Praying with Paul Chapter 11

Faith Bible Church

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August 8, 2024

Praying with Paul Chapter 12

00:00: Okay, we are live. We're doing chapter 11, praying for power, right?
00:10: And when you read that, it seems like the prosperity gospel, like praying for power.
00:18: But when you actually read it, it's not at all. It's very God centered.
00:23: And it's really for the sanctification of Christians. Let me pray for us and then we'll start.
00:35: Father, we're grateful that you are good. We're grateful that you are the one who empowers us to become more like Christ to live a fulfilled life, not in a monetary sense, but in a transformed sense.
00:53: Help us to be more like Jesus, not for our glory, but for your glory.
01:00: Protect the church from all sorts of evil, whether physical or spiritual.
01:06: Protect your people. Help us to renew our minds so that we may be transformed by the spirit.
01:14: We pray that your spirit would be with us. In Jesus' name, Amen. All right, praying for power.
01:24: I will read from Ephesians 3, 14 through 21. That's written here on page 159.
01:32: For this reason, I kneel before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
01:39: I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
01:52: I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the
01:58: Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
02:13: Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us.
02:23: To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever,
02:29: Amen. Really powerful prayer right there,
02:35: Ephesians 3. It is one of my favorite prayers from Paul.
02:41: It's just so deep, so rich. Yeah, I have Ephesians 3 .20 memorized.
02:46: Good, good. Yeah, try to get the whole thing memorized. Well, no, I just have Ephesians 3 .20.
02:52: Yeah. Before we begin, before we begin Ephesians 3 .20, we can ask or imagine
02:58: Ephesians 3 .20. Good. All right. I mean, I did that from, I think it was from the
03:04: New Jerusalem Bible. Okay. I was like, no, I can't rewrite that, but I can memorize that.
03:12: Sure, sure. But I don't know if for some reason that was the only thing you memorized. Right.
03:19: So New Jerusalem Bible is okay, right? Yeah, that's fine. I mean, it's just dangerous to say like one translation is better than the other.
03:30: There are certain translations, like I would argue is not a translation, like Eugene Peterson's message, the message, because that's, he himself says it's not a translation.
03:42: It's a paraphrase, but I try not to just bash on anyone's personal
03:50: Bible, so. All right.
03:56: So Wayne's online. He starts with how
04:02: Christians normally learn. And I thought his story on how he learned to pray is very funny, right?
04:09: He grew up reading King James Version Bible. That's what his family was reading.
04:15: And that's how those people in Canada in the 20th century, that's how they pray.
04:21: Right. So he's from Canada. Yeah, Elizabethan English, right?
04:28: Canadian and French. So he would learn to pray in a very formal
04:34: English manner with thou and thy, right? We beseech you,
04:40: O Lord. Right. But then in French, he would actually pray with normal modern
04:47: French because that was the translation they had for French, right? He's bilingual.
04:53: And his point is that Christians learn to pray by listening to those around them. I guarantee you, you hear younger
05:04: Christians pray out loud nowadays. You will hear something like,
05:11: Dear Father, O Father, O God, we thank you for today. But you might not hear that in the older Christians.
05:19: We thank you for today. It's a very new modern way. It's not like one's bad or not, right?
05:26: But we learn by listening to those around them. And praying together is a form of discipleship.
05:36: You learn theology, who God is, how he is, his character from praying with an older saint.
05:48: And I think that's really important. I think young people need to know. It's a little history, up until the 60s or 70s, there was no other
05:56: Bible really used other than King James. Right, right. Right.
06:02: And it's also called the Authorized Version, right? A .V., right? The King James Version.
06:10: I think still the best -selling version of all, King James Version. Or the
06:15: New King James? No, I think the King James is still the best -selling version of all. I'm not like promoting
06:22: King James over other best -selling. Yeah, like, yeah, I don't want to comment on what the best version is.
06:30: Because I don't want to be like, you know, like, I like this version. And then if you read a different version,
06:37: I don't want you to feel like, oh, no, this is not pastor approved. You know, like, no, I want you to read a version that you will constantly read, right?
06:52: Right, right, right. Right, for sure.
07:00: And I personally don't think people need to learn Greek or Hebrew to understand.
07:05: That's the original handwriting. But the point is, we don't have the original copies anyway, right?
07:13: We don't have the very first edition that Paul wrote. That's not here.
07:20: Right. But we believe that's inerrant, right?
07:28: Yeah. Okay, so how must our prayers be shaped? So, if we know that our prayers are shaped by those around us, hearing other people pray, or people around us, what would you say is the best resource in which our prayers are shaped?
07:51: The Bible, right? And he says that, right? On page 160, surely the best answer is to turn again to the prayers of the
08:02: Bible, which is what we've been doing for the past couple of months, right?
08:07: If every part of our lives is to be renewed and reformed by the word of God, how much more should that be so of our praying, right?
08:18: If our generation does not cast up many prayer warriors whose habits in prayer accurately reflect the standards of Scripture, it is all the more urgent that we return to the primary source.
08:35: And again, I really think it's important to learn to pray with an older saint, someone who's been walking with Christ for decades, because they do pray differently.
08:49: We have some really fervent prayer warriors at our church, and when something goes wrong, that's where I text, right?
09:00: I have a group of people, I let them know what's going on, and I can trust that they're going to be praying that day, that night, and over and over again, right?
09:13: And we're blessed to have those people, right? Many of them older.
09:21: Now, there are two central petitions in Ephesians 3, 14 through 21. The first one is that God may strengthen us with power through his spirit in our inner being.
09:33: That's verses 16 through 17a. The second petition is we may have power to grasp the limitless dimensions of the love of Christ, verse 17b through 19.
09:45: So, those are the two petitions we're going to go over. The first petition is prayer for power.
09:50: When I say prayer for power, what's the first thing we think about? We're going to learn to pray with power.
09:59: Holy Spirit. Right. Holy Spirit. Anyone else? Yeah. That one movie.
10:09: Yeah. Michael Douglas, where he says, he says, money is good, greed is good.
10:17: Uh -huh. Oh, I can imagine him saying, let's put... Yeah, yeah. No, for sure. Yeah. I read...
10:24: Very secular. Yeah, very secular, right? Yeah. I read that and I got something similar too, right?
10:29: Prayer with power. It sounds so something you would hear like Joel Osteen or, you know, one of those prosperity gospel people would say, right?
10:40: A heretic would say, right? Prayer for power. But we got to read on. And Diane's right.
10:48: This is the power that Paul asks for, which comes from the Holy Spirit. And that's from verse 16, right?
10:55: That he may strengthen you with the power through his spirit. This is important because who, how does
11:05: God strengthen you? What's so special about the Holy Spirit? He indwells in you, right?
11:13: He indwells in the believers. What else? He's powerful. Not only that, he's the most powerful, right?
11:21: He's God. He's God. I think Christians often forget.
11:27: This is why I don't understand why people would pray to something else like angels or saints.
11:33: It's like if you have the Holy Spirit indwelling in you, then that's all.
11:40: Like you can't trump that, right? Why go somewhere below, right?
11:50: So it is through the spirit and the sphere, as in the location in which that power is affected, is our inner being.
11:58: Now, what is this inner being? The sphere.
12:04: It's, yeah, it's in our soul, right? It's our heart, right? This comes from 2
12:11: Corinthians 4, 16 through 18. Though in the outer man, we're wasting away, yet in the inner man, we're being renewed day by day, right?
12:25: It's the same word for inner being or inner man. Our inside is getting better.
12:33: I mean, I don't know about you. Every day you might be waking up and something else is going wrong with the outer body, right?
12:43: Today, I'm like, why are my fingers hurting? You know, it's like, could this be arthritis? And no,
12:48: I'm not like typing away sermons like crazy, right? It's just like my fingers are just hurting. But right, it's a multi -billion dollar industry to make our outer man look good again, right?
13:04: Think cosmetics, plastic surgery, right? I mean, even medical surgery too, right?
13:12: So that the outer man actually works for some of us that's necessary, right?
13:18: But what Paul is saying is he is experiencing aging. And yes, he is also experiencing like soreness and it's hard to wake up.
13:29: But his inside is being renewed. It's getting better, right?
13:35: I thought the illustration on page 162 was splendid. Page 162, second paragraph.
13:46: We all know senior Christians who, as their physical strength is reduced, nevertheless become more and more steadfast and radiant.
13:55: Their memories may be fading. Their arthritis may be nearly unbearable.
14:01: Their ventures beyond their small rooms or apartments may be severely curtailed.
14:09: But somehow they live as if they already have one foot in heaven. As their outer being weakens, their inner being runs from strength to strength.
14:20: Would you say you see that in the older saints at our church? Right, for sure, right?
14:27: We do have, well, I mean, first of all, our older saints actually look younger than their age.
14:34: So you might not know. And our older saints actually, I mean, as far as I've been here, they haven't really stopped working, right?
14:43: Their faithfulness continues. But it's true.
14:52: They know. And, you know, we do have some older saints who haven't been able to make it for a while, right, like Venera and Audrey.
15:02: And whenever you visit them, they have no complaints. Yeah, they might have surgeries coming up.
15:11: They may have health problems. They may have loss of certain functions, right? But when you ask them, how can we pray for you?
15:20: It's not about their pain. It's never about this pain I'm feeling. You know, it's just for the church.
15:28: They're just quiet and gentle. And that's a sign of God working in them.
15:35: And they're in their 90s, by the way, right? Venera and Audrey, they're just kind and gentle.
15:43: There's no complaint. Right? It's not like, why haven't you visited all this time, right?
15:50: Not from their mouth. They're just grateful to hear that the church is continuously being faithful.
16:03: Yeah. I think that's important.
16:32: Yeah. That is the sign of growing inwardly, right?
16:37: Because naturally, that's where it goes, right? If you meet a secular person who's old, right?
16:44: They don't have the physical willpower to keep the nastiness in anymore.
16:50: They don't care. They will blurt out curse words. They will yell at you, right? But that's because the inner man is not being renewed every day, right?
17:00: Now, until the resurrection, it is going to be on only our inner self that is renewed.
17:08: Sure, there might be years where, you know, you're getting healthier because diet change and all. But that's not gonna get you back to your teenage years, right?
17:18: That's not. Okay. The resurrection, the physical resurrection, the outer man being renewed is
17:27: God's, right? God's job. But so is the inner man that's being renewed.
17:33: That part is also God's power, right? That's the part in which
17:39: God strengthens. Now, what does this tell us about our focus?
17:44: What do we need to focus on? Yeah, Jesus, right?
17:51: We need to focus more on the inner man being renewed, right? Not does the world focus on.
18:01: Themselves, money, outside, how we look, how are you perceived, what
18:07: I own, right? Right. But for Christians, the focus must be the renewal of the inner man through God's power.
18:17: Now, the purpose of the power is stated in verse 17, so that price may dwell in your heart through faith.
18:27: And in one sense, this is a Trinitarian prayer, he points out, right? Paul prays to the father.
18:34: So that we may be strengthened through the spirit. So that Christ may dwell in our hearts.
18:43: Through faith. Now. The question
18:50: I think he asked in page 163, doesn't Christ already dwell in our hearts the moment we believe, right?
18:59: How does he answer, right?
19:17: Yeah, that's that sentence, right? 163, second to last paragraph.
19:23: Paul's hope is that Christ will truly take up his residence in the hearts of believers. As they trust him.
19:30: That's what through faith means. So as to make their hearts his home. Christ makes our hearts his home.
19:39: Right. That made me think of the parable of when
19:44: God removed, Jesus removed the demons from a person. Oh, yeah, yeah.
19:50: And then came back because it was empty and clean. Right. How come you moved back in and bring somebody else?
19:56: Sure, sure. Because it was no one was living there. Fill the space with that. Right, right.
20:02: Yeah, for sure. That's that's the idea of dwelling, right? Dwelling is a place you call home, right?
20:13: Dwelling is home. Dwelling is permanent. Dwelling is not a visit, right?
20:20: You visit. Right. You visit, you know,
20:25: Philadelphia. You visit New York. You visit Hawaii, right? But you don't dwell there if you live here.
20:34: And I think his illustration on the house was pretty clear.
20:41: Right. Talks about a young couple. They afford. They could only afford a house that's pretty run down.
20:47: Old fashioned. Right. And things are breaking apart. But over time, over decades, they they fix it up.
20:58: Right. The gross wallpaper is gone. Right. The roof's not leaking anymore. Right.
21:05: The basement is tidied up and then they're sectioned off for rooms. Right. And they're made.
21:12: They made more rooms, one for office and another for, you know, sewing room or whatever.
21:18: Right. But at one point, it's become a home. Right. That's dwelling.
21:26: And what he says is on page 164, second to last paragraph.
21:35: When Christ, by his spirit, takes up residence within us, he finds the moral equivalent of mounds of trash, black and silver wallpaper and a leaking roof.
21:46: He sets about turning this residence into a place appropriate for him, a home in which he is comfortable.
21:53: There will be a lot of cleaning to do. Quite a few repairs and some much needed expansion.
21:59: But his aim is clear. He wants to take up residence in our hearts as we exercise faith in him.
22:07: Right. That's that's what it means. The purpose of you being empowered by the spirit.
22:14: So that your inner being is renewed. Right. Becoming new is so that Christ would call your inner being home.
22:23: So that Christ may dwell even more fully. Right now, when we're first saved, that's that's the point.
22:38: We greatly need to be renewed and repaired. That's that's Christianity's a journey, not not an event.
22:47: Only God's God's power can transform us to reflect
22:54: Christ, to become more like Christ, to represent Christ well. And this is why
23:00: Paul prays for power, not fully, not for influence, not for money.
23:06: Right. Not for popularity, but power so that our inner beings are changed.
23:14: Right. Not even for specifically ministry. Right. He's not even saying power so that you may preach well.
23:23: That's not it. It's not power so that you may lead a Bible study well. So that you may evangelize well.
23:30: But here the power is so that we may be renewed inside so that Christ may dwell in us.
23:41: I have a good example. Yeah. A hundred years ago, it was almost identical to this. Talking about the
23:47: Lord taking a person and he's talking about the Pacific. They took an island.
23:54: He says they landed on the beach and they came back. The island is secure. But he says the only thing they had was the beach.
24:01: Yeah. But there was all that rest of that stuff that they had to accomplish before. Right, right.
24:09: That's right. That's kind of the same thing. For sure. Right. That's a great illustration.
24:17: Yeah. When the Lord comes in our heart, he says it's secure.
24:23: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Right. Now, Paul, I mean, not
24:31: Paul, Don Carson asks, how is this prayer supplied? What supplies this prayer or the power?
24:42: And he's God. And the answer is out of his glorious riches.
24:50: Out of his glorious riches. 166.
24:55: Out of his glorious riches. Now, what are his glorious riches?
25:08: Love. Yeah, love, right. Yeah, yeah.
25:20: Everything really that Paul talked about in Ephesians. The love that God has in choosing the church.
25:27: The love that God has in adopting Christians. The love that God has in pardoning sin.
25:33: The love that God has. It's every heavenly blessing that's poured out on the
25:41: Christians. For Christ's sake. Right. Everything that Christ has accomplished.
25:50: It's given to you. In that last paragraph on that same page, it lists the things.
25:58: Right. As one of our pardons reconciled us to God. He's canceled our sin and secured the gift.
26:05: And the list goes on. Right. Yeah, the list is on the last paragraph that Victor read.
26:13: 166, right. The gift of the spirit. Eternal life promises us the life of the consummation made us children of the new covenant.
26:23: His righteousness has been accounted as ours. He has risen from the dead and all of God's sovereignty is mediated through him and directed to our good and to God's glory.
26:37: That's the glorious riches. The glorious riches really is everything that Christ has done, and Paul is persuaded that the supply is as extensive as the benefits secured by Jesus Christ and Golgotha.
27:00: That's from 167. Paul is persuaded that the supply is as extensive as the benefits secured by Jesus Christ at Golgotha.
27:10: So you're the fact that God's power is supplied, not from just the minimal, right?
27:21: It's his supply is not minimum. His supply is maximum.
27:28: Right. It's everything that Christ has accomplished. It's never ending. Right. Right.
27:37: And this power is able to transform how we think, how we talk and how we live. Right. On page 167.
27:50: Let's see. On page 167. But God's purpose for men.
27:57: That's. Okay. Yeah.
28:03: The third paragraph. But God's purpose for men and women he redeems is not simply to have them believe certain truths, but to transform them in a lifelong process that stretches toward heaven.
28:16: And so Paul prays along just such lines. He asked his heavenly father that out of his glorious riches, he might strengthen believers with power through his spirit in their inner being so that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith.
28:31: In fact, I think some of the most miserable people are Christians who stopped growing, who are just who don't really want to grow, who were not troubled by the fact that they're not really growing in faith because we're meant to be transformed.
28:58: In fact, before going to seminary, I thought, you know, like a good Christian is someone who believes this, this, this, then this basically whatever doctrine
29:08: I held right before seminary. I thought good Christian must be this, this, this, this. And I what
29:15: I learned from interacting with many seminary students and some professors is that doctrinal uniformity alone does not say much about who they are.
29:30: Um, I've met a lot of probably unsaved people who would, who could argue with you on based upon, you know, the
29:43: Trinitarian doctrine and they'd be right. Right. And they would, they would know the Bible like the back of their hand, but they lack the transformed life.
29:57: I'm not saying have wrong doctrines. Right. But doctrines alone is not enough, right?
30:10: In the end, I would much rather have a person at this church who doesn't have a seminary degree, but is being transformed into the image of Christ over someone with a
30:23: PhD and who can tell you all about the transformation process, but isn't transformed himself.
30:29: Right. The second petition is this, that we may have power to grasp the limitless dimensions of the love of Christ.
30:42: This is from 17B to 19. I'll read that part.
30:49: And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the
30:56: Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
31:02: And to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with the measure of all the fullness of God.
31:13: This is also a prayer for power. Again, the word power exists there too. The different purpose for the power of God, however, in our lives, right?
31:23: It's not the same function. And what's the function here? How is God's power working in our lives?
31:30: In this second prayer request? Yeah, it's to understand
31:40: Jesus love for us, right? This is not, he says it here.
31:47: This is not a prayer so that we love Jesus better. That's a great prayer.
31:53: That's another prayer. This prayer is that we would understand how much
31:58: Jesus loves us, right? That's a new, very different prayer.
32:06: And he argues, of course, that these Christians, they do know that God loves them, right?
32:12: After all, verse 17 says they're rooted and established in love. They're already rooted and established in love.
32:18: They know God's love. And on page 168, he says on the third paragraph, the remarkable fact about this petition, however, is that Paul clearly assumes that his readers,
32:37: Christians, though they are, do not adequately appreciate the love of Christ. He now wants them to have the power to grasp just how great the love of Christ is.
32:48: This is not a prayer that we might love Christ more. Though that is a good thing to pray for. Rather, it is a prayer that we might better grasp his love for us, right?
32:58: Just as we talked about. What this means is
33:04: Christianity is not an intellectual exercise. I think a lot of people think that, oh,
33:13: I'm not smart enough to read the Bible, or I'm not smart enough to understand this doctrine. That's not the point, right?
33:21: It's about the relationship with God in Christ. It's more than just knowing the theology behind God's love.
33:30: It's meant to be experiential as much as knowledge based, right? I think he does talk about that.
33:37: It's not just a spiritual exercise for spiritual sake, right? You might have seen videos online where people are just like putting hands on someone.
33:45: They're falling. But it's like, how does that help anybody? Right? Like, how did that help this person get closer to Christ?
34:05: He has given, you know, he'll give you more. And if you have not, you know, take from those.
34:11: And I think he's personally, I think he's talking about the fact that here, I've given you an instruction in the word.
34:17: And as soon as you put that into practice in your life, I'll teach you something more. Right. Yeah. And I think that's the whole thing.
34:24: And I think a lot of people go along and are not willing to take this first step to put into practice what the
34:32: Lord's already showed them. And he's more or less saying, why should I show you anymore? If you're not going to put this into practice?
34:40: Yeah, it's this idea to just like merely think of it as intellectual and not, right?
34:48: Live it, right? Not experience it, right? You know, it's about.