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well hey good morning south oh it’s so good to be together and worship with you on this holiday weekend don’t you think I think we should thank our worship leaders for bringing us into glory I know I needed worship this morning I don’t know about you but it is so great to be together and we know that on this holiday weekend there may be a few that trickled in that are new with us and so we just want to just offer you a really special warm welcome and we would love to get to know you if you meet us in the back at that welcome center then we can tell you a little bit about who we are we’d love to find out who you are and help you get connected here you might have also noticed that there are still tents up in the lobby and plenty ways to get connected through groups specific support groups new life groups that are launching and
you can feel free to sign up in any of those today and my big announcement is really come back next week because we’ve got some fun things happening uh we are gonna have our fall festival potluck where we’re gonna have a party in the parking lot uh we’re bringing the chicken you guys bring sides or desserts to share and share some of your yummies with us and then we can enjoy one another’s homemade cooking but we also have hired a country line dance instructor and some bouncy houses for those kiddos out there and we want you to come and just party with us and get to know one another together so it’ll be a fun time but we also want to come back because we’re starting a new series next week this fall pastor alex has decided that we are going to study the book of acts so as we have looked at the life of Jesus this is the beginning of
the movement of followers of the resurrection and during this time in this season I think it’s really going to be great for our hearts to be reminded that the movement of followers of the resurrection is still powerful today so come back and and follow along with this series um yeah and then as we transition in between weeks we’re going to have pastor dan come and share from the letter to the ephesians and we want to let you know that if there’s any other information that’s coming out we do you can get our app or you can look at us online and find out more of those details but I want to transition and just pray for dan as he gets ready to share with us after all of his battle rattle this week that’s what he calls it when he studies God’s word and is preparing it to bring to you all so Jesus we thank you so much for dan and thank you for
all the battle rattle that he’s gone through many many many years for south and especially for this week and God I thank you that he has a deep deep heart for this community and this church and I just pray that you would use these words to remind us of who you are who you’ve made us to be and how we can continue to grow in strength and knowledge of who you are in Jesus name we pray amen amen hey thanks yvonne good morning everyone that’s good to hear um you know I’m I’m glad that I can preach today uh you know from ephesians chapter one this is a terrific passage and I’d just like to say those songs that aaron and jen chose were were terrific they’re right along with this passage that we’re going to look at so jan and aaron thank you very much and the whole band thank you for the the part that you played in leading us in
worship I really appreciate that and for those of you who are online uh this is the first sunday of the month even though it’s labor day a holiday but we are going to be taking communion at the end of this um at the end of this message and if you want to run and get whatever you know some elements if you don’t have any grape juice get some coke I don’t know but uh just get ready and and we’ll all take together whether you’re online or whether you’re here but we’re glad I really thank you all for coming out this morning on labor day weekend you know labor day is just one of those holidays that does not excite me um I don’t know about you it’s nice to have a day off I I agree but there’s just something about labor day it’s the end of summer uh you know when I grew up it was on the east coast and on the east coast we actually did start
school the day after labor day you know it’s different here you’ve been going for a month already but uh it was like man when labor day came yeah you we drove home from camp or wherever we had been on labor day and it was just this empty feeling oh no school starting um you know so so I thought okay we’re gonna we’re gonna preach and teach on labor day so let’s find out something about labor day so I got online you know it it started in 1895 I think it was governor uh president grover cleveland uh kind of set the day aside it was a you can imagine labor day so it’s about the laborers the workers in our country um and they were working hard for uh yeah for the rights I mean I I was amazed as I read you know they would work uh 12-hour days now I know for some of the nurses among us 12 hours that’s nothing but you know for the
rest of us 12 hours a day six days a week is a lot of work and then you have one day off sunday if you had that off and the thing that kind of tugged at my heart was that um kids were in the same boat especially children of working-class parents who who were very poor and they had to work as well six days a week 12 hours a day let me kind of jump back in time a little bit eight this picture’s around 1885 1886 or so and a few years after this picture was taken in denver this is downtown denver there was a fellow by the name of george eddy george eddie was a young man in boston and he felt kind of he felt called to to work with his working class kids who yeah worked their fingers to the bone and really their parents couldn’t afford any kind of education for them so he got on a train and he came from boston all the way out here to denver and he
started to educate these kids who work six days a week and guess what it was called it was called sunday school sunday school and on sunday he would have classes for these kids and he came and he started working in the southern part of denver at that point and had about 46 unruly uh kids you know because they didn’t want to go to school but uh their parents really made them because the parents wanted them to have a chance and they had the three r’s reading writing and religion wasn’t quite arithmetic and writing’s not exactly an r but they they kind of pushed into that and what they would do I was amazed they would read the bible they would write the bible and then he would teach the bible so you know reading writing and religion um eventually some of the parents came to this george eddy and said is there anything
for us yeah we work six days a week too and you know we’d like something so he went to the presbyterian that was in denver at that time and he said hey do you mind if I investigate starting a church down here and they said sure so he wrote a letter to his father who was back in new jersey who had been a pastor all his life and his father said yeah I’d be willing to come out there and plant a church so he came out to denver and in about 1890 uh they took the parents of the folks that were in sunday so the kids in sunday school and they started a church and that church became south presbyterian which we eventually became south fellowship out of south presbyterian I just think it’s so cool to realize the roots of what this church is and you know I still see it today I still see in many of you that that hunger to have purpose and to have
meaning and to make a difference in this world that we’re in and we’re going to be looking at ephesians chapter one because in this passage there’s a prayer that paul gives and I think it’s a dynamite prayer I think it’s a prayer that applies to us today it applies to churches all around the world this is not just for the christians in ephesus back 2000 years ago this is for the church generation after generation after generation and it’s a church it’s a prayer for us here at south so um I’d like to just look at this this prayer for the church and and see what we can learn from this today uh let me just read for you ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere I have not stopped thanking God for you I pray for you constantly asking God the glorious father of our lord Jesus Christ to give you
spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance and I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him this is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms now he’s far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything in the world to come God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church and the church is his body it is made fully and complete by Christ who fills all things everywhere with himself and I would just
add that’s the south let’s pray father I thank you for this prayer I thank you for paul I thank you for the for the hearts for the passion that he has for these people in ephesus but lord I believe I believe somehow he saw down through the ages as well I’m not sure that I know you did and I know you saw us here today while paul was writing these words and you inspired paul in his writing so that they apply just as truthfully to us I praise you I thank you and I ask you to make them come alive to us today I would love you God we love you teach us I pray this in Jesus name amen amen you know I just want to start with that first verse that we read ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere I have not stopped thanking God for you now I just want to say that’s a great way to start a
prayer you know being grateful giving thanks and and I wonder maybe let me pull this back a little bit because one of the reasons I wanted to go on this is I would love to challenge us to pray for our church and I wonder how have you prayed for south um oh lord that was a long sermon today dear God I pray that you would help the tech booth they have such a big job how do we pray for south fellowship I I love how paul starts this because of you the amazing faith you have in Jesus Christ and because of your love for all the saints I just can’t stop giving thanks for you um you know many times my context I guess I’d say or the situation which I find myself sometimes dictates how I pray I think of about a month ago I was on vacation and you think oh that’s great you probably had some great prayers on vacation well I’d like to say but I threw my
back out the first day of vacation and so I’m sitting there my prayers were mainly oh God this hurts oh lord could you please heal me uh father and I was just asking it was all about me let me tell you the context of this prayer here’s paul he’s in prison he’s under arrest now he may be in his own rented apartment we aren’t quite sure but if he was in his rental department he had guards at the door chances are he was in a prison cell chained to a guard and here he is he’s not saying hey guys don’t forget me I’m thrilled with what’s going on there but listen I’m in prison remember me no he says I give thanks for you guys I give thanks whenever I think of you and I hope that when we would launch into a prayer for south fellowship I hope that we could see just the gratefulness of what’s here um I love the the things that paul prays for you know and
says this is this is why I’m so grateful one is your strong faith in Jesus the strong faith um you know when I think of that oh we could go into a word study of what faith is you know but basically faith is faith you know it’s uh it’s trust yeah it’s it’s believing that Jesus is who he said he was it’s trust that what he did was enough that’s one of the reasons I love the songs that jen and aaron sang this morning because over and over there was that there was that message there’s nothing I can do to add to this there’s nothing we can do to make the res the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ any better it is so complete I like this statement uh there’s nothing I can do to make God love me more and there’s nothing I can do to make God love me less and I believe these ephesian christians believed that and they lived on that they set their
marker on that um yeah they had a strong faith in Jesus but it wasn’t just a strong faith in Jesus they also then went beyond that they had a love for the people around them they had a love for the saints they had a love for the other folks and and I would say hey in their context of their church and you know let’s face it sometimes we don’t always have choice of who is at our church and and sometimes yeah we would say well I don’t know if I choose that person to really sidle up next to and live a life of faith um you know what it’s okay because God’s love overcomes those things the love that God calls us to is not based upon how I feel about everybody around me it’s based upon the work of Jesus Christ and the difference that he has made in each one of our lives we are a community together I loved last week because it was
just great to see those folks that were up on the panel being interviewed by alex talking about the different ministries that they were reaching out and and you could hear in their voices there was a love and a compassion for the people that they were ministering to um hannah and neal working with refugees and just the yeah the concern that they had um the folks in the food bank cara and aaron and and you know just the words that they said I’m working on presently on an outreach team here for local outreach um and you know I’d love to take credit for this but I can’t it’s the people who are on that team who are sitting there and and every week they’re saying we want to make sure that we’re doing this right we don’t want to enable people we want to empower people we want to love them the way that God loves them and I I love
being part of that team that’s happening right here at south you know I would encourage you I’d encourage you to pray for south that that does not stop but that continues on and on and be grateful for what we have that we’ve we’ve got nuggets of that all over and I know that panel was just a small sampling of what God does in the hearts of many of you people and I love it keep doing it and let’s be grateful and thankful as we approach that but paul doesn’t just give thanks and then stop he also has some requests that he throws out there and and these requests it’s kind of a long passage but it deals with I want to say two types of knowing two types of knowing let me read this for you I pray for you constantly asking God the glorious father our lord Jesus Christ to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in
your knowledge of God I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him now if I were to ask you okay where are the two different types of knowing there I wonder what you’d say um I’ll highlight them for you so you can see them you know might grow in your knowledge of God so that you can understand the confident hope and and also so you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power those two understanding that’s the same greek word that knowledge that’s the same greek word let me kind of go to another translation which kind of gives us some of the kind of dilemma that we
sometimes face this is the translation I’m going to go to is called the new international version I don’t know if you were listening last week to alex he mentioned oh I’m going to I’m going to give you some quotes from the translation that dan uses uh that’s the new living translation which we’ve been looking at now I’m going to go to the translation that alex uses the new international version just so you can see what we sometimes face I keep asking that the God of our lord Jesus Christ the glorious father may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he’s called you and when you read that you kind of say oh so I’m supposed to know both yeah but there’s a slight difference and I’m going to get a little
greeky geeky here so let me kind of throw up what the two words are the two words are epignosis and I deny now I don’t even know how to pronounce that second one I I think that’s how you pronounce it I deny but epignosis um is a word that means to know but it means you know there’s full discernment there’s first hand experiential knowing in other words for ebignosis that’s that’s the kind of knowing that happens within a relationship um the intimacy intimacy is part of this epignosis that comes out it’s a deep knowing I deny or adenae is uh you you kind of reflect upon you you you remember you you review so that you can understand you can understand it fully and therefore begin to appreciate so there’s this aspect of appreciation that comes out so let me go with this epignosis which is the first request I keep asking that the
God of our lord Jesus Christ the glorious father may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better so that you may know him better I I like that it’s worded that way you know he adds a little bit so that you may know him better I think in the new living that I was using so that your knowledge will grow so he’s recognizing right off the bat they have an element of this yes but he wants it to go deeper and you know what I believe very much each one of you here each one of you here who has a faith in Jesus Christ has a part of this knowledge of this I’ll say intimacy with God but God wants us to go deeper with him um there was a fellow I was reading who kind of took this whole relational aspect of epignosis and said you know in our culture we have two types of relationships basically we have a relationship
that’s a transactional relationship and we have a relationship that is a personal relationship um so let me just illustrate like this if I go into mcdonald’s um and I go up to the counter and the nice little gal says how can I help you and I say to her well this has been a pretty rough day it started bad in the morning and you know um do you have time to listen I I could really use some help processing what’s been happening and she’d look at me and say uh you want a cheeseburger um you know it’s a transactional relationship she’s expecting I’m going to come in there with an order and hand her some money and she’s going to be able to meet that need and we we face that every day but let me tell you what’s sad I think on many churches across our country church is a transactional relationship and we enter this thing we call religion and
we think if I just do this right God’s gonna like me more if I just give a little bit more of my time uh maybe I’ll get some of that peace Jesus talks about our relationship with God is not a transaction and that’s what paul is calling us to he’s calling us to a personal relationship with the God of the universe and frankly that blows me away now if I were to carry this into the the personal relationship level and um and and I take in like if I if I go to carry my wife and I come home from work one day and kerry says boy dan you look pretty tired and I would say here I am and it seems like man right from the very get-go it just started wrong I need to really process would you mind listening here’s ten dollars she would be so offended and you know folks I think God feels the same way I think God feels the same way when when we cheapen the
relationship with him that he wants us to have and we think we can buy our way into his love those songs we sang he loves us he loves us as much as he’s ever going to love us and it’s more love than we know what to do with and regardless of what we do it’s not going to be less um you know one thing I would just share as I’m talking about this because it reminds me of something um and and that is our our church has chosen to go in a direction we’ve been talking about something called spiritual formation and we’ve decided to go into that to try to figure out what forms us more and more spiritually here in the church and pastor yvonne’s been doing a great job trying to take us more and more into that direction of spiritual formation and I know that there are some of us who have had past experience which may have been not the greatest
with that it might have even bordered in an organization that it might have seemed legalistic you know when we got into that if you do this and this and this and if you do this practice you’re going to get these results and I know that we have some people who have been in past denominations where they may have bordered on that and I want you to hear me again I will say that word there’s nothing you can do that will make God love you more and there’s nothing you can do that will make him love you you less when we talk about spiritual formation practices we’re not talking about anything that will change God’s heart toward you but let me tell you I am talking about something that will change my heart toward him and the more time that I can spend in his word it helps me get a little bit more insight into him the more time I can
go out for a walk in nature and just say wow God open my eyes that’s just that’s a practice that opens me to him the more I can fast you know we can go through all kinds of spiritual practices the goal is just what paul is praying I pray that you would have this spirit of wisdom so that so that you can know personally the God of the universe I think of adam and God walking in the garden wow can you imagine that walking with God and talking with him we can do it his spirit’s with us it’s a little bit tougher because we don’t see him but we can do it and that’s what paul’s prayer is and that’s what my prayer would be for us a south fellowship that each and every one of us would take seriously this personal intimate relationship that we’re to have with God almighty we didn’t just pray that he also has another prayer and he says I pray that the eyes of
your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you the riches of his glorious inheritance and his holy people and his incomparably great power for us who believe and when I looked at that the eyes of your heart you know I’m kind of thinking okay the eyes of my heart my heart’s kind of that’s the seat of my emotions so I bet you this knowing has something to do with the emotions coming in there um and when I went and kind of looked in there I realized oops I’m wrong you know today we look at the heart as kind of the the seed of our emotions we have valentine’s day and what do we have red hearts in the ancient greek and hebrew days they didn’t see that the seed of emotions was your stomach you know maybe it had to do what they ate the night before I’m not sure but it was it was their
stomach was the seed of their emotions splunk the heart was the seed of wisdom the heart was the seed of wisdom and here’s a great verse in proverbs proverbs chapter four guard your heart it’s the wellspring of life the wellspring of life the heart was the wellspring of life the heart was basically the place where they believed your perspective on life on living came and and what paul is praying here is I pray that your perspective on life would be enlightened and you could gain some insight into and I’m going to say three things um you know he wants us to know to understand and appreciate so that we can gain some insight into the hope the inheritance and the power that is there so let’s look at those three things in light of this thing how we can get to know it better be you know reflect upon it so that we can appreciate it more so it will
encourage us to move and the first one is that you may know the hope to which he has called you the hope to which he’s called you now this passage in the second part of ephesians chapter one is preceded by the first part of ephesians chapter one which has some tremendous insights into who you and I are into who we are in Jesus Christ our our identity um it’s a it’s a familiar passage but sometimes we don’t take the time to reflect on this like like paul is praying that we would so I want to go through some of these characteristics and I’ll tell you a story that why this is so meaningful to carrie and carrie and me carrie is my wife and carries had two bouts of cancer and the second bout uh wasn’t as severe as the first but the second bout she had to have both chemo and radiation and that radiation was 30 days in a row and we would drive
down to the hospital and and it became carrie’s pattern when she would go in there it was intimidating it was frightening to see this machine and to realize there was a beam that was going right through and burning and so she it didn’t last long it was it was somewhat quick but she kind of made a point to say okay I’m going to reflect on these points every time that beam comes on and I’m going to review them and here’s this list let me just read this passage before while you look at this this list of these things that we are in Christ all praise to God the father of our lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ I don’t even know how to get my arms around that one every spiritual blessing is ours wow even before he made the world God loved
us and chose us in Christ to be holy without fault in his eyes you were loved you were loved long before you ever were you were chosen long before you ever walked this earth you were loved and chosen and and God doesn’t see a fault in you isn’t that wild to think wow God decided in advance number three to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ this is what he did and it gave him great pleasure he welcomed us into a family we are not alone we’re in a family so we praise God for the glorious grace he’s poured out on us who belonged to his dear son he is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his son that’s that word he redeemed us he purchased us he purchased our freedom we are no longer enslaved to what we were enslaved to before but
now we are free and it’s all because of Jesus Christ um and then going on in that verse and he forgave our sins he forgave our sins he wiped clean the whole slate everything that we could not get rid of he got rid of he has showered his kindness on us along with all wisdom and understanding his grace is just all over us this is who we are in Christ because of the work of Jesus on the cross because of the conquering of death and the grave we can now submit our lives into his hands and these things are true of us I skipped down to verse verse 13 now um he’s talking about the the plan of God’s purpose and and how the the jews would be the first to trust in Christ and then the gentiles uh and he says this and you gentiles have heard the truth the good news that God saves you and when you believed in Christ he identified you as his own
by giving you the holy spirit who we promised long ago we’re saved and the holy spirit anchors us in that and the spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised wow now I share that with you so that you go home and read it over and over and over and reflect on it just like paul is praying that we would reflect on it and the reason we reflect on this so that we’d come to a point of really appreciate it and be encouraged and who we are in Jesus and I look at a room full of you who are these characteristics that’s something to thank God for and to walk with him um let’s just kind of take a little bit of a break and I want you to listen to this so okay now that took place a few years ago and granted it’s kind of a little grainy film because there was a hidden camera to catch all this um the interesting thing the interesting thing was
this is a concert violinist this isn’t just your typical busker this guy donned a baseball cap he put on an old sweatshirt and he went down to the train station in washington dc and he put on a concert for 45 minutes and during that time 45 minutes hundreds of people walked by him heads down uh some people listened a little bit stopped through a few coins in his violin case um you see this person this woman who’s just kind of watching him she was the only one who stopped and stood there kind of transfixed and when he was all done 45 minutes she went up to him and you could hear it on the tape she said you know you’re joshua bell aren’t you I heard you a couple months ago when you put on your concert at the library of congress with the washington symphony and I want you to know I paid over 200 bucks for that ticket and here
were hundreds of people walking by who hardly took notice he got 37 and 10 cents in his violin case that day 20 bucks came from her um but I think so often it’s just like the church God is weaving on an amazing symphony an amazing masterpiece in us in his people and sometimes we walk with our heads down because we’re so busy because we’re so concerned about our lives that we fail to look around and see what God is doing in us and through us and who he has made us and he wants us to take notice that’s paul’s prayer stop walking so hurriedly stop and focus and think about these things let me just go through again every spiritual blessing I’m not sure what all that is but you know what that’s where I kind of rest on paul’s prayer I pray for enlightenment and I I think it’s great to meditate on these things to pray for the enlightenment
that God would let you know who you are in Christ um yeah we’re loved and chosen to be holy and guess what realizing that God’s love will never change being holy is not an obligation it’s an opportunity to respond to the love of God and realize if he really loves me then his call of purity on my life is the best thing for me he’s made me for purity it’s not going to be hard I’m adopted into God’s family and many times we might feel lonely in our walk with the lord you are not alone look around you but don’t just look around you look around the world you know we’re hearing all kinds of stories from afghanistan I was amazed to hear and I haven’t really checked this out but I heard that the church in afghanistan is the second rapidly growing church I don’t mean the second largest but the second rapidly growing church in the world isn’t that
something we’re not alone we’re part of his forever family we’re redeemed and forgiven we’re redeemed and forgiven it’s wiped clean it’s time to give up the shame the enemy keeps reminding us of the mistakes of the past the enemy keeps reminding us that there’s obstacles between you and God and guess what there aren’t and it’s time we let those go and come into that walk with Jesus that he made everything possible uh his grace is poured out on us you know yeah when I when I read that I need to take some time to stop and look for it because sometimes I get so preoccupied with what I think is right that I failed to realize the grace that God is pouring out all over and getting his perspective um and we can go on just the fact that his holy spirit is with us uh we have someone to walk with someone to talk with someone who
can counsel us yeah we could go on and I would just encourage you reflect on these things reflect on them so that you can appreciate them stronger and stronger of who you are in Christ and why do I say that well let’s look at the next prayer request that paul has he says that you may know the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people now I’ve read that one kind of fast in the past and remember the one of the last things we had down where is is our inheritance that we have in God this is a little different this is saying the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people wow there’s something amazingly wonderful that God sees in us I don’t know what it is and to tell you the truth I’m not sure he’s getting a great deal but he thinks so maybe just a little bit of background and I’ll just share these verses quick
deuteronomy chapter 4 in deuteronomy chapter 4 you have moses who the the people of israel have just wandered for 40 years they’re at the at the gateway to the promised land and moses is reminding them of all they’ve gone through and he says this to them remember the lord rescue you from the iron smelting furnace of egypt in order to make you his very own people and his special possession which is what you are today and many translations will say instead of a special possession they’ll say his his generous inheritance the people of israel were his inheritance and and you wonder what does that mean what can they give to him well let’s go to the new testament now and let’s go to a letter that peter wrote and let’s read some similar language but it’s written to the church it’s written to us on this side of the cross and he says for
you are a chosen people you are a royal priest you are a holy nation you are God’s very own possession and that’s that word God’s very own inheritance and what does God get from us as a result you can show others the goodness of God for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light each and every one of us when we go through those amazing characteristics of who we are in Christ we get to tell other people about the goodness of God we get to be able to go and I guess another way of putting it is to be his hands and feet in this world people see us do they see the goodness of God in us because that’s what paul is praying that we would begin to appreciate the fact that we are his inheritance to be able to take his goodness to the world and sometimes we do that in words trying to explain things I would think that most of the time
we do that in deeds in goodness in love trying to be the example of Jesus Christ with skin on and that’s what paul is praying here there’s a third prayer request that that paul puts out and uh it’s an it’s an interesting one and I’ll just add it that you may know his incomparably great power for us who believe and I believe the reason paul puts that in there is because when we realize that Jesus wants us to be his hands and feet in this world we can oftentimes get cold hands and feet and we can oftentimes feel inadequate to do the job that God is calling us to do and paul is saying I don’t want you to forget there is an incomparably great power that is enabling you to go out and be my ministers and he goes on to say this power is found in Jesus Christ when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and this power was found with Jesus Christ was raised up into
the heavens and seated at the right hand of God and this power is found when Jesus Christ was given authority over everything everything and this power is fine when found when Jesus Christ is called to be the head of the church that’s us south fellowship Christ is the head it’s a great prayer request a great prayer that paul gives for the church of Jesus Christ and I would ask each and every one of you to pray this I I think back 130 years ago to george eddie getting on that train in boston and I wonder what he felt like I wonder what he felt like four weeks later when he had 40 or 50 rambunctious kids and probably started thinking is this the right thing you were telling me to do I would love to know the names of some of those kids because I’d love to trace their lives but we don’t have any of that but you know what we do have we have us we’re here
and we’re a result of his obedience leaving boston to go out there I wonder what will come from our obedience I wonder what will come from the answers to prayer when we start having prayers like this I wonder what yeah I can just see the day when we’ve got so many volunteers at the food bank the people that run it don’t know what to do you know I don’t know how many of you saw the video from hannah levers that came out this week in which she’s just honestly saying you know guys I don’t know what the future’s going to be but denver is among four destination cities for afghan refugees and we’re going to start having afghan families coming who don’t begin to understand our culture and are going through such trauma of being uprooted I wonder if God would use us some way to minister to families like that I don’t know I
just throw that outbut one of the things I want to encourage is each to believe and to realize what happens here in the church is not incidental it’s not something that’s just happening on a sunday I believe it’s something that’s so crucial to our society and God has planted us here for a purpose I want to just close with a paraphrase and a paraphrase is just another kind of translation except with a lot of interpretation thrown in but this is from eugene peterson he writes all this energy issues from Christ God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven in charge of running the universe everything from galaxies to governments no name no power exempt from his rule and not just for the time being but forever he’s in charge of it all he has the final word on everything listen to this at the center of all this Christ rules the
church the church you see is not peripheral to the world the world is peripheral to the church the church is Christ’s body in which he speaks and acts by which he fills everything with his presence
