Our Spiritual Wisdom

well good morning again Listen um I was reading a story this past week about a little boy named Toby And Toby was about 8 years old and he wanted a brand new bicycle So one day he and his mom were shopping and he saw the perfect bicycle he wanted And so that night as he was getting into bed and his mom was tucking him in he had a prayer and he said this "Dear God please give me that brand new bicycle the one with the lightning bolts on the side and I promise I'll ride it every day and take really good care of it." And then he prayed this and Jesus please don't tell mom that I need to clean up the garage to make a place for it I would just like to do it just without having to clean up the garage And so the mom listened to him that night and she thought well should she correct his prayer But he's being honest with God so she just kind of let it go The next night she's tucking him in And he's saying his prayers with that blue bike still in his mind And this time he said this "God I saw the perfect bike at the store It's still there I know you're busy but I'm counting on you to handle the details And then he said this in his prayer and I'm trusting you God I'm trusting you that you'll give me that bike without me having to do any extra chores So again the mom's listening to him going "Should she correct it?" So finally she stepped up and she said "Well honey um don't you think God's kind of waiting on you to learn or to earn the allowance before giving you this bike and maybe you could like clean the garage out and you could earn some allowance to get this garage?" And he goes "Oh no mom I'm trusting Jesus and Amazon Prime They'll give it to me all together there." So so somehow this boy we laugh at him right in his innocence But he had this idea that he shouldn't have to do anything on his part Just trust God for it And while we may laugh at Toby this little eight-year-old boy I wonder how many times our prayers look the same way That God I'm trusting you through this God would you give me this God would you take care of this But we're so passive in our faith and we're so passive in our prayers that we're not thinking what can we do on our part to kind of meet God as we ask for those prayers I'm thinking about the man that one day he woke up and he turned on the TV and he was in the flood zone where his house was and great rains were coming and the levy was about to break and so they're warning everybody get ready There's a flood coming and his house was right in the way And so as he turned off the TV a policeman rode by and knocked on his door and said "Buddy you need to move This house is about to be flooded." And he goes "You know what I'm a Christian I'm trusting God for this I'll be okay God's going to take care of me." And the policeman said "No really You need to come now with me." He goes "No no I'm trusting Jesus I've been praying about this." And so the policeman left And about a day later the flood waters are rising In fact the man had to move to the second floor of his house because the first floor is already flooded And he's praying "Jesus would you take care of me?" And all of a sudden his neighbors came by in a in a boat a motorboat and they're going "Hey listen We got to get out of here Jump in and we'll get you to safety." And this man said "No no I'm trusting Jesus He's going to take care of me Y'all go on God's going to take care of me." And so a couple of days later the flood waters keep rising The man actually had to get on the roof of his house because he was almost underwater And and he's just praying "God would you take care of me Would you take care of me?" And a helicopter came by and said "Hey buddy we're going to drop down the rope You got to grab this rope We got to get you to safety." And he yelled back "No no God's got this Don't worry about it I'm trusting God." Few days later the flood waters rose so much it just enveloped the house The man actually had no place to go and he drowned And you can imagine as he got to heaven he's kind of frustrated because he had prayed and asked God for like four or five straight days God would you take care of me So when he got to heaven and he met Jesus said "Jesus I prayed I trusted you What what happened You didn't come through." And Jesus said "What do you mean I didn't come through I sent you a policeman I sent you a boat and I sent you a helicopter You didn't take care of any of those in there." Again so many times we're passive in our approach to our faith And God's wants to be the trusting piece of it He wants us to have faith but yet sometimes we have to put some action into our faith Well this past week we began for our summer studies the book of Ephesians And the book of Ephesians is actually a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a church in Ephesus That's why we call it the book of Ephesians And he's writing to them And last week we learned this in the first few verses that Paul is writing to these people because he loves them so much and he wants them to get everything that God has for them Now Paul himself had learned that everything God has for them comes through a relationship with Jesus So as he writes he's trying to point to them here's what you get in Jesus And last week we learned there are a number of just benefits us following following Jesus and trusting him as our savior in a relationship There are some benefits that we get for that And the part of Ephesians that we're going to get to today is Paul moves from just telling them about the benefits He begins praying for them He begins praying to the Ephesians just going,"I want you to get everything." Almost as you read it you can almost read it as a father is writing to his son going "I don't want you just to know Jesus I want you to get Jesus." And so today's verse is actually a prayer that Paul is praying not just for the church of Ephesus but I believe he'd say this It's also for the church called South Sub Church And so as we read it today I want you to listen with this idea This is the prayer for you but it's an active prayer It's a prayer that your pastor would want you to get all that Jesus has for you but not just sitting in your seat waiting to get it all It's one of those prayers that we have to take some steps to activate the faith And so if you have your Bibles you can look or we'll have it up here on the screen It's in your handout I'm actually going to read it from our little book of Ephesians here Um if you haven't picked up one of these it's just the book of Ephesians and they're for sale for $5 out there We're encouraging everybody to grab one It's the same Bible that you'll probably have at home or you're reading there but there's a great place to write notes in there So here's what it says starting in verse 15 Paul writes "For this reason because of the benefits they have in Jesus he says,"For this reason because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers." And then he goes on to say "And here's what my prayers look and sound like that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might and that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places far above all the rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one that is to come And he put all things under his feet and he gave him his head over all things to the church which is his body the fullness of him who fills all in all So as you read that you may be going "That was an amazing prayer I have no idea what he just prayed." Okay Because Paul has this way Can we just say without like really dogging Paul He was wordy And not only was he wording his writing I think he missed some of the grammar that you should actually put periods at the end of sentences because Paul's writing almost seems like this one big run-on sentence but when you can break it apart there are actually four specific prayers that Paul was praying for the church of Ephesus Remember prayer is not just sit there and get it but sit there and meet God in the middle and be a part of what he wants to give you and do in your life And so if you're taking notes here's the first prayer As Paul wrote all that here's the first thing he was saying He says I want you pray for you that you would pursue God through facts and feelings He goes I want you to pursue God through facts and feelings Let me read verse 17 there for you so you can see where I'm getting this It says "I pray verse 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the father of glory may give you the spirit." And if you're have a Bible you can underline in I would underline wisdom He says "I pray that you would give that he may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation." Underline revelation I pray that he may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him Go ahead and circle knowledge of him because you take those three words those three phrases together and that's where the power of this verse is See here's what Paul was saying in the spirit of wisdom and revelation That's facts and feelings There is a tendency back for the Christians 2,000 years ago but I think for Christians sitting in this room right now we really become many times an either or not a bothand person I'm either really focused on the facts of God the knowledge of God the information about God Just give me more information about the Bible I love knowing the Bible Give me give me give me give me And we focus all of our attention on just gaining knowledge that we miss the experience the feelings of God Or there are many many people that focus so much on the feelings of God of the experience of God of the emotion I get of calling myself a Christian that we don't pay attention and base our life on the facts and knowledge and the truth of scripture So you lean one way or the other And there's a danger when we look at our experience when we look at our relationship with Jesus about that way that we don't get the fullness of Jesus Let me put it to you this way Father's Day is today right Many of us all of us are thinking about our relationship with our father Maybe your father is still living you're thinking about it or maybe he's already passed and you're just reflecting on that There are some in this room today or wherever they're experiencing Father's Day that while they think about their father and the relationship they had with their father there is a hole in their heart That is because the father was a provider The father was a person that gave them life facts but never gave them the emotion of the relationship And you look back and you're thankful for a father that made sure you had a roof over your head You're thankful the for the father who made you go to school You're thankful for the father who gave you knowledge on how to fix things But all you know are the facts and datas about your father but you never really felt close intimately with your father Again you're thankful for the father but a relationship like that you're missing some of the fullness of the relationship Yet there are others that may think good thoughts about their dad They may have warm fuzzies when they think about their dad They feel that closeness but maybe the father was so distant whether physically or whatever way that you really didn't know things about your dad So again good feelings but if you had to sit there and list 10 things about your dad what did he like What was his hobbies You're like I didn't know him I didn't have the information that way Not a bad relationship either way but not a full relationship And when it comes to our relationship with Jesus Christ what Paul was saying is this I want you to know the fullness of him I want you to experience him I I want you to get all of Jesus But to do that you have to have the spirit of wisdom and a spirit of revelation You need to have the facts and you need to have the feelings You need to have just the warm fuzzies but you need to have the lots of knowledge about him also Don't make it either or make it both And the reason as we were reading that I wanted you to circle that with that phrase and the knowledge of him Here's what the apostle Paul is saying when he uses that word knowledge He's using a Greek word that really says this more than an intellectual knowledge more than anformational knowledge He's saying I want you to know the personal relational understanding that changes a believer's life I want you to get the both and not the eitheror That's when we get the fullness of the knowledge of Jesus Before moving here I've shared many of you know Denise and I lived in San Diego And the church I was working at in San Diego was really close like within 10 minutes from the the Mexican border And our church actually had a campus in Tijuana Mexico So once a month Denise and I would drive over to Tijana and and we would we would pre I would preach there at this church And if you've ever been to Tijana Mexico it is definitely a city of the have and have nots You you you can drive through there and there are literally people who have taken cardboard made cardboard houses They just made shanties out of over any kind of piece of wood or tin they could find living on sides of mountains It is the poorest of the poor Yet it's also a city of halves And the church that we went to would look much like this church right here would existed much like this church here as well It was just normal middle class people just like you and I But yet I saw with my eyes the neediness of many of the residents of Tijana Now over the years I knew there were several ministries that would do do ministry in Tijana And one of the ones I'd heard of many many times is called Homes for Hope Homes for Hope is a nonprofit Christian organization that will go into Tijana and they actually build homes for people so they no longer have to live in cardboard Now I knew about it I had read about it but I had never experienced it I just knew there was this organization And then last year about 25 people from South Sub Church went on a mission trip through Homes for Hope And I not only got to see it and know about it I got to experience it I'll I'll never forget meeting this family that's going to get the house They own the property and Homes for Hope had come in and already poured this 25 by 25 foot just 25 by 25 foot just concrete foundation And we met the family A woman whose husband had left her A woman who didn't have a home because a couple of years earlier a fire had destroyed their home In fact one of her sons was killed within the fire And so she's just doing all she can just to raise two kids without a home And we heard her stories and she had just some physical elements of herself And she was having a hard time It was just it was you saw and talked to what you would see driving down the road in Mexico And those 25 people that went on this mission trip most of them aren't construction majors I mean they're just like "We're here with a hammer and maybe this is a screwdriver." They weren't the professionals And within two days we constructed a house for this lady And I'll never forget handing her and her sons the keys to their house And we'd gone to Walmart and we'd bought pots and pans and bedding And we didn't just hand them "Here's a roof over your head." Like "Here's your home and seeing the tears come down her face as she received the keys to her home That her two high school boys knew they had a place to go to They knew they had their own bed to sleep in You see what took place inside of Keith that I saw the fullness and experienced the fullness of everything is I got the knowledge of knowing what's needed but I got the experience of meeting the need And that's what the Apostle Paul is saying Jesus is more than head knowledge and he's more than just jumping up and down and being excited When you marry those two together through wisdom and revelation you experience the fullness of everything that Jesus has to offer And so he prayed for for the Ephesians He prays for us here He prayed that we would pursue God through both facts and feelings through both information and intimacy to experience the fullness of who Jesus is Now that's not the only thing he prayed Here's the second thing He prayed this He prayed that they would see their worth through God's eyes Look at verse 18 with me He says "Having," and this is him still praying "Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you and that you are the riches of his in glorious inheritance in the saints." If you're circling or underlining anything I would circle that word inheritance that you are you and I as followers of Jesus are the glorious inheritance of God There's a story about a woman by the name by the name of Naomi And Naomi was a maid for a very wealthy man And so for a number of years 10 15 years she actually lived in the in the back bedroom as she came and she took care of him kept his house cooked his food took care of all this his laundry and just really took care of this gentleman That's all she had was this little room she lived in And her whole life purpose was to take care of this gentleman And then one day he died And she was worried what would happen to her until she opened up a letter that he had left for her And this is what the letter said to Naomi my faithful friend and servant I leave everything my home my land my bank account and my art collection to you Her life was changed in that moment But the story says that after she read the letter she went back to her little modest room that she had lived in for 15 years and she still lived in that room She never grabbed hold of the money She never really appreciated understood or did anything with the art collection And every morning she'd wake up and she'd go through the same routine that she had had for the last 15 years She had all this wealth because this man valued her so much He'd left her everything in his inheritance but she never accessed that inheritance She kept living the same lifestyle that she'd always lived And I hear that story and I wonder sometimes how many of us have given our life to Christ We we consider and we are followers of Jesus but we're living the same life that we live before we ever met Jesus That we don't understand that when we were adopted into his family we were given and we were presented everything he has And so we don't even access the physical things that he has for us But even more than that we don't s we don't access the relational things he has for us That we still live in shame We live in our own personal disappointment We live in our own life's regret Yet God is going "You're my child I love you I value you Everything I am and everything I have is yours And what Paul wants the Ephesians to know and he what he wants us to know in our walk with him it's ours

The joy the blessings everything he has is ours But here's what's really interesting that verse if you look at it really close at the end when it talks about inheritance it says this his inheritance now watch this because this is crucial this is so important understanding what Paul is writing like we have access to God's inheritance right but here's what we need to understand when God sees us he looks at us and going that's my inheritance that's what we get

You know Father's Day is full of so many different memories right So many different reflections so many things And many of you your father's not here with you today Maybe he's already passed or maybe he lives someplace else

And that's good But if he was just right here with you how much better would it be And this morning I woke up and my daughter drove up from her California She and her new husband James And guess who's in my house this morning when I woke up My daughter right here And then we had kidnapped jokingly my granddaughter from my son all week long from VB VBS totally forgot it's Father's Day this weekend and didn't plan her trip to go back home to dad until Tuesday So I get like two generations

and they could ask me Keith what do you want What do you want us to go buy for you What do you want us to cook for you for Father's Day And do you know what I would say Having you here is all I want Church God looks at every one of us and says "Having you is all I ever want You are my inheritance I got lots of stuff to give you but what do I get What do I need I just want you." And Paul is praying that we would understand and see how God sees us through his eyes as his inheritance He keeps going He doesn't stop praying there He prays The third thing he goes I pray that you'd live every day in God's power You pray He prays that you would live that we would live every day in God's power Look with me at verse 19 through 21 again And he says 'I pray in what is the unmeasurable greatness of his power Underline that word power if you're taking notes there that you would see or that what is the immeasurable greatness of his power and then circle the next two words towards us So underline power and circle towards us And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and you and he seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places Far far above all the rule and the authority and the power and the dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one that is to come The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the grave three days after he's buried We have access to that power like it's ours Not that we walk around going "Hey I want you dead person to raise up and I want you dead person to raise up." Not the resurrection power but the power that God has that he used to raise Jesus from the grave He instills us as his children This past week at vacation bible school the kids were were encouraged to bring to to express generosity As you walked in all the food and clothes in there that table was bare last week It's something we're doing as a church to bring food and clothes to give to Mount Air Church a church that we partner with but it was almost bare last week Almost everything you see at that table today the kids brought in And we also encouraged them to bring their dollars and their change that we would also give to the church to help them out But we made it fun for kids We we we made this little um crab It was called um Claudia the crab And Claudia was actually decorated on top like a a wet dry vac and that that you'd use in a shop or garage And so when you plugged it in and the kids walked up to put in the little snout of of of Claudia the crab it would just suck the dollars up and it would suck the change up They loved it They would just giggle They had so much fun bringing their offering bringing their money to feed Claudia the crab that we could help these churches Well I walked in one morning This little boy was trying to feed Claudia What he didn't know he got there before Miss Debbie and it wasn't plugged in And so there was no power to suck it in from this this vacuum cleaner And he's like "Take it Claudia Take it Take it Claudia." And he's trying as hard as he could He's talking as much as he can to try to get Claudia to take the money but Claudia wouldn't take it because Claudia wasn't plugged in There was no power in the vacuum cleaner to suck it up And so I walked over and I said 'Oh you know what We need to plug Claudia in And I plugged her in to the vacuum into the power the electrical the electrical outlet And guess what happened And all of a sudden you hear the noises that little boy's face lit up because they gave his daughter to Claudia and she just sucked it up Now you know where I'm going with this don't you Where's the power come from From being plugged in You and I have access to the power of God in our everyday life but we must be plugged into him to get that power But so many times we're so fast and so busy and moving going in all directions that we never take time to actually plug into the power of the Holy Spirit that we don't slow down enough to get God's word in our life We don't slow down enough to be praying and connect with the Holy Spirit in that way And so we're trying to be the best Christians we can but we're running around with no power because we've never plugged into where the power comes from We're not trying to sell these just to sell them We don't make any money off these But the reason we wanted to present you these little Bibles and give you the opportunity to use them throughout this summer is one thing so you can have a place to write notes But it's just another reminder that we need to be opening it The other thing as you came in today in your handout we're for the whole summer we're producing a weekly devotional We're taking whatever verses we preach on on Sunday and we're breaking them up into five different days just short It would take you maybe five minutes to read it and just study it and it gives you a prayer You know what we're trying to do is church Let's be plugged in I promise you this You could take five minutes a day with God just sitting down reading a little bit of scripture praying Even if you took five minutes a day it would change your walk with Jesus because you're plugging into the power daily It doesn't mean he's not with you You don't pray but we get so caught up in the world that we just miss what he wants to do in and through us And so church can I challenge you Five minutes a day Five minutes a day in the devotion Five minutes a day reading the scripture We're only covering it like 10 verses a week That wouldn't take you You could read those 10 verses every day and just keep reading it and familiarize yourself And here's what I believe that we would come to Sunday going man let's worship because I'm full of the power Let me tell you what God did through me because I'm full of the power Let me tell you all these things that's transforming my mind and my heart because God is being connect I'm connecting to God and I'm full of his power Five minutes a day If you're going "Oh I'm not a five minutes a day." Hey fathers let me just stretch it Hey men we have a special thing for you We're actually offering a men's Bible study all men's group Bible study all summer long You can read about it in your bulletin on the back side of it But that's another way to get plugged in with other people just in relationship and studying God's word together But the key is you've got to stay connected Let me wrap up with the last one The last one is Paul writes this prioritize Paul is praying this that they would prioritize Jesus above everything else Ephesians chapter 1 verse 22 This is how he wrote it And he put meaning God God put all things under his feet meaning Jesus's feet So God put all things under Jesus's feet and gave him as head over all the things of the church which is his body the fullness of him who fills all in all C can I just simplify Paul's verse there for you Jesus is in charge and we're not Okay God says "Hey I'm God I'm the highest one up here but I'm gonna make Jesus second command here and nobody else gets to take his spot." Which means if he put everything under Jesus's feet that's everything about us that's our jobs that's our hobbies that's our our materialistic possessions that is our our finances everything about us God put under Jesus But the problem is we have an idea that we can do it better than Jesus Hey Jesus I'll give you this and you can be in charge but I want to hang on to this Jesus you can have this but I want to hang on to this And we do this wrestling match not with the things in our hand that we don't want to give him We have a wrestling match with the Jesus and where he's sitting You follow me Because when I hang on to something I'm like "No Jesus I don't want you to have this." I'm doing more than hanging on to what I have in my hands I am trying to take over the very throne that Jesus sits in And that scripture does not say God said "Hey Jesus go pick you a couple of good buddies out there and y'all run the world." He says "I give you Jesus and everything is under his feet Everything includes us."

And he said this "Including the church." Now stick with me Do you know as followers of Jesus South Sub Church do you know where we can have the biggest wrestling match sometimes with Jesus is our church Because in my church I like my preferences In my church I like things to look this way In my church I like things to do this way In my church this is how we've always done it And we can become the head of the church But who is the head of the church Jesus Our best approach to church whether it's South Sub Church or any other church you go to is walking going "God thank you for letting me come to your church." The minute we consider Souths Suburch my church we have wrestled it out of God's hand and we have stepped into the throne of the church Now don't freak out when I say this This is just an example But what if God came in next week and wanted to change everything Not the preacher not the people leading worship but he wanted to change everything Listen three times a year we have one services where nine o'clock and 11 o'clock come together and somebody comes in and sits in your seat because they normally sit there 11:00 and some of you throw a fit because of that It's not your seat It's not your style of music It's not your way of doing things It is his church And can you imagine if we got to the point going God it is not my church It is not our church It is your church Can you imagine when we do that we plug into God and the power of God that would come through us as a church That's why Paul was praying these things He's going church of Ephesus but church of South Suburch I want you to get these things because I don't want you to go through life as a Christian going to a church on autopilot and miss out on everything that God has for you I want you to experience the fullness of it And in those four ways if we you and I begin to pray those four prayers on our life but do more than pray we begin stepping towards those four things we begin activating those four areas We can't even imagine he says immeasurable We can't even imagine what God would do in us and through us In fact as we close I want to have you still look at the handout there We'll have it on the screen here And here's what I did this week I took those four specific prayers that Paul made And I wrote out just a little bit more detailed prayer for each And those four areas are for pursuing We pray that for pursuing God through facts and feelings We pray for seeing your worth through God's eyes For living every day in God's power and for prioritizing Jesus above everything else If we all walked out here and said "We're going to do all four We're going to pray all four and we're going to be moving towards those." That would be amazing But chances are it's so much we wouldn't do any of them Like if I had a ball right now and I threw you a ball you'd catch it If I threw you a second ball you'd catch it If I threw you the third ball you're trying to juggle these two balls and you might not catch it If I threw you the fourth ball you'd probably drop them all trying to catch one of them So here's what I want you to do today Catch one ball this week As you look at those four different pursuings those four different active prayers which one will you pray and chase after this week For pursuing God through facts and feelings here's your prayer God I pray that I wouldn't be satisfied with knowing facts about you but that I would truly know you Open my eyes of my heart so that my knowledge turns into intimacy and my theology into relationship Let my faith move beyond my mind into a deep connection with you that I may tr that transforms me from the inside out Maybe that's what you need to focus on this week Or maybe the other one is this for seeing your word through God's eyes This could be your prayer God remind me today of the hope to which you have called me A hope that anchors my soul A a hope that will not disappoint When life grows uncertain help me to focus on the promises you've spoken Help me to live each day rooted in the confidence of my calling and the assurance of my future in you So if you this week just going I need to focus on how God sees me Maybe that's a prayer that you can pray every day Maybe it's this Living every day in God's power God help me to grasp just how valuable I am in your eyes Silence every lie that tells me I am worthless or forgotten Let your truth resound in my heart that I am your treasured possession chosen redeemed and sealed May that identity shape every thought every decision and every step I make Or if you're focusing on the last one prioritizing Jesus above everything else maybe this is your prayer God I confess my need for your strength Teach me to depend not on my own abilities but on your mighty power at work within me Fill my ordinary days with supernatural grace Empower me to live boldly love deeply and walk faithfully not by might not by power but by your spirit So my question is which of those is the one you'll focus on this week To actively engage your faith to know the fullness of Jesus Our band's going to come back up We're going to do one last song of worship And the song that we're going to sing is at the altar And maybe where you are sit maybe you just want to worship Maybe you just need to sit and focus on one of those areas But we all come to the altar to say "Jesus I want the fullness of you." Will you pray with me Father first you do everything You've taken care of everything

And though we may need to be active in our faith Jesus we never have to beg you for our faith We never have to do the work of of our salvation And that is taking care of Jesus on the cross But as a response to your salvation Jesus we want to step into the fullness of you And so lead us God Lead us to you And we pray this in your name Amen