Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of
Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.
I hope the following message challenges, encourages and
ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.
Let's get into Ephesians Chapter 3.
This is Father's Day. We're going to take a break from
our series and we're going to look at this tribute to fathers.
We're going to look at the subject spiritual, the subject
of fatherhood, Ephesians chapter 3, verse one.
And Paul says for this reason, oh, I'm sorry, go to verse 14,
verse 14. My computer's got to cooperate
with me. It's a demon possessed this
morning in Jesus name, Amen. All right, verse 14.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom
every family, or depending on the translation you are reading
some translation say all fatherhood.
So he says, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father
from whom every family or all fatherhood derives its name or
on in heaven on earth is named, depending on your translation.
So Paul is saying he's, he's going to, he's got a reason for
his prayer. And then he introduces the
prayer. He said, I'm going to bow.
He's going to introduce the one he's praying to the father.
And then he adds this, he said the father from whom all
fatherhood and family, because both translations are accurate,
you can go either way on this and different translations do go
different ways. It says all family and all
fatherhood derives its name from him.
He's the original father. We are the copy.
God is the original. And we need to, we need to
understand that because I think we can sometimes inadvertently
conclude that God adopted this terminology because we're used
to having dads. And so God said, how can I
relate with them? Ah, they got dads.
I think I'll call myself a dad and hopefully they can connect
the dot. And that's not what's going on
here. In fact, earthly fatherhood is a
reflection of heavenly fatherhood, fatherhood, fodder
fatherhood. It's supposed to be.
And, and so God is the original and we are the copies.
And in being fathers, we are not just to get examples from other
human fathers around us. That's a good thing, as long as
they're a good example, but the ultimate example we derive from
him. You ever been making photocopies
and you copy something, You use your second copy as the copy for
the next one and the next one and it just keeps getting faded.
That's what happens when we just look to man to learn how to be a
father because there's only one perfect Father and that's the
Father in heaven. And so as we get our example
from him, that we get our cues from him, He is the original.
We are the copy. We are the faded copy of the
original in heaven. And so Paul says for this
reason, I'm kneel before the Father.
Now. It's significant.
He says who he's praying to. He didn't just say I'm praying
to God. He highlights that he's praying
to the Father. And then he adds from whom all
fatherhood and family in heaven and earth derives its name.
There's a there's a family in heaven, there's a family on
earth and all of it got it derived its name.
It it was assigned its role from him.
God got assigned the name, family and fathers to us.
It was it, the source was God. And so Paul mentions that before
he launches into this, this prayer, it's significant because
he's setting us up for this tremendous Apostolic prayer.
Now, the book of Ephesians is the only epistle that Paul wrote
that has no correction. He's not correcting them on
anything because the Ephesian church was the most mature
church that was in the New Testament.
They were the revival church man.
If you read in the book of Acts, when Paul went to Ephesus, he
spent three years there. Everybody heard the word they, I
mean, it was, it was an amazing move of God.
And so they were arguably the most mature church, the church
that didn't need correction. And many scholars would argue
that that the deepest theology, maybe Romans would rival it, but
there's deep theology in the book of Ephesians.
And so Paul says for this reason, now that's verse 14.
For this reason, I kneel. My, my, I kneel down.
Now what? The reason we need to understand
this is because what Paul is saying, there's a reason for
this specific prayer. We're going to look at the
content of the prayer, but the reason for the prayer is
important. So he says for this reason, now
go to verse one that I tried to get you to earlier jumping the
gun on myself verse one for this reason.
He says it previously in verse one.
Then he reiterates it in verse 14.
Why? Because Paul is chasing a
rabbit. Look at verse one for this
reason I Paul a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you
Gentiles and then most translations will have a little
dash there and then Paul says, assuming you have heard of the
stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you.
And then Paul begins to unpack his calling.
He begins to share about how he's an apostle sent to unpack
this revelation, these mysteries for them.
His he exists for the benefit of the Ephesian church.
And So what Paul does is he gets on this rabbit trail talking
about his calling, and he gets away from the prayer.
He begins to pray in verse one, and then he picks it up verse
14. So rabbit trails are scriptural.
When he gets chasing a squirrel, that is thoroughly biblical.
So when I do that, there's scriptural precedents.
OK, I just want to let you know that.
So Paul is unpacking the revelation.
The revelation is in chapter 2. Now a little more about the book
of Ephesians. The book of Ephesians unpacks a
couple of what Paul calls mysteries.
Paul says in the book of Ephesians, men of old longed to
look into these things. He even says the the angels were
wondering and longed to look into some of the things that he
will unpack in the book of Ephesians.
Hopefully that stirs your hunger and your anticipation.
What what did Paul unpack for us?
Because the men of old, they, they prophesied about these
things, but they were longing to understand and they weren't
allowed to until the time of Paul.
And Paul was the steward in Apostolic teaching.
He began to unpack mysteries for the Ephesian church and the
mystery of chapter 2 that he's alluding to.
Because chapter 3 says for this reason, what reason, what he
just unpacked in chapter 2, he said, for this reason, I'm going
to pray for you. And we're going to get into what
that prayer is, but we need to understand why he was praying
this before we understand what the prayer was.
So the mystery that he was unpacking was that both Jew and
Gentile would become one new man in Christ.
There was this mystery that God called Israel unto himself
Israel, that they were his people, but the Gentiles were
shut out. But now through Christ, he's
going to bring in both Jew and Gentile and make them one new
man. Now interesting the the Puritans
believe, many believe that the Puritans were the high watermark
of theology. But the Puritans, they they
believed that some of the book of Ephesian and this subject
specifically was prophetic in nature in the sense that we have
yet to see the fullness of what God promised of the one new man
in the book of Ephesians, that we've seen many Jews come into
the Kingdom through Christ, but yet not the fullness, the
fulfillment of what God is promising us.
So much so that in Romans Chapter 9 and 11, Paul says,
Paul says all Israel will be saved.
And Paul said, unless that happens, he said I'd be willing
to go to hell to see that happen.
Unless you think that Paul is just blowing smoke in our face,
understand that the Spirit of God inspired him to write it
down. We know it's true that Paul
would have literally given not his life, but his eternal soul
to see Israel come into the Kingdom.
And I guarantee you there's only two men in all of Scripture that
ever prayed a prayer like that. And that was Moses and that was
Paul. I can't even comprehend.
I've never touched that level of intercession.
And that is a prayer that God would never deny, that Paul had
sincerely come to the place saying, God, I would, I would
give my very soul. And Paul tells us in Romans 9
and 11 that God's going to answer that prayer.
So much so he said all Israel will be saved.
That's an amazing thing to say. Now I, I personally, I don't
interpret that as everyone with Jewish blood is going to come
into the Kingdom and be a born again Christian.
But I do believe what he's saying is that Israel as a
nation will be brought into the Kingdom and they will become a
Kingdom nation that welcomes their Messiah.
And I believe that is what Jesus is Speaking of.
In Matthew 24 he gives 2 criteria for his return, one for
the church and one for the nation of Israel.
For the church, that this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached
to every nation and then the end shall come.
So in one sense God is waiting on us for His return.
He's waiting to send His Son. Well son, not yet.
They haven't completed the task yet.
So we've got to go to every nation.
And that the nation is not a geographic location, it's every
people group with a distinct custom and language and so
forth. And there are still some yet to
be to receive the gospel in their own language.
And so that was but then that for Israel, he says, and they he
said, I will not return until the I hear them say blessed to
see who comes in the name of the Lord, They're going to receive
him as their Messiah and then the end shall come.
And so we have these two dynamics.
And what Paul is saying in Romans 9 and 11 is those two
things are going to converge. And he says that us that that
the the Jews were cut off because of unbelief and we were
grafted into the olive tree. So now we're partakers of that
of of the gift that was given to them.
But God is not going to leave it that way.
He's going to graft them back in.
And then he says this if us if them being cut off brought us
blessing so that the gospel came to us, how much greater will the
blessing be when they're grafted back in.
In other words, we have a vested interest and praying for Israel,
the eyes of the the Jewish people to be open and when they
are brought into the Kingdom and mass.
You want to talk about revival. That's the real move.
And then we'll see the one new man and then the end shall come.
And that's what Paul's alluding to in Ephesians chapter 2.
So then he says, so he's talking about this grand cosmic
historical plan that God has that he's going to make one new
man. And then he said, for this
reason, I kneel before the Father from whom all fatherhood
and family derives its name has been, they've been assigned a
name by God himself. God says there's a template.
You can see me in this phrase. This is who I am.
I'm going to reveal myself through this idea of fatherhood
and I'm going to put it on mankind.
I'm going to put it on human fathers.
And through that we're to be a revelation of who he is.
We're to be that for our families, for our kids.
And we can be an expression of revelation for God, or we can be
a stumbling block for our children.
It's up to us and so we pave the way or we hinder our kids by the
way we as fathers relate with them.
Now, I don't want to put any condemnation on any dads here
this morning because I guarantee you any father in this room
that's had had a kid above 2 years old regrets some of his
attitude at times and you're worried about man, did it bleed
through? We all have regrets.
I, I look back, I wish I knew now at 60 what I I wish I knew
now. I wish I knew then.
I wish what I know now. I wish I knew then when I was
first starting to raise kids. I wish I could talk this
morning. I wish, you know, I wish that
there's things that that I wish I could do differently, but I'm
going to trust my kids with God and man believe that God's going
to bleed through my poor copy and reveal the father.
But that is a high honor, guys, to be a dad.
It's an amazing thing. The fatherhood of God is the
foundation to all of reality. You can't understand God without
having a revelation of Him as Father.
All the other revelations of God have to find there be a subset
of that revelation of God as Father.
Jesus revealed Him as the Father and you'll never understand God
unless you understand He's a Father yet and only begotten who
wanted many begottens. He wants a large family of sons
and daughters and he wants to share the rule and reign of the
universe with his kids. Our father is an entrepreneur
that started a company cosmic relations.
You know, and he he wants God and sons and he wants you to
help rule and reign with him and that doesn't that's not just
someday. It's now we we work with our
Father in but we have to have a revelation of him as Father.
So God, the fatherhood of God is the foundation of all reality.
I was telling the first service that Francis Schaefer, how many
of you know who Francis Schaefer is?
Look him up. Guy was a brilliant theologian,
philosopher, had a goatee about this long look look like a real
goat and a long white hair and he'd wear knickers and he had
this ministry to hippies over in the Alps.
Brilliant man his his books are absolutely brilliant.
But I remember reading one time he said he said if God had not
revealed himself in the trinitarian as the trinitarian
God, I would be agnostic. I so wish he was still alive so
I could ask him what is behind that statement because he was a
brilliant man. I don't fully know what he
meant, but I do know this, that all of nature expresses itself
in this Trinitarian way. And you, you can look at, you
know, all the all kinds of subjects, the family, father,
mother, children. You've got time, past, present,
future. There's this Trinitarian
expression there. There's a reason preachers
preach 3 point sermons because 3 point sermons cover the
dimensions of reality, even the smallest building blocks of of
reality. You know the subatomic, you know
atoms and protons and neutrons and you know all that stuff it
above my pay grade, but I'm telling you it's trinitarian
expression. And so the the expression of God
is the father, the originator. Everything comes from him.
Now the foundation of reality expresses itself and all family
and fatherhood derives its name. It's cues from who God is, but
our the the foundation of our healthy psychologically, our
foundation is found in the Father.
Put it that way. If you look it, this is across
cultures. It's fascinating to me that
usually the first word a little child will utter is their word
for father. And this is across cultures, not
mothers. And I don't know, but I'm not a
woman, but I'd be kind of honked, you know, I'd be like,
wait a minute, I gave birth to you.
And the first one is da da. And often it is da da even or
Papa even in other cultures because of the the phonetics and
so forth. The first expression.
And there's theories on that. But one of the reasons, the
primary reason most people attribute it to is that a child
doesn't really realize that it's separate from the mother, that
the environment it lived in was the mother's voice and the
mother's heartbeat. And it was, you know, it came
out of the mother, but it, you know, the umbilical cord, it
returns to the mother's breast for nourishment.
And they don't even perceive that they're separate from the
mother, but they do perceive that a father will come and go.
And so the first word is for father because they recognize
this is another person other than myself.
That's just interesting to me that the first word is for
Father. But what I really find
interesting is the when you look at when God created Adam, I had
a friend, I didn't know the guy real well, but he was pastoring
down in Atlanta and one time he was studying and the Lord kept
prompting him. Pull open your computer and he
has this program, Logos. It's a Bible program.
I know some of you have it and you can take and you can push a
little button and it'll say the Hebrew and the Greek words for
you. And he was studying about
creation. The Lord kept saying open up and
listen to the word for father. And it's not a coincidence that
it is the first word. If you look in the Strong's
Hebrew Dictionary, the first word word entry number one is
AWB, OB. It's the word for Father.
And so he pushed it and as hop hop and what the Lord began to
talk to him about is it sounds like somebody that's been
holding their breath underwater and they're they're needing
water. They're needing air.
And all of a sudden they come up out of the water and they gasp,
they just suck their lungs full of air.
And that sounds like the Hebrew word from which we get Father.
So if you look in creation, when God was forming Adam, you
remember he had an only begotten A1 unique son, Jesus.
But he was longing for many sons.
So what did he do? He created a man in the dirt and
then he reached down and it says in the Hebrew he breathed into
him the breath of the lives. And in the Hebrew it's plural
because there was the life of the soul, the body, the normal
human life, but there was also the higher life of the Spirit.
And he breathed into him the breath of lives.
And Adam fills his lungs with the air, and that outcomes that
word. And the first thing he sees as
he opens his eyes is the smiling, retreating face of his
Creator as he says the word that God said.
That's what I'll call myself. That's the word I'm going to
give to myself. And so not only do our children
usually the first thing they say is father some some form or
fashion of that, but also Adam. It was probably that very sound
and God said, that's the word I'm going to attach to myself.
And that is to be the way we see God, that I'm desperate for you,
like I need air. And we look upon him in that
smiling, retreating face where God's looking and saying, oh,
it's good. Look at this.
That's the relationship we're to have.
And the our psychological health demands that we have that type
of relationship with our Father. We talked about it last week,
Psalm 149. God takes delight or pleasure in
His children. And if you don't believe that,
you will succumb to the self rejection that goes way back to
Eden. And every human being that walks
the earth to varying degrees has struggled with a measure of self
rejection. And it goes back to the fall
because sin was not only rooted in a rejection of God, that,
that that lie that God can't be trusted, but also in a rejection
of our self, that we're somehow not good enough for the way God
created us. And people argue, well, wait a
minute, pastor, you know, we're not good enough.
We're not good enough to save ourselves.
But I'm talking before sin. Adam and Eve rejected who they
were and tried to be something they were.
They went down a path that God never assigned to them.
They were perfectly fit to be what God created them for, a God
container. They were made in his image and
they would be in relationship with him and in relationship
with him. They would shine among men, but
they bought into a lie that somehow they were defective and
they needed to be better and they ate the fruit to achieve
that and plunged all into sin. And the fact is, every one of us
struggle with some measure of self rejection and the cross of
Jesus Christ that reconciles us to the Father.
And make no mistake about it, the reconciliation of the Son is
to the Father. That's what Jay said this
morning. Jesus came to reconcile us to
our Father, But that same reconciliation is to reconcile
us to our self, to bring us to the place where we are OK to
live in our own skin. And a father plays a huge role
in helping a child achieve that self acceptance.
And ultimately you can only get that from your heavenly Father.
Now, most, most men carry some and women for that matter, too,
carry some form of father wound. Because no matter how good your
dad was or how poor he was, the fact is he's not God the Father.
He's not he's not a perfect father.
And so we have these voids and we have just like it says here
in this passage, Paul says that all family and fatherhood
derives its name. That that word derives its name
is really one word in in the Greek, and it means to assign a
title or role, even to connect to a lineage.
And God was saying, I'm going to, I'm going to tie this thing,
this reference point to myself in heaven so that you can look
through this and see me. But sometimes we, we were raised
in such dysfunction or such brokenness.
There's, there's so much woundedness that we can't look
at that lens. We have to get up in the
heavenly perspective and view our fathers from that
perspective and get that thing healed.
But we need to hear that the Father.
Now let let me pause here because what Paul is saying, he
starts off in this prayer. He says for this reason, what
reason, this big grand purpose of God in chapter 2, man, God
has this, this, this grand plan that he is unfolding.
And you and I are to play a role in that.
But Paul says, because that grand plan is being unfolded and
you're to play in a role. And he said, I've got a prayer
that I've got to pray because if this prayer is not fulfilled,
you won't fulfill your role in the grand plan.
There is a criteria that must be met.
There's something that needs to happen in you so that you can
you can run hard after what God has called you to so that we can
be part of this grand plan. And that's the prayer that Paul
is praying. And what is that prayer?
Let's read it here. He says, if I can get OK.
For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom
every family in heaven and on earth.
It's interesting. There's a family in heaven and a
family on earth. Unearth His name, that according
to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened
with power through His Spirit. Man, that's a vivid language.
This is one of two Apostolic prayers in the book of
Ephesians. I want to encourage you, get a
hold of this prayer, 14 through 21, seven verses, and read that
over yourself and pray that over yourself because you're praying
the will of God. It's a wonderful prayer.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father.
And from whom of heaven and earth drives his name, that He
may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit.
As Pentecostal charismatic believers, we believe in the
power of the Spirit, but usually the power of the Spirit.
We think of power from external ministry.
I was ordained with the Assemblies of God for many
years, and the Assemblies, when I was coming up through the
ranks, we'd always have a pounded in US.
You are empowered to be a witness.
Acts 1. You know, tarry until you're
endued with power, and you shall become witnesses to the
uttermost parts of the earth. And that's a valid expression,
but it's not the whole thing. There's an external expression
of the power of God coming on, and that's for others, but
there's an internal expression of the power of God that is
necessary for me, and that's what Paul's praying for here.
Romans chapter 5. It says by the Spirit, the love
of God is shed abroad in your heart.
The Spirit of God is the one that opens our eyes so we can
comprehend the magnitude of God's love.
That, according to Paul, is incomprehensible.
Until God opens our eyes, we need a supernatural work of the
Spirit to come upon us, empower us, so the eyes of our
understanding are enlightened and we can see this thing.
And until we do, we live a deficient life.
And there's a whole lot of other things that come into play
there. You know, holiness is not about
us white knuckling it and having a great big no towards sin that
can start there. That's where we need to say no
to sin. But the real power of holiness
is by the Spirit. Paul said in Romans 8, It's by
the Spirit. You put to death the misdeeds of
the flesh. So the Spirit of God coming on
us enables us to live over the flesh, live above the flesh, and
not give in to sin. The secret of sanctification,
the secret of maturity, the secret of holiness and freedom
is living in the power of the Spirit.
And that comes by a revelation of God's love that we're so
captured by Him. We see him for who he is, we get
a revelation of his love for us, which will birth within us a
corresponding love, John said. We love him.
Why? Because He first loved us so.
A revelation of His love will automatically birth a
corresponding expression of love towards Him.
When you see His love for you, you can't help but love Him
back. The gratitude will erupt in your
heart, and there'll be this affection for Him.
And the sin that once held you doesn't hold sway anymore.
Why would I trade my birthright for that?
That bolus Stew? Why would I even be tempted with
that when there's pleasures at his right hand forever more?
But the problem is, I'm blinded to who he really is and what he
really has for me. I don't see it for what it is.
And so these little trinkets down here that are shiny grab my
attention. And the key is not to just white
knuckle it and try to convince myself by mantras.
I need the power of the Spirit to come upon me, strip the
blinders from my eyes, and to see Him for who he is.
And when that happens, it breaks the power of sin in my life.
So the power of the Spirit, there's an internal expression
that gives me victory over sin in the flesh and an external one
that I can give it away. And the problem is there are
people who receive an external impartation of power.
But there it's like, it's like a sinkhole.
The weight of the responsibility of giving it away begins to
expose the the cavernous void of the love of God in their life.
And eventually they cave in on themselves.
So we can never allow our revelation of what he wants to
do through US become greater than his love for us.
We can get so caught up in ministry and doing things for
God that we leave God behind and God becomes a means to an end
because we've never been captured by his love.
And that's what Paul's trying to head off.
Listen, what he says here. He says, I want, I'm praying
that you'd be strengthened with power through his spirit for
what in your inner being. Paul prays in layers.
He teaches in layers. I mean you got to pull back one
layer of onion and another layer and another.
He says, I pray that you would be you would he would according
to the riches of his glory. He may grant you to be
strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being.
Why? So that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith. Now, if I were to come to you
during greeting time and pull you in close and whisper, I've
been praying for you that Christ would dwell in your heart
through faith, and then I'd walk away, you'd be like this pastor
not think I'm saved. What's the deal with that?
But he's praying for believers here.
It's not that the Ephesian church is so in such bad shape
that everyone needs to get saved.
There's no one saved in the church.
He's not talking about Christ being in your heart.
He's talking about dwelling in your heart through face.
That word dwell means to settle down and make a home that He
can. He feels at home in your heart
that He can. He can go in any cupboard, any
crevice, any closet. He can look what's in here.
He feels at home. I was telling the first service
that when when I was homeless, there were different families
that would take compassion on me and say, oh, I can't believe
your parents kicked you out. You'd come live with us and then
two weeks later get out of here. Your dad was right and I agree
with them. But anyway, I never felt that
home in any of those houses. And they were very kind people
to take me in. It wasn't the problem, wasn't
them. It wasn't my home, so I never
felt like I could just go in the refrigerator and get something
or I could just, it wasn't really mine.
There's only two places I felt at home.
It's my home and my parents home.
And to this day I can go to my mom and dad's and go through the
closet and look, you know, dig through stuff and look at old
pictures. And I just feel the liberty to
do so because I'm their son. I'm at home and what Paul is
saying is he wants a work done in your heart so Christ feels
that way in you. Nothing is off limits.
He can get in your business, He can dig through your closet.
There's nothing hidden. And here's the deal.
Listen, this is what he says, because you'll never, he'll
never be able to dwell that way in your heart unless this
happens. So that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in
love, may have strength to comprehend with all the Saints
what is the breadth, length, height and depth, and to know
the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
In other words, if you're not convinced of the love of God for
you personally, that's what we were talking about last week.
If you are not convinced that God takes pleasure in you, if
you're still hearing those echoes of Eden and you're on the
treadmill trying to become something that God can accept,
that is a lie from the pit of hell and it will undermine your
ability to take part in God's eternal plan.
We've got to have we've got to have a revelation of God's love
so that we know that we become like the apostle John in the
book of John, he writes, I want to say it, it was it was 5 or 7
times. I want to say it was 7, but it
might have just been 5 where John writes the one whom Jesus
loved and the one whom Jesus loved said and the one whom
Jesus loved. And then you dig into this and
you find out he was talking about himself.
I remember when I first got saved, I'm reading, I thought
John pretty arrogant there, buddy.
And I'm, I'm kind of wondering, I wonder what Peter thought of
that, you know, when he he grabbed John's best selling book
search for Oh, the one who Jesus loved, huh.
But they had some talks over that.
But it was because I was misinterpreting what John was
saying. John didn't say the one whom
Jesus loved more than anybody else.
What he said was the one whom Jesus loved.
Every one of them could have said that, but John carried a
personal revelation of that. And the fact is everyone of us
in this room could say I'm the one whom Jesus loved, but not
everyone of us are convinced of that.
God's convinced of that. Are you?
Because if you're not, then there will be areas of your
heart that you're going to say God thanks, but no thanks.
It's off limits because we don't trust him with those areas of
our life. And often those are rooted in
Father wounds. And so the Father wants to come
in and undo what your father did or didn't do.
He wants to undo the damage of that and heal your heart so that
you can relate with him as Father.
So that finally you can just swing by the gates of your life
and say, Lord, have your way. Any closet Lord you know.
And believe me, God will find stuff that you forgot you kept.
Seriously, he'll bring up things that you forgot about, but he
knows subconsciously it's still bothering you, but you've got to
be convinced of his love. You've got to have a
comprehension of his love. And Paul says it here.
He says that you would know this love, no, this love that
surpasses knowledge, knowing. You've got to know something
that surpasses knowing something.
What does that mean? So there's this first one, he
says. I want you to know something in
an experiential way that is beyond mere theory, something
you've studied yourself into, something that you've read but
it's in your head but it hasn't gotten into your heart.
Was talking with someone this week and I was reminded of a
quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said only he
who believes obeys and only he who obeys believes.
So you can say things, but if it's not showing up in the
landscape of your life, you don't really believe it because
it's your believing that will determine your behaving.
And so if you're having trouble on the behaving level, then
don't just white knuckle it until you, you know, as long as
you have to, but start digging down and say, what is the lie
that I believe that keeps me from obeying him in this area?
Why is this such a struggle? Because I guarantee you, you
will find there's a lie you believe about him and often even
about yourself at the root of that thing.
And if you can begin to unravel it because when you see him for
who he is, you can't help but obey him.
God's will is always what you would do if you knew all the
facts, if you knew everything like he knows everything.
And then you said, OK, God tell you what I'm going to I'm going
to draw out a blueprint for my life and I'll bring it to you.
You would draw out the same 1 he does.
Problem is, we're not omniscient and because we doubt his motives
because of that deep seated we, we, we have no clue when when
God breathed into Adam and Adam awakens and he does, he sees
God's smiling face and he cries out, ah, but guts it.
That's what I'm going to call myself from now on.
That desperate demand for air itself or life itself, that when
you need me, you say those words and I'm on it.
That's who I am to you. When Adam and Eve were severed
from that and they fell, we have no clue.
Not not just the spiritual damage, but the psychological
damage that did to us. We were cut off from our source
of life, one whole element, one whole third of our nature, the
spiritual element died and our source of value and affirmation,
our whole purpose. So once you remove that, life
becomes meaningless. God himself is the philosophical
foundation to all of living. You ever read the book of
Ecclesiastes? It is depressing.
I don't know about you, but I thought, Lord, you know, no
offense. I know you're smarter than me,
but I'm just saying I wouldn't have put that one in there, man.
You could, you know, don't don't read it if you're depressed, OK,
Find another book. I mean, the smartest man that
ever lived writes things like everything is meaningless under
the sun. You work your whole life,
accumulative wealth and your kids will blow it in the week
after your funeral. Everything is meaningless under
the sun. Well, that's the kind of stuff
we're like, whoa, that's a downer.
I got to go get in Philippians or something.
But the, the, the, the, the keyword or phrase to
understanding what Solomon is really saying in the
Ecclesiastes is under the sun because what he's dealing with
is what philosophers call a closed system.
In other words, you, you'll only look within creation for
meaning. I'm not going to look above the
sun. I'll only look beneath the sun
and I'm going to try to find meaning in all of this hardship
and all of this, all that we're going through.
And you'll never find it. And you will become a despairing
person who quotes Ecclesiastes all the time.
Life is meaningless under the sun.
You've got to look above the sun.
And all of a sudden life takes on meaning when you see him and
his affection and his smiling face.
That's why Jesus said I will not leave you as an orphan because
he understood the damage that did to the psyche of man being
severed from our Creator. So what did he say?
He said I will send another like unto myself.
He's going to come and he's going to lead you into all
truth. And he was the one that's going
to give us a revelation of the the magnitude of the love of God
for us. He's the one that's going to
begin to reveal to you God's thoughts towards you.
And it's going to shape how you view yourself.
And it will change absolutely drastically change how you
behave. You'll be an easier person to
live with when you know how much you're loved.
And we need the power of the Spirit to come upon us.
Yeah. We need the power of God to go
to Romania, to go to Brazil and all these other.
We need the power of the Spirit to disciple others.
But you can't give what you don't have.
And if you don't first receive it, you won't be able to give it
away. You need a revelation.
You need the power of the Spirit to come upon you and open the
eyes of your understanding and help you experience something
that you'll never be able to think yourself into.
And Paul says this, listen to the last phrase of this chapter
or of this prayer rather verse 19, and to know the love of
Christ that surpasses knowledge. Why?
That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
In other words, you cannot have the fullness of God without
having a revelation of His love, because not because God is
reticent to give it to you, because you'll be reticent to
receive it. You won't trust Him enough to
allow Him to give you His fullness.
There'll be whole areas of your life that God just.
I'm going to keep you at Bay. Let me land it here, gentlemen.
As dads, the more healed we are, the better dads we are.
And our woundedness, we in our woundedness, we can end up
portraying God in the wrong way. No, hey, listen, there's grace
for that. Just like every one of us in
this room needed rescued by Jesus, so will our children.
But I want to give my children the best head start they can
get. I want them to be far down the
road. And so the way we do that is we
get healed. We we ask God go after that,
that thing in my heart that is not yet convinced of your love.
Let me be like John. And John, every time he'd think
of himself, he's writing his gospel and he'd think of
himself. Oh, Oh, yeah, the one who Jesus
loves. He'd just sit there and kind of
soak in a little bit and pick his pen back up.
That when he'd be walking through the room and he'd see
himself in the mirror. Oh, there he is, the one who
Jesus loves. You're loved.
I'm telling you, when you really see yourself that way, it will
change your life. When you can just camp out in
God's pleasure over you. You cannot act the same.
Amen. Let's go ahead and stand.
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
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