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Howdy. On? Yeah. All hear me all right? No. Shows I'm on. Well, there we go. I think I can hear myself. Well, howdy. And good morning. Please turn your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 3. We are trying to finish the chapter. It won't happen today, but I'm trying. Last January, our pastor was kind enough to come back from his vacation a week early because I was supposed to preach for him, but I was sick, and so he came back, and so it's been my joy this week to give that week back to you, even though I don't feel like I saw you up here quite a bit, so I'm not sure how much time you got off, but nonetheless, it's a joy to be in the scriptures with you this morning.

This week in my studies, I was reminded of a famous story in Greek mythology, a story about a king named King Midas. Perhaps you've heard of that story, and according to the legend or the myth, this God, Dionysus, offered him, this king, an extraordinary opportunity. He told King Midas.

Ask whatever you want, and I will grant it to you. Ask whatever you want, and I'll give it. Now, think for a moment. Imagine being given an opportunity like this to ask for anything, to ask for absolutely anything. No limits, no restrictions, no rules, just ask whatever you want, and it will be granted to you.

What would you ask for? What would you ask for? Well, as the myth goes, Midas did not hesitate to answer that question. He asked to be granted a special power, a power that enabled him to turn everything that he touched into gold. Now, at first, this seemed like a great idea, right?

You can imagine being able to touch whatever you touched turned to gold. He walked around his palace, and he touched the flowers, and his whole rose garden would turn to gold, or he walked around his palace and touched the furniture and the walls and everything. And all of a sudden, his palace was sparkling with the wealth and splendor beyond imagination.

Incredible power. Of course, as you might imagine, the story goes that gift became a curse for him. When he got hungry, he would sit down to eat, and he'd pick up that turkey leg. He probably ate turkey legs. He picked it up, and it turned to gold, so he couldn't eat it.

And as he picked up his drink, the water turned to gold before it even touched his lips. And as the story goes in some versions of it, when he went to hug his own daughter, she also turned to a lifeless statue of gold. And so you see, King Midas had been given an opportunity to ask for whatever he wanted, but he didn't ask for the right things.

He didn't ask for the right things. What is the point of this story? The point that I want to make to you this morning is that, like King Midas, you and I have also been given an incredible opportunity to ask God for anything. Did you know that? Did you know that when we come and we bow before God of heaven, we have an opportunity to ask Him for anything that we need, anything that we want?

But the question remaining for us this morning is what should we ask for? What is it that we should pray for? What are the things that we should ask? How do we ensure that we are praying for the right things? Well, our text this morning, Paul answers for us this very question by making three specific prayer requests for the church.

He gives us three examples of things that we ought to pray for. As we begin this morning, let me just read Paul's prayer here at the end of Ephesians 3. Let me read it for us in its entirety, and then we'll walk through a portion of it this morning.

God's Word says this in verse 14 of chapter 3: For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit and the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, and the length, and the height, and the depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, and that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now, to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever. And ever. Amen. May God bless the reading and the study of his word this morning.

As you recall, Paul wrote this letter from a Roman prison cell. He had been unjustly accused of bringing a Gentile past this dividing wall in the temple. This was a violation, an act punishable by death in his time. And the Jews, of course, were looking for a way to put Paul away.

They hated his message. They hated the message he preached. And so they used this opportunity to put him in prison. And again, it's from this prison cell that Paul writes this very letter to the believers living in Ephesus. And he wrote to them so that they would know the glorious truths of the gospel, that they would know about their salvation that they possessed in Christ, that they would know about this glorious mystery which had been revealed to Paul.

Specifically, that both the Jews and the Gentiles had been united to God and united to each other in the body of Christ, in the church. This was the great mystery that had been hidden in the past, but now had been revealed to Paul and to the apostles. And so he writes this letter, and it's for this reason that Paul says that Paul offers this prayer that we're studying this morning.

So he bows his knees in prayer, as it says in verse 14. Now, let me just give you the structure of this prayer, because we're not looking at the entire thing this morning. But it can be divided into three main sections. You may have seen them as we read through it just a moment ago.

First, there's the prelude of Paul's prayer, verses 14 through 15. It's kind of an introduction or preliminary remarks that introduce his prayer. The second section is found in verses 16 through 19. These are the petitions or the requests that Paul makes as he prays to the Father. And then the third section is seen in verses 20 through 21, and that is the praise of Paul's prayer.

So that's the general structure. And our focus this morning, as well as next week, is going to be on that middle section, verses 16 through 19, the petitions of Paul's prayer. And there are three petitions that I mentioned. There are three petitions in this passage, and I want to mark them out for you just so you have your mind around them.

You'll notice that the word, the little word that, in this passage. And this little word is used to mark out these main requests. It says, I pray for three things. Number one, you see this in verse 16, that he would grant you to be strengthened in the inner man.

That's request number one, a prayer for spiritual strength. Number two, the second that we see is in the middle of verse 17, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. That's number two, a prayer for spiritual understanding.

And then the third one, the last one, is in the middle of verse 19, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. That's the third request, a prayer for spiritual maturity. So these are the three requests Paul prays for. He prays for spiritual strength, for spiritual understanding, spiritual maturity in the lives of God's people.

This is what was on Paul's heart and what he prays for on behalf of the church. And so, again, kind of narrowing it down. This morning we're only going to be looking at the first of these. There's a lot here, but we're going to look at the first request.

And as we study this together, I Really want you to see several aspects of this prayer request so that you will be better equipped to pray for this church, for Emmanuel Baptist Church. Let me ask you this morning: do you pray for this church? Do you pray for the leadership of this church, the elders, the deacons?

Do you pray for the members? The brothers and sisters in Christ sitting right next to you this morning. Do you pray for them? I hope that you do. I hope that you do pray for this church. It is a great privilege to be able to pray for the people of God.

And again, my hope this morning is that by examining this prayer, you will be encouraged to pray more, to pray more often, and to be equipped to pray things that our Heavenly Father loves to answer. So let's begin by looking at this together, starting in verse 16, and we're going to go through the middle of verse 17.

It says that he would grant to you, verse 16, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. The first aspect that I want you to notice about Paul's prayer request is that it recognizes the need.

For the Father's abounding grace. Recognizes the need of the Father's abounding grace. Look at how Paul begins his request: that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory. Now, for Paul to make this request, and if we are going to make this request and follow his example, we must come to believe two very foundational truths about God.

First, we must believe that God the Father is a gracious God. Notice the pronoun he uses here, pronoun he in verse 16. It refers all the way back to verse 14, and it identifies who Paul is praying to. He's praying to the Father, to the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

Now, when we studied this title for God several weeks ago, we learned that this title not only speaks to God's supreme authority over all creation, but it speaks to his supreme care for his people. He is a father. He's a father in the sense that he is the originator of all things.

He is the originator of everything that existed. He brought everything, he spoke everything into existence. He is the highest authority in heaven. There is no one who rivals him. So he's the Father in that sense, but he's also the Father in the sense that he desires to bless.

He's determined to love. It speaks of his propensity to be gracious to us and to lavish us with grace. You see, our Father is a gracious and giving God because it is in his nature to give. It's in his nature to extend grace. And it is this truth about God that became the foundation of Paul's prayer.

And friends, it's where all of our prayers must begin. We must begin believing that our heavenly Father is indeed a gracious and giving God. For if the Father is not gracious, if the Father is not a generous God, then we have no basis to come before Him at all.

If the Father is not gracious, we have no reason to ask Him for anything. And we have no hope of receiving any good thing from His hands if our God is not a gracious God. But the good news of the gospel is that, of course, our Father is a good God.

He is a gracious God. He is a giving God. He's the God who gives. Notice the word in the text there that he would grant you. The word translated grant is a very common word in the Greek. It means to give something out, to bestow a gift of some kind, to grant something to someone, perhaps in response to a request like we see here in Paul's prayer.

And here, Paul uses it to express his strong desire for God to give something to these believers living in Ephesus. Now, we're going to look here in just a moment at what that something is, but let me just say here that Paul is making an appeal to the generosity of God.

And he is recognizing that if God is not gracious to them, they have no hope of any good thing. You see, Paul understood this. He knew that God was a God of grace. He believed this about God. God's grace was the lens through which Paul viewed his entire life and his entire ministry.

He saw his redemption, the forgiveness of his sins, as an extension of God's grace. He saw the sanctification in his life as a work of God's grace being set apart for his purposes and for his good works. And ultimately, Paul looked to his future glorification as an expression of that same glorious grace from God.

He believed that God was a rewarder of those who seek him, and that every good thing that is given, every perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights. This was Paul's view of God, and it humbled him to the point of coming and bowing before the Father of heaven in prayer.

Why? Because he knew that God was a God of grace. And he knew that the Father loves to give generously to his children. So I asked you this morning, do you believe that? Do you believe that about God? Is that reflected in how you pray? When you pray, do you pray believing that he is a generous God that loves to answer your prayers?

I think maybe if we're honest with ourselves, one of the reasons we struggle to pray is because we don't really believe it. We don't really believe that he's going to hear us or that he's going to answer us or that he even wants to answer our prayers. But he does, and we must, if we are going to pray and follow Paul's example, we must believe that God...

Desires to give graciously to his children. But there's a second thing that we must believe, and that is not only that he is gracious, but that he has sufficient capacity to give. It's one thing to be gracious, but you also have the ability to give. Imagine for a moment if one of my kids, when they were younger, came to me as their father and they said, Dad, there's this really cool toy at the store.

I really want it. A Lego set or something. I really want it. Can I have some of your money to buy that Lego set? And suppose, it's all hypothetical, of course. Suppose I responded by saying, Of course. Of course, I'll give you money. In fact, today I am feeling very generous.

Today, and only today, I will give you everything that's in my wallet. Everything. All that's in there is yours. Now, as you can imagine, a little child, their eyes opened wide as I pulled out my wallet from my pocket to hand to them. And as they began to open the wallet with anticipation, to their great surprise, There was only one dollar left.

Only one dollar left. And you can imagine their expression: Dad, there's only one dollar in here. There's not enough. I can't buy my toy with this. I mean, I appreciate the generous offer, but I mean, there's only a dollar. Yeah, but everything I have, everything that's in there is yours.

You can have that whole dollar. You can have it. And so you can imagine the disappointment on their faces when they realize there wasn't enough to satisfy their request or to answer their request for that money. You see, the desire to give without the capacity to give is really no gift at all.

But our Heavenly Father is not like that, thankfully. He's not like that. And so we must ask: what then is the capacity of God's generosity? How generous can he really be, and to what degree can we pray and ask for God to be generous to us and to the others in our church?

What degree can we pray for this? Notice what he says next. Paul asked the Father that he would grant them, that he would give to them according to the riches of his glory. What does that mean? According to the riches of his glory, Of his glory describes the measure or the standard by which God gives his gifts.

You see that? And it's important to note that it's not out of his riches, but it's according to his riches. It's a subtle distinction, but I think it's important. To give out of riches could imply giving only a small portion of what he has. To give out of it, here I'll give you a dollar.

But to give according to his riches means that the gift reflects the full scale and abundance of his wealth. It's not just a portion of the riches, it is in proportion to his great rich wealth that he has. So, how rich is he? How vast are God's riches?

Well, it says that the riches of his glory. And this refers to that limitless abundance of God's glory. The word glory speaks of the manifestation of God's character, his divine nature. It is the summation of all his characteristics, all of his divine attributes, his infinite grace, his infinite love, his infinite mercy, his infinite kindness, his infinite power.

All of this together. Makes up the riches or the wealth of his glory. Therefore, when Paul asks that God would grant them according to the riches of his glory, he is asking God to give in such a way that corresponds to the infinite and limitless resources of his own glorious being.

You see that? He appealed to the generosity of God and to his limitless capacity to give his people everything they could possibly need. Incredible. You see, God's capacity to give has no limits because God's glory has no limits. And so when Paul prays for God to give, he prays that he would give in accordance with his glory.

When you pray, do you recognize your need for God's grace? When you pray for others, do you appeal to the generosity of God on their behalf? Do you pray that he would give them according to the riches of his glory? Paul gives us wonderful things to pray for.

And this, my friends, is where all true prayer must begin. It must begin with a recognition. That we need God's grace and that His grace is abundantly available to us when we ask. There's a second aspect of Paul's prayer request, and it is that it recognizes the need for the Spirit's strengthening power.

Spirit's strengthening power. Look back at verse 16, and let's look at what Paul has asked God to give to them. Paul asked that he would grant them to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man. First, notice where his prayer request is directed. It's directed to what he calls the inner man, the inner man.

Now, what is the inner man? We need to understand this. The term inner man, or in some translations, inner person, is a phrase that is rather unique to Paul in the New Testament. It's only used by Paul in really two other passages, so it's probably best to just let these verses define for us what this term actually means.

The first one is in Romans 7. You don't have to turn there. But Romans 7:22, just listen to what Paul says here. He says, I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. So whatever the inner man is, It's the part of the Christian that joyfully concurs with the law of God.

It's the part of us that loves God, that loves his law. That's what the inner man does. But I think the second passage where he uses this term is 2 Corinthians 4.16. Probably brings a little more clarity to our definition. Here in 2 Corinthians, he writes, Though the outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

So here in 2 Corinthians, when Paul uses this term, inner man, it is being used in contrast to the outer man. It's the opposite part of us that's decaying. You see? So biblically speaking, when we think about what makes up a person, what makes up you and me, there are only two things.

There is the outer man, the material part, the things that we see are our body, our flesh, our bones, and our outer man is decaying day by day. The older we get, I think this becomes a reality for us all. Our outer man is decaying. Our bodies are wasting away.

But then there's the inner man, the inner part, the inner man. Material part of a person. This is our spirit, our soul. And even though our outer man is passing away, our soul continues to live on. And so here, Paul is praying for this inner man back in our text in Ephesians.

He's praying for the spirit, the spiritual lives of these believers in Ephesus. That's what he's praying for. Next, notice specifically what he asks for. He asks for God to strengthen their inner man, to strengthen their soul with power. That's what he asked, that God would grant strengthening power in their spiritual lives.

Now, there are two different words used here. One is a verb. It's translated to be strengthened. See that there in your text? To be strengthened. This verb is used outside the Bible to refer to being strengthened by exercise. So think of going to the gym and lifting weights, right?

As you lift weights, your muscles are strengthened by exercise. It's the idea that we see in this term. And so when you exercise your muscles, right, you strengthen. And in the biblical use of this word, it's often used to convey the idea of becoming strong or growing in strength.

Again, the emphasis is upon the growth, the growth of strength, growing strong. And when Paul uses this term here in our text, it's also important to note that he uses it in a passive way, meaning pointing to the fact that these believers are not the ones doing the strengthening of themselves.

They're not strengthening themselves. They are being strengthened. Something outside of them is strengthening them. That's the emphasis here when Paul uses this word, to be strengthened. The second word you see translated with power. With power, it's a similar word, but it is different. And this word speaks to one's ability to act or their capability to function in some particular way.

And so it's the power to act in the inner man, their spirit. That's the idea here. And so when we put all this together, we see that Paul is asking God to strengthen their souls and to cause them to grow in their ability to act in their spiritual lives.

You see that request? And this really gets to the heart of Paul's request. Here. It's a request for God to give them a measure of spiritual strength in accordance with the riches of his glory. That they would be growing in their ability to act and that it would be in accordance with God's limitless power for them.

That he would strengthen their ability to obey God in the inner man. He prays for inward obedience. You can think of it that way. This isn't an outward strength, an external power. This is an internal power that resides in your soul to obey the living God. Turn with me just for a moment over to Philippians chapter 2.

Because I think this will help make this truth even more clear of what Paul is praying for. Over in Philippians 2, Paul is, of course, writing to Christians. He's writing to believers, to those who have already come to faith. They are already in a pattern of obedience in their lives.

And he says to them in verse 12, So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Now, let me just say this: this isn't talking about earning your salvation, right?

Because it's Are already Christians. They've already been saved by grace through faith, but they're being commanded as Christians to obey God, to obey His commandments, to walk in obedience to Him. Notice why. In verse 13, it's for or because it is God who is at work in you.

It is God who is at work. The one working in you is God. The very God who possesses unlimited, infinite power is working inside the inner man. You see that? Inside of you, inside of me, and all those who are in Christ. And look how he describes the work that God is doing inside of us.

It says, it is God who is working inside you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. You see, God is working inside of you both to will and to work. Here's what he's saying: God is working in us to will. That is, he changes our wills, he changes our desires.

He is literally giving you the willingness to obey him. God does that to work inside in the inner man. And then to work. God not only empowers our wills to desire. To obey, but he empowers our ability to act in obedience to his commands. Do you see that?

Incredible, incredible work that is taking place in our souls, in our hearts, that God is doing. And I hope you see this because this is exactly what Paul is praying for back in our text, back in Ephesians. He prays that God would strengthen them in the inner man, in their soul, and that he would strengthen them with nothing less than his own power, his own limitless power to obey him.

Lastly, back in our text, see how this strengthening comes about. How does God strengthen our spirit? It's through his spirit. Again, this carries on the truth that we have just been speaking of. It is through his spirits. This is the mechanism, the means through which we are strengthened.

It's the spirit that gives us and enables us and gives us the ability to act in a way that pleases the Father. He enables us to do the will of God, and he strengthens our soul with his own capacity to act. I asked you this morning, do you need to be strengthened in the inner man?

What do we need to be strengthened for? There are many things. I think much of this prayer is in preparation for what Paul is about to instruct them to do. You remember the first three chapters of Ephesians is all doctrine, it's all theology, it's about our salvation in Christ.

And then chapters 4 through 6 is all the practical outworkings of those things, the things that we are to do, to obey in light of those truths. And so Paul offers this prayer that God would strengthen our spirits by His Spirit so that we could obey him. Do you ask God to strengthen you in your inner man?

Do you pray that for the people of this church? Well, there's a third aspect of Paul's prayer that I want to quickly draw out for you this morning with the time we have left. It's in verse 17. And it's that Paul recognizes our need for the Son's indwelling presence.

Notice what it says in verse 17: so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That he might dwell in your hearts through faith. Now, at first glance, this might seem a little confusing because Paul is writing to believers in Ephesus. Again, these are Christians. They already belong to Christ.

And, of course, the New Testament. Testament teaches that Christ lives in us. We are in him, and he is in us as believers. So, why would Paul be praying for Christ to dwell in the hearts if he's already there? The question you may be asking. I think the key to understanding this verse is in the word dwell.

Paul uses a word here that literally means to settle down, to reside permanently somewhere, to make yourself at home. That's the idea. And it's the opposite of a Greek word that is commonly used to carry the idea of a temporary visit, just passing by, just temporarily visiting somewhere.

It's the opposite of that. Think about the difference between staying in a hotel versus living in your own home. For most of you, if you have to travel for work or you go on vacation, you go stay in a hotel. I mean, how many of you start rearranging the furniture inside the hotel?

Unless you have a bunch of kids or trying to cram them in there. We don't, right? You don't start rearranging the hotel. You don't remodel the kitchen of a hotel room. No, you don't. Why? Because you're just passing through. You're just visiting. But at home, it's much different, right?

You settle in. You buy a home. You settle into it. You plan to stay there for a while, and you start making it your own. You start organizing, you start rearranging all the things in the home, and it begins to reflect your preferences and who you are. It starts taking on the characteristics of the person living there.

And so, this is sort of the idea, the best I can explain it, of what Paul means when he says Christ dwells in our hearts. And what he was praying for here, he's praying not that Christ would enter their hearts, as in for the first time when we are saved by God.

He's not talking about salvation here. He's already made that abundantly clear throughout his letter. These believers are in Christ. They have been united to Christ. So, he's not referring to salvation, but he's referring, and he's praying that Christ would dwell, that he would settle down in their hearts, that he would make and feel fully at home in their hearts.

And this has profound implications, does it not? Paul was praying that Christ would increasingly take control of every area of their lives, every area of their hearts, which, by the way, is just another way to describe the inner man, that inner nature of a person. Where our thinking takes place, where our desires are, where our attitudes spring forth, where our decisions are made.

And so, when Christ comes home to be at home in a believer's heart, he begins to shape the way that a person thinks. And their priorities begin to change. They begin to align with his priorities. Their attitudes begin to reflect his attitudes. Their speech begins to be filled with words of grace.

In other words, when Christ dwells in our hearts, he settles down and he brings about Christ-likeness in our lives. And this is what we most desperately need, is it not? This is what the church needs to look like Christ, to be like Christ, to be transformed into his likeness.

Friends, we need the Son's indwelling presence in our hearts so that we would be made like him. So that we would be made like Christ. Lastly, notice how this all happens. It says it's through faith that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith. When you trust in Christ, And when you believe his word, and when you exercise those spiritual muscles of the inner man to obey him, to walk in obedience, the resulting reality is that Christ dwells in your heart.

He settles down and he begins to transform you and me from the inside out. Oh, that God would come and dwell in your hearts this morning. And so let me ask you: is Christ dwelling in your hearts? Have you trusted in him to settle down and take control of your life, to start rearranging every aspect of your life?

I hope you see your need for this this morning, and I hope that you begin to pray that God would do it, not only in yourself, but in the lives of the people in this church. Because when He answers that prayer, it will change this church. It will change this community for the gospel.

This morning, we have looked at three aspects of this request that Paul makes. We have seen our need for the Father's abounding grace. We have seen our need for the Spirit's strengthening power, and we have seen our need for the Son's indwelling presence. Presence in our lives. And we have been given this incredible opportunity to come before God and ask Him for it.

We can ask God for these things. And so, again, what do you ask God for when you pray? Are you asking for these things? When you pray for yourself and for others in this church, do you pray that God would give generously the gift of spiritual strength to your soul and that He would accomplish this by the work of His Spirit so that through your growing faith you would experience the indwelling presence of Christ in your life?

Do you pray for that? Listen, the only way that all this can happen is through prayer. God must grant it in response to our prayers. And so this is why Paul prays. This is why we must pray. And so let's pray. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, that we bow our hearts before you this morning, God, recognizing our desperate need for your grace.

And we bow before you, acknowledging that you are a God of grace. You are a generous God. You're a generous Father who loves and delights to answer our prayers, and you love and delight to answer these prayers for us and for your people. And so, Father, I lift up this church to you.

I lift up everyone here this morning. God, that you would strengthen us with your power through your Spirit, and that that power would transform us in the innermost parts of our being. God, help us to reflect Christ this morning and this week as we go out from here.

In Jesus' name, amen.