Christ, the Wisdom of God — Phil Beach Jr.

Are the things that were shared with us just now, captured your heart. It captured your heart and communicated to us something very dear, something very dear, something you desire very much for us to know, to enter into, to participate with.

Prayer for Passion and Understanding

Lord, I'm asking that you will, by this word from your heart, birth into us a divine passion and unction along the lines of prayer, Lord, that you would help us to see the vastness of this prayer ministry that you've called us into that is directly related to the vastness of what Christ has accomplished at Calvary, the vastness of the working of all that that includes.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, awaken our hearts, awaken our spirits, Lord. Breathe upon us inwardly, Lord. Let us see the vastness of Calvary, what it means to you, what it means to the church.

Oh, Lord, may this precious seed sown find good ground and bear much fruit. Lord, grant us eyes that see, ears that hear, hearts that understand. Make known to us, Lord, the simple yet profound words of Matthew 6, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Let us see, Lord, that Christ is set down and now you've promised to make his enemies to be put under his foot. Help us to see, Lord, that that is a call to thy people to find in Christ that conquering life insomuch that the enemies that Christ conquered will be under our feet, by him and through him.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death itself. Oh, death, where is thy sting? Lord, awaken the hearts of thy people to the glorious truth of life and immortality. And, Lord, I pray for the man of God that each child of God should aspire to become, that we would understand that the way to become this man, woman of God, can only be obtained by lawful striving.

As was expressed, Lord, not a legalist, carnal rules and regulations, but a lawful striving. That is a life in conformity to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, to the law of the principle of the cross, that life comes out of death, that exultation comes from humility, that largeness comes through letting go, through being poured on the altar.

Lord, help us to see that the crown is reserved for those who run lawfully. Awaken our hearts, Lord. We truly can, Lord, run this race the way we want. Claim liberty, claim freedom. Claim that no man will bring me into bondage.

Claim that we can do what we want, but we won't be crowned, for you're not a liar, God. And we thank you for keeping the way of the tree of life and guarding it. That man cannot, of his own accord, through his own energy, and by his own way, reach out and grab.

But you have a way. Philip said, show us the way. And you said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. You have showed us the way, Lord. You are the way. You are the way. Losing my life for your life, my will for your will, my desires for your desires.

Exchange, the great exchange. Ah, Lord, I pray, Lord, the seed would not fall on stony ground, would not fall on thorny ground, but will find good soil and bring forth much fruit. Fruit that will remain.

Fruit that you will find in your vineyard to bring pleasure to your heart. Fruit that you can go into the midst of your vineyard and enjoy, for the fruit is for your pleasure. And then you bid all people to come into your vineyard and eat of the fruit.

Thank you, Lord, for clearly articulating the way to us this morning. Thank you, Lord, for the assurance of the harvest, but reaffirming to us that no harvest will come that will truly bring pleasure to your heart, except it comes through lawful running.

Huh. To you, God, be praise and glory. To you, God, give us hearts of honesty. Help us to realize, Lord, that we can never expect to see in those lives that we are ministering to those things that we ourselves have not wept over, prayed over, and have begun to experience.

Help us realize, Lord, that we must first be partaker of those things that we are seeking and exhorting others to be filled with. Lord, help us to become an issue of prayer. Help us to long for it, Lord, we pray.

In Jesus' name, hallelujah. Lord, put a desire, a hunger in our heart for you. Put a hunger, Lord, in our heart for you. Lord, you said that we'll seek you, we'll find you when we seek you with all of our heart.

Lord, let us see the hopelessness of our condition. Yes, Lord, let us see it, Lord. For I know, Lord, that men do not seek you until they have come to realize there is no water, there is no bread, there is no life outside of you.

Lord, I pray that you will grant to us the privilege of being brought down the road whereby we can awaken into the realization of our utter dependence upon you and thereby learn to live by you. In Ephesians chapter 3, Ephesians chapter 3, verses 8 through 13, beginning in verse 7, whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.

The Fellowship of the Mystery

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ to the intent that now, underline that word now, if you do mark your Bible, now.

The book of Ephesians speaks of the age to come and it speaks of now. This thought is in the now time frame, not the age to come, now. To the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.

According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Wherefore, I desire that you faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

Verse 9. And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. Paul was compelled and driven by a compassion and a passion to make all men see what the fellowship of the mystery was.

The fellowship of the mystery. There is a fellowship and there is a mystery here. Once we understand what this fellowship is, once we understand what this mystery is, then we go down to verse number 10.

To the intent that now. So there is a fellowship, there is a mystery, and God has a purpose in revealing what the fellowship and the mystery is. Paul was compelled, he was driven, he was obsessed with a heavenly passion and compassion that all men might see the fellowship of the mystery.

The fellowship, the koinonia, the intimate fellowship of the mystery. The scriptures speak of God longing for fellowship. Fellowship with man whom he created. This fellowship that God ultimately and eternally longed for was fulfilled in his son.

God fully fulfilled the longing of his heart for fellowship when his son was born of a woman. And there we beheld truly 100 a man. Born of a woman. And this man grew up and had fellowship with God. He had fellowship with his Father.

He brought a pleasure, he brought a satisfaction, he brought a joy to Father's heart that no other person had ever brought to the heart of God. God had fellowship with men throughout the ages. God walked with Enoch.

Enoch walked with God. God walked with Elijah. God walked with Jeremiah. God walked with Noah. God walked with hosts of men. But there was never, ever, ever the kind of fellowship that God the Father had with his only begotten Son that he realized in his son.

The eternal desire of God's heart to have fellowship with humanity, with a true man, was finally realized when his son came on the scene. This mystery of God having fellowship with his son is awesome.

However, not only has God been delighted to have fellowship with his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, but God calls us into fellowship with himself through his son. Beloved, the mystery is that God was manifested in the flesh, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The mystery is that God became a man. God sought for a man from the very beginning. He created Adam with the intention of what? Having intimate fellowship and communion with a man. Because of Adam's disobedience and rebellion, man lost that opportunity to have the kind of intimate fellowship with God that God intended.

But because God loved man and because God created man and God had such compassion for man, God continued to seek fellowship with man all the way through the generation subsequent to Adam. But God was not fully satisfied with any fellowship that he had with any human being until his son, the Lord Jesus, was born.

But now, we who are called out of darkness into his marvelous light, who, according to the Scripture, have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God's dear Son, we now have been reconciled to God.

That word, reconciliation, literally means to take an enemy and make him into a friend. You and I who are partakers of Jesus Christ, you and I who have been born from above, who have received the Spirit of God in our life, whereby we cry out, Abba, Father.

We have been taken out of the world, out of the kingdom of darkness, and we have been brought into, listen carefully, into the same kind of fellowship with God that the Son of God enjoys with God. It is a most incredible calling that we have been brought into.

We have been reconciled back to God. We were enemies, the Bible says, in Romans 5. Romans 5, verse number 6. For when we were without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

But God commanded his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

So God reconciled us through the death of his Son and has taken us from being enemies toward God into friendship with God. He has done this through giving us life in his Son, life through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So here, when the Scriptures speak in Ephesians 3 of Paul's heavenly passion to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, we have there entailed in this statement the passion of the apostle Paul to help us to see what the mystery is that God has taken us Gentiles and has placed us into a body called the body of Christ.

And he has taken the Jews and has placed them, those who have been born again, into the body of Christ. And that by himself, Christ Jesus, one new man has been created, the body of Christ. And this body of Christ now is considered by God to be those that are his friends, those who are no longer his enemies.

So the mystery of coming into fellowship with God, the fellowship of intimate communion with God, why? Why have we been translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son? Why has God restored back to us fellowship and communion with him?

Verse number 10, to the intent, that is, for the purpose of, that now, all right, let's follow this through, now, right now, in this age that we are living in now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church.

The Church Revealing God's Manifold Wisdom

So God's intention in bringing us into fellowship with himself and including us into this glorious mystery of the body of Christ, the very place where redeemed men bear and possess the very divine nature and are able through the Holy Spirit to begin to display the divine qualities and character of the blessed Son of God, this very place, to the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers.

So God wants to make known something to the principalities and the powers in heavenly places now by the church, the manifold wisdom of God. So verse number 10 is saying this. God has formed a body that he has called the church, the body of Christ, has placed the body of Christ in the world so that now, right now, the principalities and the powers in heavenly places might see through the church the manifold wisdom of God.

1 Corinthians 1. Verse number 24. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, listen carefully, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Now as we turn back to Ephesians, we see that it's God's intention that the principalities and the powers in heavenly places might, by the church, come to know the manifold wisdom of God.

What is the manifold wisdom of God? Christ. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. God's intention, God's thought, is that the body of Christ would be an instrument through which the principalities and the powers in heavenly places would see an incredible heavenly display of the manifold, many-sided wisdom of God.

The thought here that the Apostle Paul is capturing and communicating to us through the Scriptures is that God's intention is that Christ is so vast, Christ is so big, Christ is so exalted, Christ is so undescribable in His person and in His beauty that it's going to take a many-membered vessel called the church with hundreds and thousands of members all connected to the one head through which this one man, the Lord Jesus Christ, can display through thousands and thousands of lives the manifold, many-sided beauty of His person, of His majesty, of His glory, of His righteousness, of His holiness, of His compassion.

Paul is seeing here God's ultimate intention that He was going to send His Son to die for the sins of the world, bring His Son into glory, but not that His Son would just remain in glory, but that the Spirit of His Son would come into the lives of those that are redeemed so that this one beautiful Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, might be displayed through many, many members scattered throughout the world.

God's thought is to demonstrate and express all of the eternal perfections of the Son of God through the church that was purchased by His blood. Ephesians chapter 4 captures this very truth. After Paul, first of all in Ephesians chapter 3, after Paul begins to speak of these things and write them down, he is so overcome by this incredible passion that all men might see what the fellowship of this mystery is.

Beloved, can we see this morning? Has God captured our heart to the extent that we recognize why we have been called, why we have been chosen, why we've been snatched out of the world? It is not chiefly for our enjoyment, although, thank God, we enjoy salvation.

It is not chiefly as to how it benefits ourself, although it certainly has benefited us. It has redeemed us from our sins. It saved us from eternal wrath and damnation. But those things are not the chief purpose.

Notice how all of those things relate to us. They can be self-relating, though they're true. God wants us to go beyond what salvation means to us personally and see what it means to God. What does this great salvation plan mean to God?

Living for God's Pleasure Rather Than Self

What kind of pleasure does it bring to his heart? Alright, granted, we have been given joy and peace,.

And we've been delivered from hell,.

And God has forgiven us, and we're loved with an everlasting love, and all of that's important, and we need that, we need to understand that, but God doesn't want us to stay in that realm all of our Christian life where everything that God has done only relates to me and how it affects me, me, me.

That's fine, but God wants us to go on to see how it affects him, how it brings pleasure to his heart. Remember, if we're the Lord's vineyard, and he's the vineyard keeper, to whose pleasure is the vineyard?

It's his pleasure. It's ultimately for God's pleasure. We exist for his pleasure. True, we derive pleasure from him, but he derives pleasure from seeing in us the fullness of his Son, those things that are like himself.

There is nothing that God is more thrilled about than to look at the church and see the things in us that directly correspond and come from his own Son. The Lord is so thrilled to look down upon us and to see the righteousness of his Son.

He is so thrilled to look down upon us and see the compassion of his Son falling out of our lives one to another. The things in us that delight God are those things that he has put in us through the new birth.

Prior to that, we were dead in sins and trespasses. We were deserving of hell and damnation, but because of Jesus Christ and he who knew no sin became sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

So that's true. We derive a lot of benefits from salvation, but we must get beyond how it relates to us and see how it relates to God. See how it relates to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus.

We must be emancipated from how it relates to us and be brought into an understanding of, wow, this great thing that God is doing in my life and the life of the church and the life of my brothers and sisters goes beyond how it affects me and it goes into a resounding noise of how it brings glory to God, how it brings praise to God, and how it satisfies God's heart.

What joy to think that God is singing over us. You know, we sing songs to the Lord and the Lord says he sings songs about us. We delight over him and the Lord says he delights over us. Do you know that love is not really enjoyed until it's pleased not over what it's getting but what it's giving.

Most of our love is very immature because we love because of what we get. That's why a lot of marriages have problems because the Lord has to work in a marriage divine love which is not a selfish love.

It's a giving love. I'll never forget about reading a testimony of a man who thought he loved his wife so much until one day he was praying and the Lord showed him that all of his love for his wife was conditional because he was getting something.

It was based on what he was getting. And he suddenly realized that really he loved himself and that what drove him to love his wife was his love for himself because he needed from her what he knew he got when he loved her.

And he was realizing as he was praying that if he wasn't getting in return what he thought he deserved because he loved her, he really wouldn't love her anymore. He would look for something else to love.

But really then he realized it wasn't that he was wanting to love something else. He was in love with himself and he wanted something to please himself. That's the dilemma of human love. That's the dilemma of human love.

And beloved, God would want to help us to exchange through a process of His dealings in our life, to exchange our human love for each other for that divine love. That divine love that is a giving love, that is a forgiving love.

Divine love derives pleasure not based on what it can get but what it can give. It's a strange thing because it's contrary to our own nature. But God's greatest delight is the giving of His Son. And now in giving He's reaping a harvest of pleasure.

But He's not getting that pleasure apart from giving. The very divine love that God requires us to have He demonstrated in sending His only Son. He demonstrated it. This is the love that God has for us.

This is the love that we must have for ourselves and for one another. For our husbands and our wives and our children. Verse 14, chapter 3. These are so profound. These are so heavenly, these thoughts that Paul, after writing them, breaks into a time of prayer.

Strengthened by the Spirit in the Inner Man

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of 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 by His Spirit in the inner man.

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. That ye be rooted and grounded in love. So here Paul is capturing all of the heavenly elements of what he just got done talking about in Ephesians chapter 3.

That we would be granted from the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. In the inner man. This is where our strength must come from. We must learn to live by the strength that comes to us from the Spirit of God working in our inner man as opposed to the strength that we muster up with our own willpower and our own fleshly energy.

That strength will not make it in the kingdom of God. That strength will certainly not bring us to the finishing line where we'll be able to win the prize, Christ. So Paul here takes the focus off from creaturely energy and creaturely ability and creaturely power and brings it into the place where we would be strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man.

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. So here the focus is off of human strength. It's on divine strength. Now the focus is on Christ in me rather than what's in my flesh. What a lovely transition.

We go from fleshly energy to divine energy. We go from the focus on myself and my effort and my righteousness and all my good works to Christ in you, the hope of glory. Beloved, the only hope that the church has, the only hope that I have, the only hope that you have is that our eyes would ever be fixed upon Christ in the heavens, Christ in me, Christ is my life, Christ is my redemption, my sanctification, my wisdom.

He is my all and all. As soon as our eyes are taken from Christ, we begin to tremble, we begin to shake, we begin to fall, we begin to sink into a sinking sand. Christ alone is our righteousness. Christ is our life.

The greatest need today within the church of Jesus Christ is a re-apprehension of the significance of Christ. Christ in the heavens as God's Son that He is well pleased with. Christ in the church as the only life that God will accept.

The only life that is anointed.

Christ is the anointed one. Christ is God's pleasure. The only basis that we have as being called the church is Christ in us. If Christ be not in you, then you are none of His. Paul said, you are reprobate, rejected of God.

It's not how many works you have, it's Christ. Christ. So the Holy Spirit here is uttering a prayer through Paul to focus it on the need for our eyes to be all fleshly energy onto the strengthening that comes by His Spirit in the inner man.

Next, it is that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Oh, hallelujah for Christ. Hallelujah for Christ. When was the last time you were enabled to see the significance of Christ as your life, as your very existence?

Are your eyes upon Christ? Or have you fallen into the trap of looking at yourself and struggling with yourself and seeking resources in yourself? If you try, beloved, you will fall. You will not make it, for in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing.

But thanks be unto God. Jesus Christ is my life. Christ is the solid rock, brother. Christ is the one that we stand upon. Christ cannot fail. Christ cannot falter. Brother, when God saved you, He placed Christ in you.

And now the Scripture says that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. That you might see Him. That you might be moved by Him. And then lastly here, and this is the crown of victory. This is the cream of the crop.

First we realize it's not human energy. I've got to be brought to the place where I am seeking to know the empowerment that comes from the strengthening of God working in my inner man. If you have not come to the end of your own strength, beloved, God is leading you down that path.

God is going to bring each one of us to the end of our strength. We're going to come to where our own resources, our own tenacity, our own willpower, apart from God strengthening us, is going to fail.

It's going to fail. We're going to have to come up against defeat. We're going to have to come up to the place where we say,.

God, I cannot go on anymore. I don't have the energy. I don't have the strength.

I don't have what it takes. And God will say at that time, Wonderful, beloved, wonderful. Because it's at that time when God will begin to reveal to your heart the truth that our strength comes from God and not ourself.

We know it in theory. We know it in doctrine. We can quote the scripture. But God loves us too much to let us only know it in a doctrinal way. He has got to bring us to where that which we profess, that which we know doctrinally, is something that we begin to possess in a living, real way.

That's where many of us are headed. Some of us have come into this. And we know that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, that we cannot live without Him.

We come to where we gather together, inclusively, all the fleshly energy that we muster up, and we set it aside, and we reckon it as unfit for the kingdom of God. And it's at that place where we begin to humbly, with meekness, depend and look to God alone for our strength.

We wake up morning by morning and say, Lord, except Thou breathe upon me, I can do nothing. What a blissful place of dependence upon God. And then lastly, Paul prays that you may be rooted and grounded in agape love.

Rooted and Grounded in Divine Love

Brothers and sisters, we will never come into the good, into the fullness of agape love until we are brought to the place where God shows us the insufficiency of our own love. We must have dealings in our life to where we not only see our own love, but we are brought to the place where we renounce it, where we lay it aside, where we consider it what it really is, that it is rubbish, and that we pursue after the love that comes to us through the Holy Spirit.

The love that comes to us from being connected organically to the Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh Lord, it is Thy love that I need. Beloved, your love is not a forgiving love. My love is not a forgiving love.

My love holds grudges. Does it yours? For us to come to know God's love, we must first come to see the rubbish of our own love. Expect God to bring you into a place where He is effectually revealing to you the inadequacy of your own love.

But don't despair when that happens, beloved. Don't allow the devil to lie to you and to say, Ah, you see, there's no hope. You see, you can't please God. If he says that, you say, You're exactly right.

I'm surprised you told me the truth. Say, You're right, devil. I can't please God, and there is no hope if Jesus Christ was dead. But because Jesus Christ is alive, and because I am alive in Him, I renounce this old rotten love, I renounce this hopeless situation as I'm trying to do it in my own power, and I blissfully look to the Son of God to be what I cannot be.

Hallelujah. Glorious transition. It is not what I am, Lord, but it is what Thou art in me. Not only does Paul pray that we would be grounded in love, verse 18, but that we might comprehend. You know what that word comprehend means?

It doesn't mean intellectual understanding. The word comprehend means to lay hold of something and get it. To lay hold of and get it. Hallelujah. Think about it. I don't know about you, but are you content with just knowing theoretically how wonderful God's love is?

I'm not. I'm not content with that. I thank God I know God's love is perfect, but I want to know that love. No, I want to lay hold of that love. No, I not only want to lay hold of it, I want to possess it.

I want that love to work through me. I want to love people with that love.

I want to love God with that love. I want to love my family with that love. Lord, I just want to be... Lord, I want to live in this love. Do you share that passion, that desire? I want to know that love.

But not only does Paul stop here. He says that you may comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, the length, the depth, and the height. And to know the love of God which passes knowledge. And now he puts on a statement here that boggles my mind every time I read it.

That ye may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. Now you can see why he says that. Who would have ever asked or thought to ask God to be filled with all of the fullness of himself?

Who would have even thought that was possible? That's like taking a thimble to the ocean and saying, Alright, I'm going to fill the ocean up in this thimble. But God is asking us, God is asking us, beloved, to pray for the fullness of his presence and his spirit in our lives.

Not just individually, but corporately. That we would be a part of a family that would be filled with all the fullness of God. According to the power that worketh in us. So you see, beloved, there is a mystery.

The mystery of godliness. Christ in me. Christ in you. Christ is my godliness. Christ is my righteousness. The fellowship of this mystery. Through Christ I have been reconciled to God. I am no longer his enemy, but I am his friend.

I am his beloved. I am the one who is betrothed to him. Hallelujah. I am his virgin. And as his virgin, as his bride, as a living stone, I have sweet fellowship and communion with him. The fellowship of the mystery.

The mystery of the fellowship. But the purpose of this fellowship, the purpose of this mystery, is not chiefly that I might be satisfied, but rather that God might reveal to all the heavens the manifold wisdom of Christ.

The many-sided wisdom of Christ. God has called you to be a vessel in whom the treasure of heaven is to be revealed through the energizing power of the Spirit of God. Can you imagine if the church catches a glimpse of this and sees our existence in this world is to reveal to the world, to reveal to the principalities and the powers the manifold wisdom of God who is Christ?

The Church as a Vessel for Christ's Glory

Can you imagine what it would be like if the church suddenly realized that she is called not to follow earthly pursuits, not to be entangled in this world, not to have many lovers, not to act as the nations do, but to be a peculiar people, to be a people that are to show forth the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light?

Can you imagine if God put it in our hearts to pray every day, Lord, may today be the day when somebody will see Christ in my life, somebody will see his righteousness, someone will see his holiness. Can you imagine if the church all over the world started groaning, started weeping, repenting from sin, repenting from the things of this world, repenting from doing our own way and our own thing, and coming before God and saying, God, I see you've called me that Christ might be revealed through me and in me.

You've called the church to be a vessel through whom the many faceted beauties of Christ might be revealed to the world. God, I pray that you do it. Do you know what would happen if that began to happen?

God would do it. God would do that very thing. What a revelation. It's God's thought. Christ, the head and the body, one. Christ, the body is not one, it's many. So also is Christ. God's thought is not his son would remain alone.

God's thought is that his son would be the firstborn among many brethren. But the uniqueness about the son is that we who are the many brethren derive our life from him. He derives his life from God. Christ derives his life from God.

We derive our life from Christ. Christ and the body is one. Not two, one. One. God's intention to take the eternal beauties of the son and reveal him through his body. In order for this to happen, we need to be delivered from our own energies and our own strength and come to realize our strength comes from God.

Number two, we need to be delivered from looking to ourself. From having confidence in ourself. From trusting in ourself. And we need to see the significance of Christ in you. The hope of glory. And thirdly, we need to come to know the love of God.

We need to come to comprehend, to lay hold of, to possess the love of God. And to know the height, the width, the length and the depth of the love of God. We need a passion for God's love. Beloved, we can never be a church family and care for one another if we don't have God's love.

I need you to get God's love so you can love me. Because when you get to know me real good, you're going to see that I'm just an earthen vessel. And I've got my quirks and I've got my faults. And without God's love, you might not find me to be a lovable person.

And that would be so tragic to me that you would stop loving me because I'm earthen. That would so hurt me. It's true. You probably are right if you start telling me reasons why you shouldn't want to love me.

I would probably have to admit you're right. You're right. You're right. Everything you say is right. My wife, she's right. She knows the vessel. She knows the treasure in the vessel. And believe you me, the treasure is not a comely person.

The treasure is very unlike the Christ in the vessel. And I need her to know the love of God for me. Do you see the need for God's love in your life? I want to love you. It's easy to love somebody when you just see them once a week.