Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Ephesians, chapter three. We're going to read verses 16 through to 21.
[00:00:10] And if you don't have a Bible with you, that's no problem. We've got it up on the screen behind me as well. Real privilege to be able to bring the Word this morning. I pray that you would be encouraged, that we would all be encouraged together as we read this.
[00:00:23] It says for this reason. This is Paul, the Apostle Paul, praying. For this reason, I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now, to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. And can I get a great big amen? Amen. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it changes us. It's the rock that we can build our life upon. Father, I pray as we listen to the words of Paul's prayer. For us, it was for the church in Ephesus and it was for us today. Lord, I pray we would experience that power that comes from a relationship with you. In Jesus name.
[00:01:47] Amen. Amen. I want to continue on from Mark's message last week and speak about the power of the Word of God in our lives. In January this year, Mark preached a message around the vision of our church and the heart to plant churches throughout the Southwest and beyond. And the vision of the church is that we would be able to reveal the glory of God to the Southwest and beyond. That means that wherever you find yourself in your community, in your home, in your workplace, that you would carry the power of God to bring influence, to bring change, to bring the strength and the power of the kingdom of God into every place you put your feet.
[00:02:34] He spoke from the last two verses now to him who was able to do exceedingly above, he spoke into that passage. And I want to look at the verses preceding that this morning to see the prayer of Paul to have this power and the strength internally I wonder if you feel the pressure in life. Anyone feel a little bit of pressure on a day to day basis that the outside world is squeezing in on you the power or the pressure to perform, to conform, to do all the things that task list of all the things that you need to do. There is a pressure that is external pushing in on us on a constant basis.
[00:03:20] Maybe the pressure you feel as a parent to be there for your children, to love them, to serve them, to catch them when they're falling.
[00:03:30] Maybe you're feeling the pressure at work when you get to the end of a day and your task list is longer than it was at the start of the day because more and more things are being placed upon you.
[00:03:41] Does anyone feel that pressure on a constant basis?
[00:03:46] Paul understood this well, the Apostle Paul, he's not speaking out of just a theory. This was his life.
[00:03:54] The letters that he wrote out of prison, from being shipwrecked, from being beaten and flogged almost to death. Paul understood what it meant to experience extreme pressure.
[00:04:10] But something remarkable radiates through his letter.
[00:04:15] It's about an inner strength. There's this inner strength that is radiating out of him that could not be crushed by external trials and challenges.
[00:04:25] So this morning I want to look at some of Paul's life and teaching from this passage and some of his other letters as well where Paul didn't teach this or preach this to prove how amazing he was. In fact, it's the very opposite. He says, in my weakness, God proves his strength.
[00:04:44] So I want to look at three truths this morning. We need to believe about God. And I pray that there would be a revelation of God's truth that you would receive today, in fact right now. Father, I pray for every bit of our past, every lie that has been spoken that we have believed. Lord, I pray you would silence those in the name of Jesus.
[00:05:09] That Lord, every mistruth, every lie of the enemy would be made quiet, would be destroyed in the name of Jesus, that we would receive this truth today into our hearts and into our spirits in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:05:27] Amen. First thought this morning is that God wants to strengthen us from within.
[00:05:32] That's his desire. He wants to strengthen us from within. This is what Paul prays. I pray that from his glorious and limited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his spirit. It's important that Paul doesn't pray. I pray that rediscover church would have easier lives, that circumstances wouldn't be tough or difficult. His prayer is I pray that we would be stronger not in our strength, but in the strength that we find in our innermost being.
[00:06:08] It's important that we understand the pressure of life, of work, of just walking through relationships with people.
[00:06:15] That when all of that squeezes in on us, there is a power that is promised to us, that is greater within us than the external pressure.
[00:06:25] Now I have two cans of soda here today.
[00:06:30] Now they look the same, right?
[00:06:34] But I want to show you how incredibly strong I am.
[00:06:40] I know you didn't come here expecting a gun show today.
[00:06:54] Must have used up all my strength on the first one.
[00:06:59] See a difference between the two cans. On the outside they look the same.
[00:07:05] You would have assumed that the contents is the same.
[00:07:09] But let's just say one of them was empty on the inside.
[00:07:13] One of them is still sealed.
[00:07:18] The internal pressure is greater than the external pressure I can place on it. Now there are some people on this planet that could grab one of these and squeeze it. I am not one of them.
[00:07:29] And for the sake of this illustration it works very well.
[00:07:35] But Paul says from God's glorious unlimited resources, he wants to strengthen us from within. Now I don't always understand infinite because I have finite resources that come into my life and then go out.
[00:07:56] Money, for example, I don't have infinite money. When money comes in and I'm thankful for wages that come in, money also goes out, right?
[00:08:08] With wages and bills and costs. And there is not as much money in my bank account as I would probably prefer, right?
[00:08:17] What about the energy that is full at the start of the day with that cup of coffee and your time with God and you get to lunchtime. How many people need a nap?
[00:08:27] Yeah, come on. Some honest ones out there.
[00:08:31] Sometimes that resource, that internal resource kind of disappears.
[00:08:38] What about when we start at the start of the day? We are filled with love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness, faithfulness, self control. And then it's 4 o' clock and you're cooking dinner and the kids aren't playing game, aren't playing ball.
[00:08:55] All that patience is gone. All of that self control is gone. And what comes out of your mouth is not God's unlimited glorious riches, right?
[00:09:08] What if we would understand that that resource is always available to us?
[00:09:17] What if during the day we would go to that glorious unlimited resource that God has for us and say, God, I need you now.
[00:09:28] That we would be. When Paul says pray continually, what did he mean by that? Stay engaged with God, right? Throughout your day.
[00:09:39] One of the team, as they were praying this morning, had Psalm 87. All my fountains are in you.
[00:09:47] All resource, all I need is found in you.
[00:09:53] In fact, the toughest conversations that I enter, I have learned to do something very, very important.
[00:10:02] See, when I was younger, I was pretty smart. I knew everything.
[00:10:07] The older I get, the less I know and less convinced I am of my own strength and my ability.
[00:10:14] Any slightly older people finding that to be true.
[00:10:20] And so when I know there's a difficult conversation, back when I was 25, 30, I go in because I've got the wisdom, I've got the resource. I'll sort that out. I didn't sort that out.
[00:10:31] So when I know that I have to step into something challenging, I have a prayer that's prayed before. Then, God, you say in your word that if anyone lacks wisdom, that they can ask and that you will give that wisdom freely. And that I shouldn't doubt when you give me that wisdom.
[00:10:47] In fact, when I have a difficult conversation with somebody, I will say, can we pray?
[00:10:52] Can we pray? Before we get into the discussion around this, can we pray and ask for God's help? Because we need his glorious unlimited resources of wisdom and peace and patience and kindness and answers.
[00:11:07] We can have that resource. It is there on tap. It is ready for us. But would we engage in that daily?
[00:11:16] Sometimes even by the hour and sometimes by the minute? God, I need your power. And you promise that you will fill me with your strength.
[00:11:27] I believe the key is found in the next two verses. This is my second thought this morning. God wants us to be rooted and grounded in love.
[00:11:37] Verse 17 and 18 says, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
[00:11:54] Paul says that you, being rooted and grounded in love. And Paul uses two metaphors here.
[00:12:00] He says rooted, which is an agricultural understanding, isn't it? That trees, plants have a root system.
[00:12:09] And Paul's saying, I pray that you would be rooted, that the roots would go down deep. Into what?
[00:12:17] Into God's love.
[00:12:19] That we would go deep into God's love. That we would have an understanding of the height and depth and the width of God's love for us. He also speaks about being established or grounded.
[00:12:33] That's an architectural term, speaking of the foundations that would be laid in our life for everything to be built upon.
[00:12:43] Now, what's interesting is that Paul's not talking about the trunk, the branches, the leaves. He's not even talking about the fruit.
[00:12:54] He's Talking about the root system that is deep, deep, deep in his love. He's talking not about the walls and the roof and the rooms that are being built. He's talking about the foundation that is laid in the love of God.
[00:13:13] See, we can put up facades, right?
[00:13:17] We can put on appearances and we can show everybody that we've got it all together. But in the background or internally, when that storm comes, this tree's going over.
[00:13:30] Paul's saying, you can have an inner strength. And that inner strength will be found when we are grounded and rooted in love.
[00:13:40] As we talked about a few weeks ago, the roots, they really do matter.
[00:13:44] They matter a lot.
[00:13:46] You get unhealthy roots, that tree will die.
[00:13:52] What's interesting is the roots that are not generally seen.
[00:13:56] Some trees, the roots come out of the ground and they work their way around. But most of the root structure we see is underground.
[00:14:05] It's what we do when we are alone with God. It's what we do when no one else is looking and they're not seeing us raise our hands and show how holy and amazing we are.
[00:14:15] But in that moment, when I'm alone with God, with my thoughts and my heart attitude towards people and towards God, when I'm grounded and rooted in love, I will experience the strength and the power within. If we are not rooted in love, the winds of life, of change, of trial, will blow us over.
[00:14:39] And if my identity is in my title, my position, my relationships, my net value, my net worth, if that is where my value lies and not in God's love, I'm in for trouble.
[00:14:57] And love refers to God's love for us, the source of all spiritual growth.
[00:15:02] And it also carries implications for our love for others as well.
[00:15:07] Together with all God's people. I love how he speaks of this. This isn't just a blessing for Mike. He's saying, together with all God's people.
[00:15:18] More and more, I am realizing salvation is not about my personal experience, but it is something God wants to do corporately amongst us.
[00:15:27] That glorious unlimited resource is available in my relationship with God, but it's also available in the friends that I choose to do life with.
[00:15:37] When I choose connection with other men and women of God, what happens all of a sudden? The glorious unlimited resources that they have drawn from their relationship with God, I get access to that as well.
[00:15:51] So when you've gone deep into the love of God and you've accepted his forgiveness and you've walked with him, you bring all of that into your conversation with someone else.
[00:16:03] How amazing is that? That when you go before God every day you say, God, I need your help. I need your strength. I can't do this with my own strength. And he says, here's some wisdom. Here's the word of God that's going to help you today.
[00:16:17] Here's what I've seen time and time again. The word that I've read in the morning is often used to bless somebody in the afternoon.
[00:16:26] God just does that. Why? Because we are connected. We are his body. We don't have disconnected toes from our feet. Well, if we do, those toes don't work so well.
[00:16:38] But when we stay connected in his love, we all benefit from that resource.
[00:16:46] I am a self confessed people pleaser, or I was.
[00:16:51] I was so interested in making sure that people like me and I have a little bit of that still.
[00:17:00] I certainly don't want people to hate me, but there's a part of me where my identity was based on what people thought of me.
[00:17:10] Not grounded and rooted in God's love.
[00:17:15] You see, if my purpose, if my role, my title, my position, my relationships, if that's what's driving my thinking and my decisions, then I'm not deeply grounded in God.
[00:17:30] Friends, when we understand, as we spoke about this morning and we sung, when we surrender to the will of God, to His power, his purpose is unlocked in us.
[00:17:44] It's almost like a cheat code. But it's not a cheat code because it's God's desire for us that everything we have, everything we need is found in Christ.
[00:17:55] When you're rooted in Christ's love, strengthened by his spirit, your circumstances don't crush you.
[00:18:02] That external pressure that maybe this is how we feel sometimes.
[00:18:07] If you feel like that now, I don't have the power to retransform this, but what I do know is that there are people who have felt crushed like this and have surrendered their will and their life to God. And God has strengthened them from within, brought them back to the capacity that he wants.
[00:18:33] How good were the teabags last week? How many people were here for the message about the teabags?
[00:18:39] Fantastic. How many people memorized a couple of those verses? If you weren't here last week, I encourage you, please get online.
[00:18:47] Www.rediscoverchurch.com Dwell.
[00:18:53] Grab a hold of those seven verses that the word of God would dwell richly us in our hearts, a personal testimony in our family.
[00:19:06] One of our kids went through a bit of a difficult day. As a father, my heart's kind of hurting a little bit and at the end of the day, we Went to the teabags.
[00:19:19] It was a difficult day and probably wasn't feeling so good.
[00:19:25] In fact, probably some bad thoughts were going on in my mind of things that I would like to do to the person that hurt my child, some unholy thoughts.
[00:19:37] But you know what?
[00:19:38] We put a tea bag and we made a cup of tea and we said, consider it pure joy.
[00:19:45] When you face trials of many kinds because of testing of your faith produces perseverance.
[00:19:53] But then the hard part is somebody had hurt my kid and part of me wanted to go. I want to go, maybe hurt them back a little, make them feel what my boy felt.
[00:20:05] So what do you do with that?
[00:20:07] Well, be kind and compassionate to each other, forgiving one another. Just as in Christ, God forgave you.
[00:20:16] Come on. Made a cup of cha.
[00:20:18] Had a cup of tea.
[00:20:20] Got the word of God to dwell richly. And when we prayed and we released, all judgment, all unforgiveness, all bitterness.
[00:20:31] What a moment we had together.
[00:20:34] The power of God strengthening us from our innermost being, rooted and grounded in love.
[00:20:44] God's ways are different to the world's ways.
[00:20:47] We know that, don't we?
[00:20:49] We know the world would say, take revenge. God says, forgive.
[00:20:54] The world says, climb to the highest position possible.
[00:20:58] God says, lower yourself.
[00:21:00] The Bible says, humble yourself, serve one another, don't be served, serve. Have that heart, that attitude of Christ, who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but instead he made himself lower.
[00:21:15] And from that place God raised him up, elevated him to the place of authority above every name, every principality.
[00:21:25] My last thought this morning as the team come this morning is that God has sealed us to withstand pressure.
[00:21:33] I want to go into the beginning of Ephesians 1:13, 14. Paul says, and you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession, to the praise of his glory.
[00:21:59] The word that Paul uses for sealed is, and I know I've got that absolutely wrong.
[00:22:08] S P H R A G I Z O and in ancient culture, a seal had three primary purposes. The first one was ownership.
[00:22:19] A seal marked property as belonging to someone.
[00:22:23] 2 Timothy 2:19 says, the Lord knows those who are his.
[00:22:30] The Lord knows you.
[00:22:32] He knows he owns you. If you have given your life to him, you are owned by Him.
[00:22:39] The second thing is authentication. A seal would bring authentication.
[00:22:44] So if a King or an important noble would, would be sending communication. They would mark that communication with a seal that they'd drip wax onto the paper and they would seal it with a stamp that says, this is authenticated.
[00:22:59] In a world of AI generated comments and graphics and images and videos. And you're going, is that even real?
[00:23:08] There is an authentication that God puts upon our life, saying, this is my child.
[00:23:18] But then the third thing is security.
[00:23:21] A seal provides security.
[00:23:24] Seals prevented tampering.
[00:23:26] You know, in Jesus tomb, Matthew 27, it was sealed to say, no one can get into that. And I believe that's what the Holy Spirit does in our life. He seals us.
[00:23:40] That internal pressure of his power within us is greater than the external squeeze on us.
[00:23:48] And God wants to seal us with that promise of his power within.
[00:23:54] God's not trying to take away our problems.
[00:23:59] In fact, we've been learning that we're to count it pure joy. Yes, another trial coming my way.
[00:24:06] Praise God.
[00:24:09] Yeah, whatever.
[00:24:12] No, no, no, really.
[00:24:14] I made a decision about 15 years ago that I would count it joy when a trial comes.
[00:24:24] Now, I'm not saying the very first response that comes out of our mouth is joy when the car breaks down or when someone cuts in in front of me or when something really bad happens to me or to one of my kids. That's not always my first response because I'm still in a battle with the flesh, you know, when I'm still battling against the temptation of the enemy and the world and the flesh. We are constantly in that battle.
[00:24:55] However, there's a moment that something instinctively has been triggered within my heart that says, I will countless joy.
[00:25:05] And rather than saying, God, why?
[00:25:08] I'm asking a new question, which is, God, what, What do I need to know? How do I need to grow? What is it you're trying to teach me in this? How can I be a blessing to someone else? Through walking through this trial?
[00:25:25] I had a young man called Kish.
[00:25:27] He was part of a Bible study there. About 10 or 11 guys would meet every Tuesday morning. We'd make breakfast together. We'd study the Bible, scanned about back about 25 years.
[00:25:37] Just going through that process of discipleship together. And we read. We were going through the book of James and I said, has anyone ever prayed for a trial?
[00:25:48] Nope.
[00:25:50] You know what Kish did? He went away and he prayed, God, would you give me a trial so that I could grow in perseverance? Because the perseverance leads to growth and character to reveal the glory of God.
[00:26:06] About a month later, he was Diagnosed with alopecia.
[00:26:10] For some of you who are aware of that condition, patches of your hair begins to fall out. So he basically went bald about six months after that, when we had moved he and seven other students and a teacher into the canyon on a outdoor pursuits camp.
[00:26:33] And as he got to the middle of the, or the bottom of the canyon, all the weather warnings that had been ignored, the canyon just filled up with water.
[00:26:47] They tried to get out of there.
[00:26:50] They were swept down the river.
[00:26:56] Now, six of the students lost their lives. Two of them were from my.
[00:27:00] My group of guys, and Kish was one of them as well.
[00:27:02] But Kish, instead of going to the left where the others perished, he somehow went to the right, managed to get out of the river.
[00:27:12] And I remember having this conversation with him.
[00:27:17] He says, why did God spare me and not these men?
[00:27:23] I said, because God's going to need a mouthpiece.
[00:27:28] I said, you went through that. You're going to have to live with that for the rest of your life.
[00:27:35] You know what he said to me as he was about to be interviewed on national television? Because it was something that hit the nation, something really horrific that hit the whole nation.
[00:27:47] We had news reporters coming onto our grounds at the church.
[00:27:54] And as a church, we opened up the doors and we said, don't stand out in the cold. Come in. You've got to tell the story. Would you respect the families? The media were unbelievable.
[00:28:04] They were so respectful as we went through that journey. But I sat in the control room with Kish as he's about to be interviewed on national tv, and he says, I'm gonna use Jesus in every single sentence.
[00:28:18] Cause they can't edit that out, right? Mike Kish has gone on to become a lawyer.
[00:28:23] He is serving the Lord and justice, standing up for the rights of people.
[00:28:28] This is a man who says, God, would you give me the gift of a trial?
[00:28:37] I'm not going to ask you to pray that.
[00:28:41] But would we?
[00:28:43] Knowing that maybe God is going to do something internally inside of us and strengthen us from within, like the soda can, or probably a better illustration is a submarine deep in the water.
[00:29:02] When that internal pressure, when the power of God in us is greater than the external pressure squeezing in on us, we're not going to be crushed.
[00:29:12] This is what Paul said. I close with this thought.
[00:29:15] 2 Corinthians 4, 7, 9. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.
[00:29:27] We are hard pressed on every side. Come on. Are you hard pressed on every side.
[00:29:34] But not crushed. Can we say that together? But not crushed?
[00:29:43] This is not who we are in Christ.
[00:29:48] His glorious unlimited riches is in us in the natural. Today you might feel fragile like a jar of clay, but you carry the power of the resurrected Christ in your life.
[00:30:05] The strength to resist isn't about pretending to be strong.
[00:30:09] It's about staying connected to the strong one.
[00:30:14] We recognize God wants to strengthen us from within.
[00:30:18] God wants us to be rooted and grounded in love.
[00:30:21] That God sealed us to withstand pressure.
[00:30:25] Then there is no limit to what God would do in us.
[00:30:29] And I talk about the collective us.
[00:30:33] What could God do through this community of believers?
[00:30:37] Well, Paul tells us now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask. Come on. These are the things we haven't even asked or imagined. And yet God wants to do more than that according to his power that is at work where within us.
[00:30:59] God's power at work in us.
