Preparing to Participate in Displaying the Manifold Wisdom of God- Ephesians Part 6

What do you pray for others? Do you pray for safety in that the flowers all bloom and the sky is blue? Or do you—because as much for our children and our young people, I desire that as much as anybody. I don't want anybody to experience some of the things I went through and many other people that I know have gone through. We want them to all be safe and not to face a lot of difficulties. That's not how God's wisdom gets revealed in this world.

And the fact is, it's not going to be that way. They're going to get traumatized. They're going to go through difficult things. They're going to experience prisons, whether it's literal or not. And I think the best thing we can—and I'm not saying it's wrong to pray for safety and things like that—but the best thing we can pray for, and the first thing, the thing Jesus prays for first in his prayer for us disciples, is that the kingdom comes, that we have an opportunity to demonstrate God's wisdom. And I think that should be our first and foremost prayer for ourselves and for others, is that they can understand what God wants to do in them, that God wants to demonstrate his wisdom through them, whatever happens, and that they can get a hold of that.

And that can be the reality that dictates how they handle the things in life.

Good morning. Welcome here.

I feel a little envious sometimes when I catch the tail end of a Sunday school discussion, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. So welcome back again to the book of Ephesians.

This morning we want to look at chapter three and just a little review of where we're at in Paul's letter. Chapters one through three deal with talking about God's secret purpose and understanding the calling. And then the last three chapters deal with some practical instruction and discussion about what that looks like to live out that purpose in daily life. So we're finishing up the end of the first section there, talking about this mystery that God has been planning throughout all history and working towards that now has been opened and is active and available for us, especially for us as Gentiles, to participate in. In the first half there, there's a structure to this part of the letter.

And so in chapter three, there's kind of three sections to it. There's Paul's personal testimony about how he received the apocalypse or the eye-opener about what God is wanting to do, his prayer then that we would grasp the Messiah's love and become part of that mystery being opened. And then there's a doxology, a praise song to the Father and the Son at the end.

So let's go to the letter. Chapter three starts out with, "For this reason, I, Paul," and that's a trigger word or phrase there. Those are really important words and phrases to look, to take notice of, and to listen to whenever it says, "Therefore," or, yeah, "For this reason" or "For this cause." Words like that, it's connecting with something beforehand. So we really can't understand what's coming unless we connect first with what he's building on, the cause or the reason or the situation that leads up to what he's going to say next. So we're going to backtrack into chapter two and start with verse 14 and begin reading. "For he himself is our peace, who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.

And he came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father."

I'm sorry, there's some added text got dropped in there. "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God, which was given to me for you, how that by revelation he made known to me the mystery, as I have briefly written already, by which when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Holy Spirit to his apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel, of which I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of his power.

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was 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 ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have wholeness and access and confidence through faith in him.

Therefore, I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. 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 he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with 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 exceeding 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." That's some pretty high-protein stuff there.

So we're going to walk through it and try to connect some dots and also extract some meaning. One thing I'll say right up front is when you read this, you can sense Paul's struggle to communicate this. It's something big. And Paul's a pretty good communicator. But this is something really big that he's trying to get across. And in some ways, that gets emphasized by all the connected and rambling, not really rambling, but just built onto each other phrases and the compound adjectives that he uses in describing things.

So for this reason, at the beginning of the chapter is because the Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, those who have repented and chosen to follow King Jesus. And the Gentiles, along with the Jews who have been converted and are following Jesus, are built together into a new humanity that is a temple that displays God's glory and carries on his activity and reveals him to people. So because of that opportunity that is now here, Paul is saying what he says in chapter three. So he says, "For this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ, few Gentiles, if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God."

And he moves on and discusses this dispensation. When I think about a dispensation, I think about a dispenser. Well, a dispenser is something that dishes things out or makes them available and useful. So that's a little bit of the idea of a dispensation is a dishing out. Something is opened and now you can come get it.

You can come experience it.

So he says, "By Paul, he describes himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ for the Gentiles." So Paul is made a servant of God to help him dispense or dish out this favor of bringing the Gentiles together with the Jews into one renewed human family under King Jesus.

And Paul, there's a lot packed in that statement because he's a representative for Christ, and he is representing Christ and serving them by being a prisoner. And so with that, he's allowing God to pour out his love and care for them as Gentiles, somebody he should have wiped off the sole of his shoe and kept on going, according to normal Jewish tradition.

And he's allowing God's love to flow through him and be demonstrated to them to the extent of being a prisoner on their behalf.

And this is just very, very indicative of or representative of how God works, how God's love is revealed, and just how this whole revolution works. So if you think about the absurdity of this, Paul's talking to these people at Ephesus who have this ginormous temple that's one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, representing the glory of Diana and all her triumphs among the Greek gods.

And the temples and the palaces and the colossus there, I forget the name of the Caesar standing there with his fist like this in the air that stands like the colossus, that's the statue that stands like 60-some feet high when you sail in the harbor. In this world, he's talking to these people and saying, "Your hero is this, your king is the one who died on a cross at the most shameful, humiliating, reproachful death. And here I am, I'm your representative, I'm the prisoner."

But this is the way the kingdom of God works. These are our heroes and these are our victories. This is how we win. So he says, "If you've heard about this dispensation, how that God revealed this to him, this mystery." And again, this idea of revelation is an eye-opener, apocalypsis.

So Paul is telling them, "I want to remind you where I got this from. I had it revealed to me. I had an eye-opener." And so he's making clear to them, this is not his idea. This is something that God gave him. And I want to just remember a little bit of the story there, how that happened.

On the road to Damascus, he sees the bright light and the voice saying, "Why do you persecute me?" And Jesus responds, says, "I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting, but rise and stand on your feet because I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister, a servant, and a witness, both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. And I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles to whom I am now sending you to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me."

So right off the bat, God told Paul, this is the purpose that he has for him, is to reveal this mystery that is now opened and available of the Gentiles being raised up to be part of God's new renewed human family along with the Jews in following Jesus.

Then that was also confirmed by God's words to Ananias in the vision when Ananias was afraid. And he says, "Go, for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before the Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake."

Well, then Paul, who is then Saul at the time, he didn't go talk to a bunch of people. He went out into the desert of Arabia for a period of three years. And that's evidently where these things were revealed to him. And then he comes back to Jerusalem and is there for 15 days. And he talks to Peter and James and basically compares his gospel, what he had understood with them, and received their confirmation that it was the same as those who had walked with Jesus.

And then later on, this is known as the council at Jerusalem after Paul and Barnabas had been traveling and preaching and they ran across the Jews that were coming to the Gentiles and saying, "You'd be circumcised and all this stuff and keep the law."

Paul is retelling the story from another angle in Galatians here, but he says, "After 14 years of preaching to the Gentiles, he went up to Jerusalem for this council again. And he talked with the apostles. And they all agreed he was the gospel that he was preaching was the same." By this time, Peter had gone to Cornelius. And they had understood also that the gospel was for the Gentiles as well and that God intended out of both to raise up a new human family. And so they gave him the right hand of fellowship and validated what he had understood and been preaching.

So Paul says he had written briefly before so that they would understand how he knows about this. We don't really know for sure. He's written before. It may have been at another time. It may have just been the beginning of the letter he's referring to. But his purpose in writing is, one, so that they would understand God's now open secret purpose, this mystery, which is kind of a hard, maybe a bad translation, but I'm not sure there's a better way to say it in English without saying several words because a mystery, we think of a mystery as something that's hidden, not something that's opened. And this is Paul's talking about a mystery that was hidden.

God was doing this under wraps and keeping it hidden for whatever purposes we don't all know, but probably partly so that none of the enemies could thwart it. And now it's open. And now it can fully be experienced.

So he's writing so that they would understand God's purpose. And also that they would understand it was not his own idea, but it was God's lofty purpose that God has been working towards through all history and finally able to open up and accomplish through Jesus.

Paul's sense of urgency and difficulty in communication here is not because of the condition of the hearers. Sometimes Paul says that to the Corinthians and to the Hebrews. And I think it's chapter six there. He says, "There's lots of things that we'd like to talk about, but we can't because you're dull of hearing. And we're having the bottle feed you when you should be able to chew it up for yourselves."

That's not the case here. The difficulty and the urgency here is because this is such a big subject. So this is a mystery which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it is now revealed by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets.

And that mystery is that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body, partakers of Jesus' promise in Christ through the gospel. I want to talk a little bit about this idea here of it not being made known in other ages.

So the prophets in the Old Testament talk about this. There's splashes of this. There's the one that's part of Humble's Messiah, "The people who had sat in darkness have seen a great light. And the Gentiles shall come to thy rising," is another phrase from there. There's these places in the Old Testament that that's talked about. The promise to Abraham is that all nations will be blessed through you. But it's basically stated as a fact. It was known that it's going to happen, but to what extent? And especially this concept that it's not going to be like the Jews, the descendants of Abraham, they're all fine. And finally, the Gentiles get to merge in with them.

But that there's a problem with both of them still. And both of them are going to be elevated and made a new humanity beyond what God already accomplished through Israel. So it was understood and known that something was going to happen, but it was very blurry, especially to the extent.

And so Jesus came primarily to the house of Israel. And he told the apostles to preach the gospel and make disciples out of all nations. But when Jesus left, the apostles still didn't have this vision of the Gentiles being raised to the same new level as the Jews.

It was only by the guidance of the Spirit and the confirmation of his presence in the Gentile believers that this prophecy of Gentile reconciliation was understood and experienced. So for example, with Peter, the Spirit comes to him there on the rooftop. And he has the sheet come down. And the Spirit says, "So if God has cleansed it, it's no longer unclean, right?" And he does that three times. And then Cornelius's men come. And then he goes to Cornelius's house. So there's a revelation of understanding by instruction by the Spirit. And then there's the fact that the Holy Spirit was seen in the conversion Gentiles there in Cornelius's house. And that's what Peter said, "If God's going to live in them, I can't argue with that, right?"

And that was kind of the thing that the apostles, as they reviewed this case when Peter came back, settled them is that if God is willing to live in them by giving them his Spirit, then this is God's plan.

I followed John Chrysostom's homily on Ephesians heavily for this message. So some of you're hearing indirectly, and some of it are direct quotes. Here's what he says about it. "The prophets spoke back in their day, but their understanding was far from complete. God's purpose so far surpassed human calculation and normal expectation that even the apostles, when they heard it, did not completely understand it until they were taught by the Spirit and convinced by his presence in the new believers." I paraphrased that a little bit because it's a little tough to understand.

So the Gentiles and Jews alike are able to become part of this new humanity by obeying the gospel. Now, that's a catchword there because today there's lots of ideas out there about what is the gospel. And so we want to remember that when the apostles spoke about the gospel, they were talking about the teaching of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount. So the Gentiles are able to become part of this by choosing to give up their way and to follow and obey King Jesus and live like him.

And that's the same for the Jew or the Gentile alike. This whole thing, again, of the Gentiles becoming fellow heirs of the two, making one new man is going back again to this concept that in the beginning in Deuteronomy 32, it tells us this that when God, sometime in history, likely after the flood, it seems like the Tower of Babel, that God divided up the nations among the sons of God, higher than the angels, but the other Elohim, the other divine beings, and turned them over to them. And Israel was the nation that he chose. And in Psalm, it says this, "Who declares," it's talking about God, "who declares his word to Jacob," which was, remember, Jacob's name was turned to Israel, "his ordinances and judgments to Israel.

He did not do so with other nations, nor did he show his judgments to them." And that is over. Now it's the same. God is revealing himself. And people can know his ways and his holiness, his goodness, whether they're Jew or Gentile.

So of this, I became a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given me by the effective working of his, that's God's mighty power. So Paul became a dispenser, a facilitator of this open and active mystery and its fulfillment.

He goes on and says, "To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace is given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." So Paul speaks of himself here in a very lowly way. He speaks of himself as the least of all the saints. And people want to look at that and say, "See, all the good things that Paul did didn't matter a bit. He was no better than anybody else." And that's not what Paul's saying here.

Paul tells us different places why he considered himself the lowest and not even fit to be an apostle. And it was because he carried with him the sorrow and the memories that he was there. He was responsible for Stephen's stoning. He watched Stephen die. And he remembers bursting into those houses and hearing the women scream and the men shout and try to protect their families while he hauled them off to prison. He remembers those things. And he carries a deep sorrow for that. And he feels completely unworthy to be given this gift of being one of the main stewards. This idea of being a servant of a dispensation is kind of the picture of Joseph in Egypt there.

Pharaoh has this problem that there's a famine coming. And there's going to be good years. And then there's bad years. He needs someone to take care of this. So he says, "Joseph, you take care of this. And you store up the grain. And then you divide it out. And you make sure that everybody has what they need." It's that stewardship of a householder, of a business being given to him. And he feels so unworthy to be one of the main ones being given that gift and responsibility when he spent so much of his life, or at least for a while there, intensely burning himself out trying to destroy it.

He says that there, "For I am the least of the apostles who am not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God, which was in me."

So Paul worked hard so that the favor, the grace that was given him would not be wasted. Paul's zeal and diligence and God working within him made a powerful partnership. We can see that.

John Chrysostom spends a lot of time talking about this. It's almost like he got distracted from just focusing on Ephesians because this concept about integrity and leadership came up. And it was something he was very concerned about. We quote John Chrysostom along with the pre-Nicene fathers because he followed in their tradition. But he's actually after the time of the councils of Nicaea and the Constantine decay that happened around then. And in this passage, if you want to go in there and read it, it's in Homily 6 on Ephesians. But he talks about how look at the kind of person that Paul was and how he gives examples and appeals all through his writings, examples of his diligence and how hard he works and how he disciplines himself.

And he takes a vow and shaves his head even and things like that to make sure that he is blameless and that he's putting everything into this and dedicating himself as much as possible. And then John deplores what's happening in the church because of that. For the sake of time, I'm going to skip through that. It would be very good to read.

So he says he obtained, "He labored so the favor given him would not be wasted." Paul's zeal and diligence and God working within him made a powerful partnership. And Paul's mention of his own wrongdoing and unworthiness is an example to us of humility and godly sorrow that leads to change.

So remember, Paul starts out, he's a prisoner. He's writing from prison about this. And he's not sitting here saying, "So I got this job. And I was commissioned with this. And this has been a very difficult life. But I'm in submission to God's will for me. And I'm willing to accept this." He's excited about it. He says, "His response is not, 'Why did I have to get this job?' But Lord helped me to bear the shield." But he's excited about the privilege that he gets to be part of making God's dream come true in spite of the persecution. And that's a real mind frame adjustment for me as I read this passage. And there's some more places we'll see that.

Paul has a completely different way of looking at following Jesus and being part of God's kingdom than a lot of Christians and then too often I have. You can see Paul's fascination with this. Well, let's read this part here just to refresh our minds. And I want to notice two words. "To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace, this favor was given that I should preach among the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, from which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God, who created all things through Jesus Christ, to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places."

So he uses these two terms, unsearchable riches. So he looks at what Jesus did and the life Jesus demonstrated and the life Jesus taught us as an incredibly valuable thing. It's a pearl of great price. It's something to work hard for and save up for and spend everything in order to have. And it's unsearchable. It's something that as we pursue Jesus' way, we keep finding out more and more how good and how perfect and how right it is.

There's this term, the fellowship of the mystery. And whenever I see that, I can't help but think of the fellowship of the rings.

The fellowship of the ring, I'm sorry. So this is not just an abstract idea. But Paul wants people to see demonstrated in him and in them joining in this. And if the Lord of the Rings is offensive to you, I can't blame you. But in that story, they finally decide that the only way to save the world of men is to destroy this ring and take it back to where it was made, which is extremely dangerous. And that Frodo is the one that's supposed to do it. But he's going to need help. So what was it? The eight of them, seven others join in there and choose to carry that load with him and support him in that journey.

And this is a little bit the same idea. We join in. We participate in making this thing happen. It's not just a thing that we all sit around and say, "Oh, wow, that's cool how that all works."

Paul wants us to understand what it is to join in and to make this happen. And the purpose of all this is the Gentiles being lifted up to a level above the Jews and the Jews also being lifted up to the same level and a new humanity being redeemed and created. The whole purpose of this is to demonstrate God's wisdom. So John D. Martin, probably a lot of us remember his definition of wisdom. Wisdom is what you would do if you knew all the facts. And from a human standpoint, that's what it is. It's aspiring to something greater than what we have and trying to understand it. For God, I think wisdom is a little more understanding the way things work out well in the end.

And God has that in completion. He knows how things work well. And God wants the purpose of this thing of saving the Gentiles and the Jews and creating a new humanity is so that it can be displayed, God's understanding of how things work well in the end by us living that out.

God now earnestly wishes to display his wise understanding of what is good and his ability to overcome any evil. He wants to display that to everyone and everything by inviting us to follow it and to be transformed.

This isn't just any old wisdom, though. This is manifold wisdom. Now, that's not a word that we use very much anymore outside of the world of mechanics. So this is how I remember things and understand concepts. So this is a manifold. This is an exhaust manifold. It's off of a six-cylinder.

And so what it does is it takes one thing and branches out into many. This one takes one exhaust pipe and branches out and connects with six cylinders that are pumping exhaust out. Ladies, you're very familiar with this one. Those of you who have babies and are earnestly waiting till we have a curtain to cover it up. Down in the furniture room, this is a heating system. And there's a manifold. You have one pipe coming through and branching off into many.

John Chrysostom highlights something, though, is he doesn't just use the normal Greek word for manifold. But he uses one that means much manifold. So this is like a fractal. It branches. And then each of the branches branches. It's multiplied and varied. It's compounded. So it's not just this way, but it's this way and this way and all around and just applies to everything from every angle.

So when we say, as humans, we say manifold wisdom. We think of something like this. And we say, "We understand this. Science has proven." And it's something like this. And God says, "We say manifold wisdom. And God be like this." This is just a little project I was working on. There's just nothing that big. But this is the kind of manifold wisdom in comparison to this that Paul is talking about here.

So his intent is that the manifold wisdom of God would be known by the church, by us, to all of the who's who's that are out there. To get a little perspective on this, I think this is a really important thing.

I want to flip to another letter of Paul, 1 Corinthians 2. This is the chapter where he talks about the wisdom of God versus the wisdom of men. And I'm going to paraphrase some of it. But he says, "When I came to you, I didn't come with fancy speech or using fancy logic when I explained to you what I brought you God's message.

But I came to you demonstrating the Spirit of God and his power so that your faith would not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature. But it's not the wisdom of this age, this world system, or of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. It's running out. It looks great. And it looks prosperous. It looks like they're in the wings and controls. But the clock is ticking. And it's about to end.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery." There's that term again. There's been something going on underneath that's not readily noticeable, but that is real and is about to take over. It's a hidden wisdom that God had planned before the ages for our glory. So we were part of this plan. And it's for our good. And we get to be part of it. And this wisdom, this mystery that God was working because he knows how things work out well in the end was something that the rulers of this world, the principalities and powers, Satan and all of his buddies, were completely clueless about. They never saw it coming. It blindsided them. Because if they would have known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.

So if the devil and his buddies were going to take down people like themselves, they wouldn't come and crawl in a human body made out of dirt and walk around as one of the lowliest of them and serve and be humble and be tired and hungry and reject kingship. That's stupid. How in the world do you think you're going to win anything like that? But see, God knows that the way to overcome evil is with goodness.

And so God carried that out. And it completely wiped Satan off of his feet. The song that we've been learning in Sunday school dreams about what that might have been like, how Satan was celebrating. "We've destroyed the king," he cried. And then in the midst of his celebration, he hears these footsteps. And the king opens the gate and rips the gates open and leads all the prisoners out in victory. So that's God's kind of wisdom.

And when we participate, when we follow what God says to do, we are following that same kind of wisdom that turns Satan's regime upside down at the resurrection. I think this is really important for us as we look at obeying Jesus and being part of this mystery unfolding. Because lots of the things that Jesus tells us to do, the way of life he tells us to pursue, it's upside down. It looks stupid. It looks like we're losing. And we need to remember that when we choose to forgive our brother or forgive our neighbor and not take an offense, and when we choose to live and dress and act modestly and to reject ways that we could draw attention to ourselves and all those kinds of things, it may look stupid when we submit to authority.

It may look stupid. But we're following that same kind of wisdom that turns Satan's empire upside down and is going to again. And so we need to really solidify our minds of that, that that's what we're following. And it's not something stupid or impotent.

But it is something that is going to—we are joining in on something that is going to turn, finally, completely turn the wisdom of this world up on its head in the same way that Jesus did in the resurrection, that he was called to preach to the Gentiles, these unsearchable riches of Christ, to make everyone see what it is to join in and make this mystery happen because it's been hidden. It's been under wraps. God's been working on it and getting it all ready to unfold

through Christ. And the whole intent of all this plan since the beginning of the world was so that now, this is not in some eon to come or whatever, but now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, just like God has planned since forever and ever.

That's exciting to me. And we're going to talk some more about this thing about God's power working in us. And we looked at that with Paul already a little bit. But when we do that, when we make simple steps to obey what Jesus tells us to do, there is tremendous power that happens. There's something then that God joins with us and makes things happen that's beyond our own efforts. And so Paul's response to all this is then, "Knock me off my feet."

Really, I was reading all this. It's like, "Great, great, great." And then this is Paul's response to all this stuff is, "So I beg you, don't get bent out of shape because of all the stuff I'm going through."

And that really challenged me about my response to the gospel and to this invitation to join. What is my response to tribulation, to the difficulties I face in life? Do I look at it and say, "God, why is this happening to me?"

Or do I look at it and say, "Yes, I get an opportunity to walk through this in trusting obedience and be able to demonstrate to the powers in the heavenly places God's wisdom"? So for that reason, he bows his knees. Because God has opened the secret mystery he's been working on through all history to reunite all people in a restored humanity under King Jesus, of people who demonstrate his wisdom to all the powers in heaven and earth and can all participate in it. This phrase here, "From the whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named," is going back to this thing again. Originally, when God divided up the nations, it was only Israel that was named after God.

And God focused in on Israel. And they were his people. And the other people were the people of Chemosh and Baal and Ashtoroth and Zeus and whoever else. But now it's not true. All the families are owned by God. God desires to own them if they will own him anyways.

They are all able to experience his presence and have his goodness and his law, his order shown to them and revealed in them. And so because of this, Paul prays. And our response to the gospel and the things we pray for tells us something about our response to the gospel, our outlook on life and what we expect out of this. So what do you pray for yourself? What do you pray for others?

Do you pray in the morning that everything goes good and you sell lots of trailers and nobody gets mad at you and you can get a lot of stuff done and that all the problems in your life get fixed? Or do you pray for an opportunity, no matter what happens, to be able to demonstrate God's wisdom to everyone around?

What do you pray for others? Do you pray for safety in that the flowers all bloom and the sky is blue? Or do you—because as much for our children and our young people, I desire that as much as anybody. I don't want anybody to experience some of the things I went through and many other people that I know have gone through. We want them to all be safe and not to face a lot of difficulties. That's not how God's wisdom gets revealed in this world.

And the fact is, it's not going to be that way. They're going to get traumatized. They're going to go through difficult things. They're going to experience prisons, whether it's literal or not. And I think the best thing we can—and I'm not saying it's wrong to pray for safety and things like that—but the best thing we can pray for—I mean, the first thing, the thing Jesus prays for first in his prayer for us disciples is that the kingdom comes, that we have an opportunity to demonstrate God's wisdom. And I think that should be our first and foremost prayer for ourself and for others, is that they can understand what God wants to do in them, that God wants to demonstrate his wisdom through them, whatever happens, and that they can get a hold of that.

And that can be the reality that dictates how they handle the things in life.

I have experienced a lot of chastening about that myself in the last couple of weeks.

Remember, as we look at his prayer, that when he says "you," I've sort of been using it in the tense of us as individuals. But really, the term is as a group. And so it's a group. It's us as a group. It's the church as a group because of each person.

So he prays a list of things here. I'm going to run through this kind of quickly. He prays that God would grant them, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man. And notice, I've got these lists as bullet points, but they keep building in because it's not just a list of things, but it's a building. It's a foundation and then a growing.

You can't just jump to the end and be filled with the fullness of God if Christ isn't dwelling in your hearts through your faithfulness and if you're not rooted and grounded in love for God and things like that. So Paul prays that they would be strengthened in an inner way.

We need inner fortitude and character to participate in demonstrating God's manifold wisdom, which is contrary to human inclination.

And if we allow God to live in us through trusting obedience, he has plenty to give us. But this is something that we hold the key on.

We're actually going to get to that in the last part. He prays then that they would be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man. And this is what that looks like, that Christ would dwell in their hearts through faith. And the presence of King Jesus could live in us, his character and his wisdom and his love and all those kinds of things.

And remember that faith is, we would say, trust. And if you trust, you obey, right? John Chrysostom looks at this as faithfulness, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faithfulness. We often think of faith as knowledge in our heads. Like we know that and we think that it's true. Most of the time in the New Testament, where it uses this, it's together with the idea of faithfulness, of following and walking with and being true to. So Christ dwells in our hearts through our trusting obedience, our faithfulness.

And then because of that, he wants us to become rooted and grounded in that love that is causing us to trust and obey. God wants us to experience stability and confidence. And we can experience that as we walk in faithfulness. This is what Jesus says about being rooted and grounded in love. As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you'll abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full, may be complete. So that's the way to be rooted and grounded in love, is to choose to decide that God loves me, his commandments are for my best, and I'm going to follow them, whether I understand them or not.

That's the way to be rooted and grounded in love.

Then he says that because you're rooted and grounded in love and you are obeying Jesus, he wants us to be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.

So this idea of comprehending is not like, yeah, I know how that works, but it's an experience. It's like knowing a house and you can tell where everything's at. Like when I was at Faith Mission, I could have took you to the place. I could tell you it was in just about every cupboard in the whole place. I knew it. I interacted with it. I'd used it so before I built it and I knew the place. I had experienced it fully, mostly.

Sometimes there's subject matter like that. You talk to Brother David about the early church fathers, and he can tell you, he can tell you who said what and when they lived, and he's comprehended it. I'm sure it's not an exhaustion, but that's the idea here, a familiarity of having experienced it and put it to use.

And that is a love and an experience of learning to know that passes knowledge. Now, I used to think of this passing knowledge as like you pass food down the table. And I had weird pictures like that in my mind sometimes. But this means going beyond. It's something you're always going to be learning and finding out more about, realizing more, experiencing more. And so he does that by talking about God's love in geometric terms, but they don't make any sense because you have width or width and length and depth. What do we do with the other one?

I was trying to figure this out one time, and actually, I'm sorry, I was sitting in church. I don't remember who was talking. I was trying to figure this out. Like, what's he saying there?

So I started picking, trying to look at it different ways. And I realized when you look at it three-dimensionally, you're looking at it from without. But if you step into it and you say width and length and depth and height, that's a position of being in the middle of it.

I don't know. Maybe that's a little corny. Where does that put you? Right smack in the middle of God's love. But I think maybe that is some of the picture is you are within it and you are experiencing, you're living in it and you're walking in God's love.