I'm pretty bad. His petition is that we would grow in this. So don't lose heart.

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If you're thinking right now, I'm not anywhere like Paul here. I lack so much.

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I can't even remember the last time I thanked God for the spiritual blessings I see in others. In fact, I find myself more cranky at others because they don't fit exactly what

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I want them to be. I'm not doing this at all. Well, don't lose heart because Paul's petition is for you to grow in this.

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And so let us see what his petition is and let us apply it to our lives and see how it can aid us in growth and experiencing the blessings of Christ today in our lives.

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Look what he says in verse 17. This is his petition for the people of Ephesians and also for...

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It's timeless for everyone. He says in verse 17, Now that is packed full to where it's almost you can get lost in just that one sentence.

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There's so much spiritual truth and blessing being displayed there that you've really got to just break it down to really appreciate what he's saying there.

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And it can be actually difficult to do so. And I think that the best way to do that is to really break it down.

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This petition of Paul here in verse 17, to break it down by how he displays the triune work of God and salvation.

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You notice that? That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, may give you the

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Spirit. And notice he's locating the Trinity there in this work of spiritual blessing of increasing in that.

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So notice he talks about the Father of Glory. He's the Father of Glory. And notice more at the end of that verse in the revelation and knowledge of him, that is of the

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Father of Glory. The petition is that we would see the Father of Glory, we would see his glory, we would grow in our understanding of that, and we would respond as we properly should.

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You know that your life, the essence of your life, the purpose of your life is to see the way

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God has revealed himself and respond in knowing it and worshipping in light of it.

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That is the essence of your makeup. That is the whole purpose of your life. Is that you would see the glory of the

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Father, the Father of Glory. Glory is just simply the way he reveals himself. God is so awesome that any way he reveals himself, it's awesome.

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It's beautiful. It's wonderful. We munch on it. We eat on it. It is our delight. It is everything to us.

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It creates worship in us. Or at least that's the way it should. And so here,

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Paul, his petition is that the Father of Glory, you may know that glory.

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The Father who has done all this work and salvation of earlier in chapter 1, you may know that glory.

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And notice that what's deeply connected there is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Now why is Jesus Christ there? Because we cannot know the glory of the Father and his work without knowing his medium or the medium of Jesus Christ.

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We cannot know, we cannot comprehend, we cannot respond to his glory the way we should without Jesus Christ being there to help us along.

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He is the gateway, the entrance into receiving or seeing the glory of the

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Father and responding and knowing it and responding in worship. There is no receiving of the glory of the

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Father without Jesus Christ being the great gateway. So really, you could look at it as the

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Father of Glory, knowing him, right, in verse 17, is our great aim. And the Son is there, the

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God of our Lord Jesus Christ, he's our great way. And notice he asked that we would receive the

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Spirit because he is our great change. He is the one who grows us into seeing that glory.

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You cannot even gain entrance into seeing that glory without Jesus. But once you do, you cannot even comprehend it well without the

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Spirit working it in you. I have an analogy or whatever you want to call it, it's probably not good so just be patient with me, but it's what my mind went through.

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I shared it with Sarah and I think she gave me like a C+. So we'll see how it goes.

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But imagine if there's a town on one side of a mountain that no longer the land that they live on has any life left.

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It's not providing for them anymore. Different circumstances like global warming and I'm just joking about global warming.

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I'm not making a political statement. But nevertheless, they can't survive there. And so they must move on.

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And so they heard that if they travel through the mountain that there's great tunnels and the tunnels go on and on.

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But they heard that if they can get through it, on the other side of the mountain there's great life. The land is lush. The land offers honey and great things for life and survival and life indeed.

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And so the town decides to go that direction. They go through the mountain. And the tunnels proved to be very extensive.

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They proved to be a lot, a twist and turn. And in fact at the very beginning of their journey, many of the town just turned back and went back to their old life.

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But as the tunnels continued, many just got lost in the tunnels and darkness and there they were just lost their whole rest of their life.

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But there are people that saw the gateway unto life. They saw the light before them. They saw the other side of the tunnel there and they went through that gateway.

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Now Jesus is that gateway that brings us forth unto life. But really, being, spending so much time in that tunnel, it was so dark that the light that they saw, the glory of the light that they saw, the life that was all around them, they could not even see it because of how bright it shone upon them.

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They couldn't see. So although they were in life, they couldn't quite even make out the details of that life because of the brightness of the glory.

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But then as their eyes got accustomed to the light, they started to see the distinctiveness of the life before them.

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The beautiful, lush fields, the waterfalls, the water, the fresh water, the sun that's coming down. Everything that shows that they could have life indeed, they started to distinctly see it as their eyes got accustomed to the glories of the sun shining upon them.

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And we are like the people who believe upon Jesus. We have made it through the tunnel. We have made it through the blessed gateway into life.

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But in that, we are meant to then be able to make out the details of the life God has for us.

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When we first go in as new believers, we say, okay, this is great. It's awesome. But you can't quite see everything that's actually great about it.

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And what the Spirit does is He grows us accustomed to what we have been called to.

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The beauties of the land surrounding us that is located for our disposal to have.

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We don't want to be the type of people that have been brought into life, but we can't even make out what that life is. We want to be people in which we receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation to understand the life that we have been called to.

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I think it's such a glorious thing that not only has God called us to life, but He loves us to where He wants you to enjoy that life now, today.

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We're not meant to be depressed, lonely, kicking at the can Christians.

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But our eyes are being accustomed to the glories of the beauty of Jesus surrounding us through the aid of the

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Spirit that He's given to us. And I think this is what Paul is calling on. We are sealed by the

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Spirit, proves genuine in our life, and the Spirit grows us after that beauty of what we have been called to.

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That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowing what

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He's called us to, and knowing and a knowledge of Him. And so really what you have here as you consider your own life, hopefully there's like a mixture here, right?

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Of saying, oh, I see what God has called me to, but I know I fall so short of enjoying it as I should, and hopefully you see in here a petition of Paul that you can grab hold of.

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Oh, Lord, that I would grow after this, that I would receive the Spirit. And notice it is a prayer of Paul, not that we would just get better, not that they would just get stronger or smarter, but he's asking for help by the

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Spirit, that God would give us the Spirit. And so what I'm saying is that the first step of our attempts to understand this glory more is to ask for help, is to ask for the help that He's given us in the helper, the

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Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of revelation. We are to live a life beholding the glories of the spiritual blessings in Christ today, and notice it is a life given by the

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Spirit. So the first step in your Christian life that we should be constantly doing is asking for help.

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James 1 5, if anyone lacks wisdom, let them ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it'll be given to them.

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I want you to notice, it is a promise of God for you when you rely upon Jesus and ask for help,

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He will reveal the life you have in Jesus. I don't care what circumstance you're going in, that makes you think, there's no way

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He says, I will show you Jesus here, and it will be for your good. We got to understand, we need to be askers.

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We need to be people that what Luther said, all we are is just beggars of God.

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This is exactly where He wants us. I read this a few days ago, and it's just amazing how certain verses just jump out at you and just comfort your soul, in ways it just never has before.

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But Luke 12 32, Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

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You know how beautiful that is? It's not like the Father begrudgingly, I guess I'll give you a show, a display of who

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Jesus is in light of your circumstances today. It is His good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

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He enjoys it, it's what He loves to do. He sees you, a saint of Jesus, He says,

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I want to give you more of Jesus in your hard situation. It's His delight to do it.

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It's not like He's like, ah, I guess I'll do this for you. He delights to give you the kingdom.

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This is the way we need to approach and ask as Paul, his petition is that we would see Jesus more and see the blessings laid up for us more.

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We need to have the same petition because it is His great pleasure to give you the kingdom, to reveal

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Jesus more, to reveal His salvation more. Our God loves to give good gifts, and the greatest is enjoying the eternal blessings of Christ today.

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But it's going to look like something. We're not going to be mystics here, where it's just like, okay,

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I just got to ask and just sit around. But it looks like something very particular. In other words, you need to do something, too.

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So we ask, we're askers, we're beggars, and then it promotes action in us.

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An action that is determined by God in His word. What is that? We'll look at 17 again. That the God of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the

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Father of all glory, may give you the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who gives growth and understanding, but it's the

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Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. So if you're going to be growing, if you're going to be growing in this understanding of what

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Christ is doing in salvation in your circumstances, you need to be one in which you're asking for the Spirit who gives you one of wisdom and of revelation.

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Growing in wisdom and revelation. What does that mean? What does that look like?

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Well, wisdom is like informed decision -making. Makes sense?

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Wisdom is like informed decision -making. In other words, how you act, your decisions, will impact your enjoyment of the spiritual blessings in Christ today.

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You need to be one of a spirit of wisdom, of informed decision -making. The decisions I make are informed.

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And so I do things according to that informed wisdom which will then grant me a greater display and seeing of the distinctiveness of what

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Jesus is doing in my situation. If you're not acting according to wisdom, then don't expect to see

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Jesus clearer in your situation, beholding His salvation. You need to be acting according to wisdom.

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It's informed decision -making. Now, we all make decisions that are informed. And so the informed here

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I'm talking about is a very particular informing. It's not one of the world in which we're informed by our feelings. You gotta understand that's a wicked philosophy by the devil to keep you from making a proper informed decision.

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That I'll just make a decision based off of how I'm feeling. In fact, if you were to something you can challenge yourself with is when

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I make decisions, what is the baseline of that decision? If you never even thought about that,

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I have no idea. Most likely you're making decisions based off of some kind of feelings or some kind of natural inclination.

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But we as Christians are called to make decisions based off of informing of what? Well, what does he say?

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Of revelation. You see that? May God give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation.

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Informed decision -making is based off of revelation. God's revelation. Not ours.

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Not anyone else's. But we are we are, we devote ourselves to God's revelation. God is constantly revealing himself to you.

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There's never a moment where God is not revealing himself to you. In this moment right now, he is revealing himself to you.

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He reveals himself to you in two major ways. His word and his world. Okay?

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So you are always in the theater of God's revealing. It's never a moment where you're outside of that.

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And so as we grow in understanding of spiritual blessings found in Christ that's done through informed decision -making and that informed decision -making or wisdom is centered in the way he reveals himself to you.

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And we see that in his word and in his world. Now, what do

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I mean by that? I don't want to get too lost here. But the word of God as you read it, as you read and understand it, that's going to give you understanding.

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And as you go about his world in which he's revealing himself to you in his world, that gives you an arena to apply that understanding.

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You get where I'm going there? So wisdom is informed decision -making and his revealing, we use that to then act out that wisdom.

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Understanding his word, understanding his world, and acting appropriately in that revealing of the world so that we are living a life of wisdom.

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I hope that line kind of makes sense. I know that was quite a line there. But this is really what it means for his revelation to grow in it, that he's revealing himself and we use that revealing in his word and his world to act appropriately in wisdom and in that kind of thing shaken around together we then get a greater view of his salvation in our lives.

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So let me give you, try to give you a good example of this, of God's revelation in his word and his world and using both of them to act out in a life of wisdom.

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So, you wake up in the morning and you go to his word because that's what you do, right?

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You go to God's word so you're informed by his revelation and his word. And you read in Psalm 19, you meditate upon it and you read, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

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So you're reminded of the purpose of the world to reveal his glory to you so that you behold his glory and you say, oh my goodness

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God, you are awesome and worthy of all of my respect, all of my honor, all of my glory, this day is devoted to you because of how awesome you've shown yourself to be.

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Right? So there's the word giving you understanding, you go out and you look at the morning sky because you're up before dawn because you want to worship

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God before the sun does and there you behold him, right, and you're just like, okay, you're worthy of it. Today at work

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I'm glorifying you, I'm giving you everything, right, because I see the revelation of you even in your world. I'm going to give it to you.

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I'm going to give everything to you. But then as you go about your day that kind of tenacity loses and all of a sudden you start living pretty much in sin.

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So what do you do then? You go back to his word and you go and you read somewhere John 7 37 -38

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Jesus says, if anyone thirsts come to me and drink, believe in me and out of your heart will flow living water.

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And so you say, oh God I'm a sinner, I see that you're worthy of everything I've seen in your word, in your world, I've seen you reveal yourself and I'm a sinner because all

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I want to do is live for myself, but yet I see the one who offered himself as a drink. The one who offers himself of forgiveness of sin so I can live for him and he can reunite me to your glory to reveal it, to see it, and to taste it.

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And so now you go forth seeing God's glory and relying upon Jesus, the forgiver of sins. So you notice how the revealing of God in his word and his world come together and in so doing as we live it out it provides wisdom that we would know who

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God is in his world, know who God is in his word, and we would act appropriately with the two coming together.

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Or another example would be reading in God's revealing of his word, 2

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Corinthians 1, 3 -4, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and God of all comfort who comforts us in all of our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are afflicted and then the wisdom, the playing out of that in the world and when we are deeply afflicted of a certain trial that happens.

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The word becomes active in the world as it comes together right? He is a comforter and in the world he reveals himself by giving us affliction so that we can receive that comfort.

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The word and the world, what goes on comes together. That is the way God reveals himself. Every single moment of your life in this world is

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God revealing himself to you and that is the way you need to look at your life.

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Every ounce of it, God is revealing something particular about himself to you. That you are to grab hold of and in wisdom, act accordingly that you see in his word and in that shaking aroundness that's going on, you then are revealed

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Jesus all the more in his salvation. So that you can apply his revelation of his word through this wisdom and enjoy the spiritual blessings that's found in Jesus.

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Oh, I wish I could say that in a clearer way because I know it's getting into the deep recesses of spiritual truth but nevertheless this is what

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God is doing. This is the life that the spirit calls us to. Is that we would see his glory we would grow in wisdom and revelation and in that process, in that growth, we would see the glorious inheritance awaiting us or that beautiful glory shows itself even today.

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And I'm going to spend just a few more minutes on these next two verses but when that's happening when your life, you can say that's happening,

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I'm in his word I'm seeing him revealed in his word I'm seeing the truth there and then I'm seeing him revealed in the world and all the things that happen in the world,

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I see it's all a revelation of God and my purpose is to apply the word in the world, coming together to see

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Jesus. When that is happening in your life you are going to be filled with hope and you're going to be filled with the conviction of God's power in your life.

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Notice what he says in verse 18. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints.

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Notice that the deeper language of starting in verse 18. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened.

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So as this is going on as you're growing in the wisdom of growing in the spirit of wisdom and revelation you will notice that as you are applying wisdom like that it will go into the deep recesses of who you are as a human being.

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Your heart. Your heart is like the command center of who you are. That's where your will is.

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That's where your desires are. So as you're applying wisdom it gets so deep rooted in you it changes everything about you.

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It changes your will. It changes your desires. It really affects everything about you. I don't have time to go down that rabbit trail.

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So I think he kind of uses kind of extra deeper language here. And so when your will, your desires are changed notice it produces hope.

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He says that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints?

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Now when we talk about hope, what immediately comes to mind? When you hear the word hope usually what comes to mind is there's some kind of negative circumstances that causes you to have to hope.

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When you hear people say they're not giving up hope, right? They have hope. It's because something in their life is causing them to perhaps tempt them to give up hope.

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And so I think what's going on here is this becomes so much involved in your life. The blessings of Jesus, the wisdom and revelation so deep into your heart that no matter what circumstance

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God, how he reveals himself in the world, all it has to do, it just creates hope in you.

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It doesn't destroy you. It doesn't knock you down and that's it. But instead, because you're going through this process, it actually only builds you up in hope of the future inheritance that you'll have in Jesus.

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As you're tasting it today in a maybe negative circumstance. You see what's going on here.

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You become a more well -rounded Christian. Not dependent upon circumstances. Not dependent upon what may or may not happen to you.

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No. No matter how God reveals himself to me today, whether it's good providence or negative providence,

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I'm going to use it all in wisdom and revelation to build myself up in hope and the future inheritance that I have in Jesus.

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He's able to use any circumstance in your life and show you Jesus. And so if he's able to do that, it gives you encouragement that whatever lies ahead of me, it is the inheritance that I have in Jesus.

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This is his whole purpose in revealing himself to me. That I would know Jesus more. And it's not always in sunshine.

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In fact, most of the time, the deeper way to know God more is through the storms. And so it has a way, as you're giving yourself to this petition of Paul, it has a way of building you up in hope in these negative circumstances and keeping your eyes on the hope you have in Jesus instead of just destroying you into the ground.

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You want to see a hopeless person, look to someone who doesn't have Jesus. They have no understanding of what's going on.

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But for those who are in Christ, it's only causing them to see Jesus in a greater, newer way.

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The spiritual blessings of Christ going from high in the sky to at home in their heart.

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Not only hope, it produces a conviction, a power of God.

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Look at verse 19. And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might.

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Now, this is going to be the focus of the rest of chapter 1. So I'm going to get in more detail,

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Lord willing, next week in which the focus is going to be, and we would grow in conviction of this power with this working, and then he's going to detail what that power is.

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But I want you to notice, again, what comes to mind when you think of God's power being displayed? That you grow more conviction of that.

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What comes into your mind? Well, the fact is that power is greatly exposed with the backdrop of weakness.

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The backdrop of power is shown whenever there's weakness involved. In other words,

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God reveals his power in your life by revealing your weakness. Your weakness in sin, your weakness, ability to handle life's problems.

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But whenever he shows you, reveals himself to you, you start seeing Jesus in light of it. He reveals his power in you to change you from weak to strong in Christ.

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So once again, God in revealing his power to you, the greatness of his power, he says, towards us who believe according to the working of his great might, allows you to experience weakness or negativity in that way so that you have a greater view of his power on display.

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Power is fully manifested as a backdrop to weakness. Calvin has a very good picture with this verse here of being convicted of God's power.

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Convinced of it. Again, in verse 19, the greatness of power, you see in that verse there, the greatness of power is like the root system.

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It's God's storehouses of power that's found in God. You understand that God, when he created, he desired to show off his power.

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He has this immense power, and he wants to show it off. You know, it's like a child who has a really cool super soaker, right?

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He just has to shoot someone with it to show the power. This is God. He has immense storehouse of power, and his whole purpose in creating is to show off that power.

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Even whenever he's got to show you weakness in order to do so. The greatness of power is like the root system.

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The working of his great might in that verse is like the tree, and the toward us who believe is the fruit.

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God has a desire to reveal his power, and he works his great power in us who believe, and that is the fruit that is displayed.

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So again, as you are overwhelmed by your weakness, as you're overwhelmed by the circumstances that you're in that is displaying your weakness, beloved, that's where God wants you.

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Because it's in that moment then you behold the power of God, of salvation in Jesus. The wisdom, the revelation happening all together, coming together in your heart, beholding the beauties of Jesus displayed in that.

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This is the power of God displayed. As we will look forward to more in the coming verses.

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So, in conclusion, has your weakness that you are experiencing right now, in which the world, when they experience it, it just destroys them, has your weakness revealed to you

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God's power? Is that where your mind is going to? Has difficult times in your life revealed the hope of the inheritance to you?

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Because that's the purpose Jesus has for it. Is the wisdom and revealing of God so deep within you that your heart is enlightened to these spiritual realities?

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Or are you rather just ignoring what God has purpose for the revealing of him self in these situations?

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I would encourage you. You are met. You are called to see.

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This is all about God's revealing. It's all about me being informed as in his revealing,

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I'm going to do it with wisdom and understanding so I see Jesus displayed in his salvation.

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This is what we are to bring ourselves to. This is what we are to look to. So, if you're a

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Christian before me, give yourself to the word of God. Give yourself to the word of truth.

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And it's not just like I'm telling you to get alone and read the Bible. Of course, you should do that. But hear the word of God declared right now.

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Hear the word of God wherever you hear and experience it from a saint, a fellow saint. Listen to what's being said.

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And say, God, give me the wisdom in my life to apply it so I can see Jesus more. Be thankful when you see salvation being displayed around you.

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Grab hold of it with a thankful heart, petitioning to the Lord oh, that you would use this life that we have to grow more in salvation.

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So, whatever that looks like in your revealing, oh God, bring it. Just let me know Jesus more in it.

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This needs to be in the back of your eyelids so no matter what you're going through, you say, okay, this is revealing God and I'm going to use it this way for the glory of Christ.

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God in heaven, thank you for your encouraging word. Lord, I can't tell you how many times

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I wake up discouraged. Lord, I wake up with no desire to give you the glory and praise that you deserve.

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And I find that it's always in some way resulted in that I don't like the way you're revealing yourself to me.

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I'm not growing in the revealing of God. Instead, I'm diminishing because I have my own thoughts of what should happen.

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God in heaven, I pray that hope would be established and growth would be found therein.

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I pray that we would all have a conviction of your power. And we see that that's found in any way you reveal yourself in your word and in your world and wisdom, we apply your word to it.

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And we know Lord that in this way we have this beautiful treasure laid up for us in Jesus Christ.

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So that the salvation that we have in him goes from something that's up high in the sky to at home in our hearts.

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Lord, the purpose of everything is for it to be at home in our hearts today. Lord, I pray for those struggling saints before me.

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Those who have not had a mind like this in quite some time. I pray that you would open their ears to hear this.

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And they would, with a new tenacious spirit, say, okay God, you're revealing yourself to me in this way. I'm going to stop murmuring.

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I'm going to grab hold of it for the desire for Jesus. I pray for those who are unbelievers who have no understanding of circumstances in what you're doing.

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God, all it proves to do is to be your wrath against them. Oh, that they would turn and look to Jesus now.

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That they would be with Paul and just be amazed at the way you reveal yourself to us in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That they would believe upon him for their salvation so that their life gains a meaning of the revealing of Christ for his glory and for our good.

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Thank you for the spirit. For, again, it's only by his work that we can even come closer, ever grow in the graces that's found in Jesus.