Ephesians 3:14-4:6

Well, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. It's so good to have you today. This is where every day you and I, we get together, have a little bit of coffee. You're going to have tea? Yeah. We get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2022, we'll make it from? The book of Acts to Philemon. Acts to Philemon, that's right.

Well, why don't we have some coffee? We'll pray and we'll get into the Lord's Word. Or tea. Or tea. Let's pray. Father, what a joy it is to know you, to walk in your ways. Father, we pray that as we read your word this morning, that you would help us to understand it. In Jesus's name, amen.

All right, so Ephesians chapter three, beginning at verse 14. And we'll read verses 14 through chapter four, verse six. I'm gonna move this a little bit closer to your mouth. All right. Um, well, do you want to read, how about I read 14 through 21 and then you can read one through six. Sound good? Yep. Okay.

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that we would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with his might through his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling which you were called, with all lowliness and drunkenness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit of the bond of peace. Peace there is one body and one spirit just as you were called in one hope of your calling one lord one faith one baptism one god one father of all who is above and all through all and in you all lots of holes in that last part isn't there yeah all right well we need to ask ourselves a what is this about b what's the And see what are we called to do today? Good.

All right, so the first part verses 14 through 21 in chapter 3 He says for this reason I bow my knees For this reason mean meaning this whole part has been about the mystery of faith that God has revealed that Jesus Christ came and That in the body of Jesus there was a wall Right Jews were on one side Gentiles were on the other side, but what did Jesus do with that wall? He broke it and put them and made it two walls both people wouldn't All right, so he he made the two one. That's right He tore down the dividing wall this mister of faith that he promised long ago. The mystery is jesus christ himself And that in jesus jew and gentile can draw together or can be together And so because of this he says in verses 14 really 14 through 21 he basically says I'm gonna thank god.

Yeah, but he's probably just like placing for his glory placing because he's in the high places. He's the dad of everything. That's right. This is basically a giant. Do you know what the word doxology means? uh singing something to to praise god that's right a word of glory so uh dox or so daki mazo or uh anything that has the word docs in it is coming from a root word in greek for glory and then logos means words so doxology is a word of god about god's glory so sometimes it's normally it's like a song but here it's Paul's just like, I'm going to thank God. Are you just like, I'm just going to use six, seven verses of the Bible. Just praise God. Yeah. Right. He just he just he just wants to praise God. Right. That he would grant. And then he also has a prayer in this. Right. For this reason, I bow my knees to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. Why is anybody in heaven? Because God's in it. Because God saved them. That's right, because they're in Christ.

That he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. He wants their hearts to be strong. And then he says in verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts. How? Verse 17, that Christ may dwell in your hearts. Hearts to faith. through faith. He wants them to have Christ in, not only are they in Christ, but now he's saying, I'm in you. Yeah, Christ is in us.

And then he says that you being what? You being rooted and grounded in love. He wants them to be rooted and grounded in love. Not rooted and grounded in love just for its own sake, but for a reason. What's the reason in verse 18? that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is their width and depth and height. Yeah, of what? Of God's love for us. That's right. You got it? That's what verse 19 says. To know the love of Christ, which passes all knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God. He wants us to know how good it is to follow Jesus, how wonderful God's love is for us. He wants us to be rooted in Jesus. He wants Jesus to be in us. He wants us to know who God is. He wants us to have our eyes filled to behold the glory of God.

And then he really says the blessing at the end, doesn't he? Verse 20, this is the, this is what it kind of the high point of it. What's he say? now to him who is able to exceedingly who's able to do exceedingly abundantly of all that we ask ask or think whoa he's able to do more than we can ask or think that's kind of hard Yeah, right. We might think something's good, but is God able to do good, good, good?

Yeah. Yeah. You might think the spacecraft's cool. What about the millions of universes we're all going to have to try to travel to? Yeah. And so he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think. Why? What's the last part of verse 20? According to the power that walks in us. That's right. And what's the whole point of this? What's the goal of it? Like that's right.

Praise God Right. Do you remember what Johan Sebastian Bach used to put on the bottom of his compositions on a lot of them? Three letters for God it was like Close so s D G solely deo gloria. Oh god's loyal. Oh Yeah, to God's glory alone or to God alone be the glory. Praise God. May the glory all be God's, right? This is what God has done. It's an amazing truth.

So that's kind of the first part is this giant doxology in prayer. And then in verses one through six, It's switching directions. Chapter 4 is kind of a hinge that the book rests on. Chapters 1 through 3 was a whole lot of what's called indicative truth statements.

Here's what God has done. Here's who God is. Here's what he is going to do. Right. These are all indicative statements, truth statements. And now in Chapter four, it starts to become imperative statements. Now, what do we do based on who God is and what he's done? And so what does he say in verses one through six? I therefore the prisoner of the Lord. Yep. So this is Paul. He's a prisoner of the Lord. Good.

And what does he want them to do? Received you to walk was the to walk worthy to walk worthy of the call In which you were called. All right, so he wants us to do what? Do what that says? to do what God says, right? To walk worthy of the calling. He's calling us back to chapter 2, verse 10. To do the good works that God prepared in advance for us to do.

All right, now you got to walk in them. He called you. He made you his children. Tore down the dividing wall. He's done this work. He's given you his spirit. You're in him. He's in you. Now what do you got to do with your life? Obey him and do what he says. That's right. Easier done than said or easier said than done? Easier said than done. Yeah, easier said than done. All right. Well, let's talk about real quick.

What are some of the things that he tells us we should do as Christians? Try to keep peace with the Holy Spirit. OK, well, let's let's work through this right verse by verse here. Verse two. What does verse two say? With all lowliness and gentleness. OK, so we should walk with lowliness and gentleness good so christian should be lowly and gentle kind of reminds us of jesus doesn't it and then what else is verse two say um suffering bearing with one another in law okay long suffering some translations call that patience right long suffering what is long suffering or patience looks like well Sometimes do you just want to Get away from her brother and sisters Be happy while you wait, that's right. Love people even when it's hard and then in verse 4 Or verse 3, sorry endeavoring to what? Keep the unity of the spirits in the bond of peace.

That's right. Is it easy to break up unity? Yeah, is it hard to keep it? Yep, that's right. Try to be peacemakers No, I think that ties back to, I think it ties back to the beginning of Philippians when he says the first commandment, the only commandment there is to love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah, so I think you're thinking about Galatians, right? Yeah, it's okay, but yeah, when we were reading Galatians and he talks about the whole law being summed up in this word, love your neighbor as yourself, that's right. And then verses five and six, Or four, five, and six, sorry.

There's one body and one spirit, just as you were called in your hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and one father. You've read too much. One God and father of all who is above all and through all and in you all. That's right.

So the unity we have with one another is based on the unity That's right Exactly good So what would you say is the best verse to summarize all this I Will probably have to underline something in the first section and then in the second section Think for Chapter 4 it would be 4 5 & 6 4 5 & 6. Okay, I would probably do verse 3 for that, but that's okay What would you underline in 14 through 21? Um So you want to know why this is hard I think it's 19 or 20. I think it was uh 19 or 20. Okay Yeah, I might do 20 and 21. You want to know the problem with the verses above that? Notice what is at the end of every single verse? What is verse 15? What's the punctuation mark at the end of verse 14?

Oh What is it? It's a comma. It's one big sentence, that's right. It's another. You could just say, I'm just going to underline one sentence. That's right, I'm going to underline one sentence, 14 through 19. See, it's not breaking any rules. Yep, I'm going to underline one sentence, 14 through 19. Yeah, OK, well, let's talk about C, calling. What are some things? How does this apply to your life? How do you bring glory to Christ? Okay, so yeah from the first part praise him good good. What about from the second part? Love your neighbor as yourself. What does that look like?

So you're gonna go home today. All right, we're gonna leave here this morning and Practically tell me what that looks like And what do you do And I just say, OK, well, I want to. I don't think they will like me to fight them, so I don't think OK, right.

So be a peacemaker. Good. What should daddy do as the fight's going on in the back? Should I start seizing with anger and want to yell? No, you should just say, hey, why don't you stop doing it? You do it. Yeah, no, they have a responsibility to obey but but there's a reality that daddy has to be long-suffering Patient bearing with one another in love, right? I think for me I don't have to walk home and remember that I need to love you little guys With long-suffering with patience. Yeah easy to Do hard to say or hard to say easy to do Super easy to say because we already said it. That's right.

You want to pray with me for God's spirit to help us do this? God, we confess to you that we can't do these things on our own, but you are our mighty God. able and ready to save Your spirit is alive and active and working in our lives God we pray That you would bring about in us the fruits of your spirit You've given us Jesus we are in him and he is in us and father we pray thank you so much for the work that you have done and plead with you that you would continue the work that you have begun please lord work in our hearts in jesus name amen well may the lord bless you today may you walk in the joy and peace of jesus christ and we'll see you next time Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week.

If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.