I would invite you to Ephesians 3. Let's bring the book to Ephesians 3. We looked at this passage a couple of weeks ago, and we will pick up again. Ephesians 3. As we look at this passage, The question is not, do we pray, but do we pray this way? Do we pray like this? And so notice here, Ephesians 3, beginning in verse 14. 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 exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. May God grant it that we pray this way. And let's bow ourselves in prayer. Father, we do ask for your blessing. We ask for the Holy Spirit. We ask that Christ would be honored, that your word would be honored, and that you would speak now. And it's in Jesus that we come. Amen. Churches have many things going on during this season of the year. And that's certainly true of our congregation. In one word, we are busy. Today we're busy. The next few weeks we're busy. And churches are that way during this time of the year. But in all of the activities, the fundamental thing that we as a church need is prayer. That's the fundamental thing. So that if we were to come up with a list of the characteristics of a church, if we were to come up here and say, okay, what are the marks of a true church? We would say, well, there should be preaching, there should be communion, there should be fellowship, there should be love, there should be outreach. And on that list, we would say, there must be prayer. It's one of the fundamental things. It's been said by many people that prayer is the breath of the church. Do you breathe? Is breathing second nature to you? Well, in the same way, that's how prayer should be for a church. And I'm sure that many of us have invited people to our church. We have asked them to come and get involved with our church. But brothers and sisters, think about it. Having asked other people, do we ask God to come and be active in our church? We ask other people to, but do we ask God? And I think we could put it this way, that I've been married for 17 years, and on our wedding day, in all the vows, it basically came down to Jenna promising that she would be with me throughout my life. You could give all the particulars, but she basically promised to be with me in my whole life. Now, I don't want to take that for granted, but I want to live in light of her promise. And so for the last 17 years, probably daily, I say, hey, Jenna, come on, let's do this. Come on, let's do that. Hey, come here, come there. I say, hey, let's go walking. Let's have coffee. Let's run to the store. Let's do this and that. In light of her promise 17 years ago, I live that way and I constantly ask her to be with me. Well, in the same way, all over the Bible, God promises to be with his people and we ought to live in light of that. We ought not to take that for granted. In light of his commitment to be with us, what should we do? We should ask him to come and be active in our church. And that's exactly what Paul is doing here. He's calling on God, he's asking God to be active and involved with these believers in Ephesus, with this church. And you see that he is indeed praying, because in verse 14, he starts off by saying, I bow my knees before the Father. You know what that sounds like. And you actually see petitions here. He's requesting things here, and at the end, The very last word in verse 22 is amen. At the very end, he says amen, and he closes his prayer. And so Paul here is praying. And as he's praying, you notice the particular attribute that he's focused on. His attention is on something about God particularly. And that attribute that he's focused on is the power of God. If you look through our text, you see Paul talking about strength. Might, ability. He says, the working of God. Literally, the word there is the energizing of God. And so Paul is definitely focused on the power of God in his prayer. Now, brothers and sisters, no doubt, especially on Main Street here, but many times we've driven by and we've seen construction workers, and you have probably seen some of those construction workers from time to time leaning on their shovels. Or maybe in all of your yard work these days, that you were leaning on your rake. Or we have seen athletes leaning on their teammates, and on and on and on. Well, Spurgeon basically said, God never leans on anybody or anything. Think of all the times you could be caught leaning. God never leans. And yet, All of it leans upon him. God is not leaning, but the whole cosmos, the weight of it is leaning upon him. Sometimes we might say, I feel like the weight of the world is on me, and I get that expression. But actually, the weight of the world is not on you. But the weight of the world is on God, and he's holding it all up by his power. And we see what it is to be a Christian, right? What it is to be a Christian is to lean upon God. It's not to lean on your own strength, not to lean on your own resources, not to lean on your own understanding, but to be a Christian is to lean all of your weight upon God. That's what it is to be a Christian. And that's what Paul is doing when he's praying, he's leaning it all upon God. And brothers and sisters, Don't we sing songs like that? We just had the offertory just a few seconds ago, and it's just great in the providence of God that the song in our service matches the song here. That we sing from time to time, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame. but wholly lean on Jesus' name. And the Bible in the Old Testament talks about the everlasting arms. And there's an old song about the everlasting arms of God. And what do we sing? Leaning on the everlasting arms. And that's what Paul is doing here in prayer. What is prayer? It's leaning upon God. And in verse 16, you notice that God gives strength, but he never gives it away. He gives strength, but he never gives it away. so that when you wake up tomorrow morning, you will get ready, take a shower, eat your breakfast, eat your Wheaties, you'll have some coffee, and you'll go out, and you'll be ready to go. But all day long, at work, with your coworkers, with your chores, with driving around, with shopping, with family and friends, all day long, you are giving away your strength, so that six, seven, eight, nine, 10 o'clock at night, you're a zap, there's nothing left. You've given away all of your strength. Well, God gives strength, but he does not give away his strength in verse 16. And isn't it true that we owe our salvation to the grace and mercy of God? We are debtors of mercy. And we certainly owe our salvation to the grace and mercy of God. But brothers and sisters, we also owe our salvation to the power of God. You see, if God was not strong enough, we wouldn't be saved. Satan, the world, our own flesh, our sin nature, our impulses, our emotions, death itself, all of these things oppose us as enemies and we can't win against them. But God is strong enough over all of these foes so that we are saved from death, saved from Satan, saved from all of these maladies because God is strong enough to do it for us. But here, as Paul is praying, he's specifically focused on the power of God, not just to save, but to sanctify. We talk a lot about sanctification. And I know that many of us, we try so hard and we give ourselves to sanctification. And we have a quest for godliness, a quest for holiness. And sometimes we get so frustrated and so exhausted trying to be godly. And sometimes we just wanna give up, it's too hard. to live the way God wants us to. And Paul knows that, and that's why in this passage he's praying for the power of God in their sanctification. Brothers and sisters, yes, there is a quest for godliness. We are to employ the spiritual disciplines that we are to give ourselves in devotions. We are to read the Bible, study the Bible, memorize the Bible. We are to pray. We are to have accountability. We are to mortify the flesh, fight against sin, resist the devil. We are to come to church. We are to do all of these things to grow as Christians. But brothers and sisters, behind all of it, is that we must lean on the power of God, who alone can sanctify us. The God that saves must also sanctify, or it's not going to happen. You see, think about a house. A house will never renovate itself. It might be in need of it, but it'll never renovate itself. You can even put tools in there. You can put lumber in there. You can put paint and paintbrushes in there. But those things alone will never renovate the house. The house cannot renovate itself. And brothers and sisters, we might have resources, but unless God renovates us, it'll never happen. We'll never be sanctified. And that's how Paul is praying. He's asking for the power of God to sanctify this church in Ephesus. And the question for all of us, do we pray that way? Do we pray for sanctification? Do we pray for the strength of God in our own lives and in the lives of these people? Because that's exactly what we see Paul praying for in our passage. And you notice particularly there in verse 16, In verse 16, he says that he would grant you, that God would grant you. Grant you what? Well, notice there in verse 16 that he would grant you to be strengthened with might. Now, why? Why do we need this granting of strength? Well, you notice, verse 17, that Christ would dwell in your hearts through faith. In other words, that we would become more and more like Christ. That the Christ life would be duplicated in us. That when people look at us, they see Christ. Paul is praying for the life of Christ in all of God's people here. And you notice there in verse 19, more of the requests. He's praying that these people would know the love of Christ. That we need to pray for God's strength in our lives so that the love of Christ would actually mean something to us. So that the love of Christ a lot of times for people in church is just a fleeting thought. It's something we take for granted and it has no teeth. It doesn't really dig into our hearts. And so Paul is praying. That this strength of God's might would come and make them like Christ and make them responsive to the love of Christ. And then you see there also in verse 19, he prays that they would be filled with all the fullness of God. This is Paul's way of saying spiritual maturity. I'm praying for God's strength that you would be filled with all of the fullness of God. So that when people look at you, there's something very real about God in you. That the only explanation for the things in your life is that God is at work with his strength. That you would be filled with all the fullness of God, that you would become spiritually mature. And brothers and sisters, yes, there can be resources there, but we cannot renovate ourselves. We must have the power of God operating in us. That's how Paul is praying. That's how Paul is leaning here. And again, do we pray this way? Do we value Becoming like Christ, do we value being responsive to Christ's love for us? And do we value spiritual maturity so that the fullness of God would be upon us and people notice it? Do we pray this way for God's power to do this in us? Now, Paul is praying here. And there's something inseparable with prayer that you see in our passage. Because Paul in verse 14, he bows his knees, he makes multiple requests, and you notice there at the end of his prayer, he praises. So that prayer and praise are inseparable from each other. And isn't it true that prayer and praise are inseparable from the church? What kind of church doesn't preach? What kind of church doesn't love? What kind of church doesn't have communion? What kind of church doesn't pray? And what kind of church doesn't praise the Lord? They're inseparable. And so here, Paul is praying and he's praising the Lord. And I love what Spurgeon said. Spurgeon said that prayer is breathing in the air of heaven and praise is exhaling it. Prayer is breathing it in, praise is breathing out the air of heaven. And that's what Paul is doing here. And you notice there in verse 21, the praise. In verse 21, he says, to him. And we've mentioned this now from Jude, and we've mentioned it two weeks ago, that this is really a great two-word summary. This is really the motto of a Christian. It's to him. And we would all cheer and say, yes, amen. The motto of a Christian is to him. That's your whole life. That's the life of the church. That's everything. It's to him. OK, but remember that. The next time you're tempted to run your mouth, are those words to him? The next time you're tempted to think a certain way and respond emotionally and impulsively, is this to him? Are my actions to him? Because Paul here is going to say to him, he directs it to him. And notice, to him be glory. And we could borrow from the Old Testament background here because the Old Testament word for glory is the word kabod. And what it means is a weightiness. To God be weightiness. The Old Testament word for glory means heaviness. That in other words, to God be glory, to God be significant. That God is not a pushover, he's not a lightweight, he is utterly significant. That God is a weighty and heavy matter. To Him be glory. So that, brothers and sisters, when we put on the cosmic scale, when we put money there, as significant as money is, when we put God on the other side, God is more significant than money. When we put fame on the scale, God is more significant than fame. When we put our own comfort and security, as heavy as that is, God is more heavy than our comfort and security. To Him be glory. And you notice particularly here, to him be glory in the church. Why do we come here? There are a lot of valid reasons. We come here so that you and I would gain a proper view of God. Because I know how it is to live out there. You go to work all week, you put on the TV, you listen to the radio, you listen to conversations, your own emotions, your own temptations. The problems that are all around society, we begin to have diminished thoughts and low views of God. Why are we here this morning? So that in the songs and the prayers and our fellowship and our sermon, we can lift our opinions very high about God. So that we might have proper views of God, that's why we're here. And brothers and sisters, that ought to be the result of all of our ministries, that other people, when we do feeding hands and youth group and go caroling, and when we do all of these things, that other people through our church would gain a high and significant view of God. Because for a lot of people, God is just something that you can ignore and pluck away. But the way that we live ought to bring a weightiness, a heaviness back to their thoughts about God. To him be glory and weightiness and significance in the church. That's why we're here and so that we can spread that view to other people. You are glorifying God when you are displaying him as significant and other people are raising their views of him because of you. To him be that in the church. So he is praising God, to him be glory in the church, and I wanna know why. Why is he praising God? Why does he say, verse 21, to him be glory in the church? And for that answer, you have to back up into verse 20. The reason why Paul breaks out in doxology, the reason why he praises God is because of verse 20, to him who is able. Now, that's a power statement. We just said that Paul is focused on the power of God here. And when he says in verse 20, to him who is able, this is a power statement. Our world honors powerful people on TV, in sports. Throughout history, the world has honored and celebrated powerful people. They can make a lot of money, they can have a lot of influence. And throughout history, we could talk about mighty men like Alexander the Great, but brothers and sisters, what Paul is celebrating here is the most powerful. We can talk about mighty men, but here, Paul is talking about the Almighty. It's to the Almighty who is able be glory. And obviously, if you put yourself here, in light of to him be glory to me and you, In light of this passage, to him who is able, to me and you, it's to me and you who are unable. To you and me who have disabilities. We are unable physically to do a million things. Some of you know the inability of your body. But actually, Paul's focused on the inability of our spiritual capacities. To him who is able, but for all of us, we have spiritual disability. It's called sin and death. And the only one that can overcome that is him who is able. You have a problem over besetting sins, a problem over being holy and godly and loving Christ and enjoying the love of Christ. You have a weakness with that. It is to him who is able because we are disabled. And when you see that word able, It's the word basically for dynamic, to him who is dynamic, to him who has this dynamic ability. We've talked about athletes that are dynamic, or speakers that are dynamic, or musicians that are dynamic. Well, here, to him who is dynamic, that's the word. And in Matthew 9, 28, there were some blind guys that were following Jesus, and they needed from Jesus, they wanted from Jesus. And Jesus turned to those blind guys and he said, do you believe that I am able? Brothers and sisters, do you believe that he is able? Paul says to him who is able, physically and spiritually in your life. Now I want to know able about what? And as you look at this passage, you'll notice an obvious progression, that this is like a staircase, and every word keeps stepping higher and higher. There's a progression upward that you really can't miss. So verse 21, God is glorified in the church, why? Because verse 20, to him who is able, there's the first step, he is able. We're on the first step there, he is able. Let's take another step. To him who is able to do. We've now climbed the second step. He's able to do. This word here is a construction word. It refers to manufacturing. Now we have all driven by places and for years it was just trees and weeds. Construction crew comes in, a year later something's there that didn't exist before. That's this word. He is able to do. He is able to build what is not there. He is able to make inside of you a construction zone so that you are manufactured into what you ought to be. Notice, he is able, step one, to do. Let's take another step. He is able to do what I ask. See how he keeps going higher and higher? He is able to do what I ask. Now, I'm convinced that we have a lot of skill, a lot of knowledge, a lot of credentials in this room. And that I could go around to each of you and ask you for things. and ask you questions about things, and if Alex wasn't able to help, I could go to Jana, and to Frank, and to Don, and to Juan, and to Bruce, and I could keep going around, and somewhere along the line, I would be able to ask for things that you all would be able to supply. You would be able to do what I ask. But eventually, I could start asking things that nobody in this room would be able to do. So I'd have to go around Manville and I would probably be able to find people that if I asked them certain things, they would be able to do it here in Manville. But eventually I would exceed Manville's ability and I would start asking things that nobody in Manville could do. So I would go all around New Jersey and then all over the East Coast and all over the United States and all over the planet with 7 billion people and somewhere I would find people that are able to do what I'm asking, but eventually they all would run out and there would be nobody left on the planet that would be able to do what I'm asking, right? But I can never run out when I ask God. He is able to do what I ask. Nobody else can claim that. So let's take another step. He is able to do what I ask or think. Take another step. He is able to do above, not just what I ask, but above what I ask or think. He's able to do more than what I ask and think. That even if I could climb so high and keep on reaching higher and higher in my imagination and ask things for God, eventually I would run out of capacity, I would run out of language, I would run out of dreaming, and God would still be able to do all. He would be able to do above what I'm asking or thinking. Let's take another step. He is able to do what I ask or think. He is able to do above what I ask or think. Now notice, he's able to do above, exceedingly above what I ask or think. Not just what I ask or think. but above what I ask or think, exceedingly above what I ask or think. See, he keeps climbing, but he doesn't stop. He's able to do what I ask, above what I ask, exceedingly above, and notice there, exceedingly abundantly above what I ask or think. And he's not finished because he's able to do what I ask or think, he's able to do above, he's able to do exceedingly above, he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above, he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I ask or think. You can see that he keeps climbing every word. Now, they say, and I'm sure you've heard this kind of thing before, but they say that we use about 10% of our brains. Maybe that's why we can't figure out how to use the rest of it. But we only use about 10% of our brains, but even if we could use, even if I could use all 100% of my brain, he'd still be able to do exceedingly abundantly above all of my 100% brain. But I actually threw you a fast one because the text doesn't say I. It doesn't say he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I, but he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. How many Christians have ever lived? Millions. If you could take all the Christians past, present, future, put them all together, and if they could If they could just think and ask and dream, God would be able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. See, Paul really is talking about God's power here. And I know that the wording here is a little bit interesting, exceedingly abundantly above. It's almost awkward, exceedingly abundantly above. But interestingly here, Paul is trying to grab at a way of expressing all of this, that right here in the Greek, exceedingly abundantly above, it's all one word in the Greek. It's a compound word, and actually he took three Greek words and squashed them together and made up a word. The original word here for exceedingly abundantly above is a Greek word smashed all together, and it's a made up word by Paul. Because there is no language of what Paul is trying to say, so he makes up, he invents a word. And one of the words here is hyper. One of the Greek words that he uses is hyper, that God has this hyper ability. I think the way that we could express this would be if I were to go to Alex and say, hey, Alex, can I borrow a dollar? If he gave me 10, he would be doing above what I'm asking. Say, hey, Alex, can I borrow a dollar? If he gave me 100, he would be exceedingly above what I'm asking. But I would say, hey, Alex, can I have a dollar? If he gave me a million dollars, he would be exceedingly abundantly above what I'm asking. And that's what God is able to do. You can ask for a dollar. He's able to dump so much more. And really, lots of biblical examples, but in Luke 5, you see Peter. And Jesus is there in the morning teaching. And Peter comes in from the boats, he comes in from the docks, and he just spent all night fishing and caught nothing. Do you like to work six, eight hours and not get paid? Well, Peter just worked all night, and there's no fruit for his labor. He's probably frustrated, probably mumbling. And Jesus says, hey, Peter, why don't you go into the deep water and cast your net? Peter says, just like you and I would, he says, I was just fishing all night, but nevertheless, because you say to, I'll do it. Peter goes out to the deep water, he throws down the net, and what happens? The net begins to rip. He calls for backups, he calls other boats, other boats come, and they start ripping their nets, and these boats begin to sink, because Jesus did exceedingly abundantly above all that Peter could ask or think. And specifically here, brothers and sisters, I know that there are people that we're praying for, that they're lost and we want them to be found. We want them to be converted. We want them to be in Christ and we're praying for our lost relatives. And with some of them, we just can't ever believe, we just can't ever imagine that they would repent and believe. They'll never change. But he is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask or think, all that we ask or think. You have burdens that you just can't, you can't dream of the way out of it. You have no idea how this is all going to work out. He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. But particularly when Paul is praying here, he's talking about our sanctification, our renovation, that you and I, we have besetting sins. Sins that we've been struggling with, weaknesses that we've been struggling with for a long time. I'll never get victory. You've just accepted that sin in your life because you know it's too hard to fight with. And to that, Paul is saying he's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you ask or think. He's able to renovate you according to that power that is at work in you. What power is at work in you, nothing less than the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And that spirit inside of you is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that you could ask or think in making you more like Christ, to enjoy the love of Christ, and to make you spiritually mature. And no wonder Paul says, amen, let it become this way. God, you are able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. And he says amen, and we ought to be cheering the same thing. Amen, let it become that way. Do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. And brothers and sisters, when God is this way, he who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, when he is this way toward us, there is glory in the church. Oh God, glorify yourself by being able to do far more than we ask or think. Now, I wanna conclude with this, and I think it'll be helpful. Because this is a typical response, and I've heard Christians in this room talk this way, and you're right. Does God answer prayer? Well, we know the answer. But there are distinctive answers to that, and I've heard you give these answers. Does God answer prayer? And we would say, absolutely, yes, he answers prayer. He's a loving father, that he's gracious. That as any father would do good to his children, does God answer prayer? Of course. So yes. But sometimes God not only says yes, but sometimes he says no to us, right? Because when you are raising your kids, you having love for them, knowing what's best for them, being wiser than your kids, you would say no to them. No, you can't have five packs of Skittles. They're convinced that it would be good, but we know better. And out of love, we say, no, you can't. So God, to our prayer, says yes in grace and no in grace, no in his wisdom. But sometimes, what does he say? He says, wait, so that we have to wait on the Lord. He says, yes, no, and wait. And that's quite natural, because as parents, if our little five-year-old said, I want to be a firefighter, that's good, but you have to wait. Little girl says, I want to get married, that's good, but you have to wait. And so God is a kind, wise father, will say yes to our prayers, know to our prayers, and wait. And you all have said that kind of thing to me before, and that's true. But that's not all. You remember the prodigal son? The prodigal son ruined his life, went out and lived with the pigs. And he's thinking to himself, you know, If I go back to my dad, maybe he'll let me be a servant. Maybe he'll let me be hired. I forfeited everything. I lost everything. But at least maybe he'll let me be hired help. And so the prodigal son goes back. And all he's looking to do is become a slave. And the father did not say, yes, you can be a slave. Come back and be hired help. He didn't say yes to that. He didn't say, no. He didn't say, get out of here, sick of you, you lost your chance, leave. He didn't say, yes, come be a slave. He didn't say, no, get out of here. But neither did he say, wait. When the prodigal son came looking to be hired help, When the father saw him, he ran to his boy. He hugged him and kissed him and fell on him. And he gave him a new robe. And he gave him a new ring. And he gave him new shoes. And he called everybody, let's have a banquet. Let's have the fatted calf. We're going to celebrate. My son is back. Not hired help. He is back. What did the father say to that son? He didn't say, yes, you can be a slave. He didn't say, no, get out of here. He didn't say, wait, maybe till next year. He said, I will do more than what you're asking. There's your answer. I don't want anybody in here to just say three things, that God sometimes says yes to my prayers, or no to my prayers, or wait on my prayers. But sometimes in this passage, he says, I will do more than your prayers, exceedingly, abundantly, above what you're asking or thinking. And that's the kind of God that we have. No wonder these people say, Amen, let there be glory and high opinions of God in the church, because He is that way. And if you have called on Him to forgive your sins, brethren and sisters, He has forgiven your sins, but He has done so much God bless it to us, through Jesus Christ, amen.