Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Thank you. I'm. I'm. My voice is not strong.
If you find that you can't hear me even with the microphone.
Thank you.
Let's pray.
Oh, Father, what a joy it is together as your little body unit in this world, in the body of Christ that stretches over the whole world to God.
Oh, Lord God, what a blessing it is to be part of the brethren who gather in your presence every week, Lord God.
And we want to love you every day, every moment, Lord God as well.
So, Lord, we praise you for your presence with us now.
And Father, I just ask you to strengthen me for this task. And thank you for the lovely prayers that have been made.
So, Father, we worship you with all our hearts and we want to grow in love for you and understanding of you more and more as we grow every day.
So may this time be a blessing in Jesus name. Amen.
Thank you, Mark and Eric, for allowing me to preach. I'm very grateful in my old state at the moment, but I have a passion on my heart and you know, it's the love of Jesus which is all our passion.
And I've memorized the Scripture and I'm not very good at memorizing. It takes me months and months to memorize.
But anyway, I want to internal these things, internalize it in its context sometimes.
And the Scripture that I really love is in Ephesians, chapter 3, verses 14 to 21.
Now, God sees through Paul. Now, you see, Paul is in Ephesus.
And Ephesus is a pagan city.
And there's a gigantic temple there that is Artemis, who's the Greek God. And the equivalent in Latin is Diana.
And they're the God of the moon and of fertility.
And so there was a lot of immorality around that theme. And so he's praying for the people there and the church to grow in Ephesus.
And he's been tasked by God. If you read the beginning of Ephesus 3, he's been tasked by God to take the Word to the Gentiles. This is one of the early times it's going to the rest of the world.
So this is the reason he's praying. So he begins by saying, for this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his family in heaven and earth derive its name. And I pray that out of his glorious riches that he will strengthen you with power through the Holy Spirit in your inner being, so Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
You see, that's such an important thing. Remember Jesus dwelling in our hearts through faith, and. And then he goes on to say, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, will have power together with all the saints to know how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to God who's able to do a measuring mall the and we can ask or imagine according to his great power that is within us to God be the glory in Christ Jesus and the Church in this generation and onwards now and forever. Amen.
So you see, it's amazing scripture and I just wanted to share it as a basis at the moment, moment by moment, and.
So good having a young daughter to do these things for you.
So now he says, I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth derive its name.
So that brings us all together. He's talking to us into history, all of us who derive our name from Him. We are God's people.
Then he says in verse 16, I pray that out of his glorious riches that he may strengthen you with power through the Holy Spirit in your inner being.
So he wants us to have his power in us and the Holy Spirit's there to empower us and to in our hearts so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
That is an amazing statement to have Jesus in us. Because you see, nothing can happen without Jesus in us. Apart from God, we can do nothing.
Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches.
He who abides in Me and I in him will bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
He's the power of God in the universe in all situations.
He's the Son of God. And you see, God has imbued the Father, has imbued everything to God. And I'll read a scripture later to show you how powerful that is.
Because we have to fix our minds on Jesus because he's the only hope.
He's the beginning and the end of our faith in the hope of the world.
And it's just a focus on Him. And we're going to do that this morning to really understand who Jesus is in a big way, in a deep way.
And then he says, and I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power to give all the Lord's holy people, that's the Lord's saints, us to grasp how wide and long and high and deep as the love of Christ.
So he wants us. You're going to hear the word power three times in this great scripture, because he's the power of God is Jesus in us and together with all the Lord's people to grasp power. Wide and long and high and deep is the love of God. Imagine he wants us to understand how long and wide and high and deep is the.
Is the love of God.
I mean, that's amazing because God is infinite.
It's infinitely wide, long, high and deep.
That's the enormity of who Jesus is. He's everywhere, as is the Father and the Holy Spirit.
So it's just an amazingly beautiful thing to think of that.
And so you want us to be rooted and established in this love, this amazing love he has for us.
It's like being rooted in the deep soil that creates great growth and strength.
And so he wants us to be rooted in this love. So we've got to meditate on his love a lot and feel his love and remind ourselves of his love.
And then I have power to give all the saints. So we want it for everyone and all of us, not just ourselves.
And to grasp how wide and long and hindipi is and to know this love that surpasses knowledge. Now, this love is so enormous you can't measure it.
And if you meditate, I think it's going to take us eternity, right through the millennium of those of us who are in the millennium and in eternity, we will never ever be able to fathom the enormity of God's love for us.
And you know, there's a very simple on earth for us is when we say we love you, it means we want the very best for you.
And it's a beautiful thing. And you see, that means we have to die to self in order to be that loving. And Jesus on the cross died to himself and his earthly body for us, expressing the most incredibly beautiful demonstration of his love.
And so it's. And although it's so enormous, he wants us to understand it. But if we do completely understand that love, he makes an amazing statement after that. He says that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Is that an amazing statement?
I can't believe it's in scripture that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
So you see, we're going to live with him forever and it's a process.
But isn't that a wonderful statement of intent?
To be filled to the measure of the fullness of God, we have to be like Him. You see, that's what it's all about. You have to emulate Jesus.
Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, and the Holy Spirit's the same.
And we have to grow into his likeness. And he wants us to know him and to grow into the fullness of his likeness.
Beautiful.
So if we set our minds towards that, be wonderful.
And then he says now to him who is able to do immediately more than you can ask or imagine, according to his power that is within us.
And you see, he's made your power. May you have power to give all the saints to grasp how wide and long he gives. Now he's saying, maybe then now to him is able to do immeasurably more than you can ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, this power. He's giving us this power of his love, so that we are able to do everything and measurably more than we can ever ask or imagine. This power is for us.
And he's all powerful, but it's his love. We don't think how we go around being powerful. If we're full of love and love for Christ and others, then he comes with his power through us. It's not our power.
His love in us is not our love. We can't love perfectly like he does. That's why he wants to abide in us and us in Him.
And we've got to let Jesus come into our hearts.
And you see, he says to the church of Laodicea, he says, after rebuking him, he says to them, I stand at the door and knock. If you open the door of your heart, the door of your heart, he's knocking on it. He said, if you open it, I will come in and have fellowship with you.
So consciously, every day, we should open our hearts to him for this fullness of Jesus to come into us.
I think it's such a beautiful picture.
And then he says to him, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, now and forever. Amen.
So it's wonderful that you see, glory is an amazing thing. It's glorifying God is putting him in the highest order possible and worshipping him and acknowledging who he is.
And he says in 1 Corinthians 10:31, he says, Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
So he wants us to give him glory in the church amongst us and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations.
And so this glory, if we glorify him in everything we do, every little thing, it's a yardstick, actually.
If you're going to make Plans for doing something say, how can I glorify you? Listen, is this glorifying you? And what I'm doing now, is it glorifying you? Because then it gets your motives towards him and gets it away from yourself because it's for his glory.
It deals with the selfishness in our hearts, which is the great enemy of, you know, that's how Satan is really come and attacked us all.
Now I just want to share another scripture that I've also tried to memorize, but I might have to have a look. But anyway, this is so important for me.
It fits into this picture of this love of God and the power of this love. And it comes from Colossians 1, 15, 20.
And it says, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
And then it says, by Jesus, all things were created in heaven and earth. Visible, invisible. All things have been created by Jesus.
And then he says straight after that, whether they are thrones or dominions, rulers of authorities, all things have been created by Jesus for Jesus. And then he says, all things have been created through Jesus and for Jesus.
So he says, it's by Jesus, through Jesus and for Jesus all things were created.
You see, this is just building a picture of how great Jesus is in the Father's eyes.
Because the Father is the Creator and he's the co. Creator.
But he's handing, you know, in the end of Matthew 28 when he gives a great commission, he says, I've given my. This is my Son and I've given all authority in heaven and earth.
And then remember when he was baptized and he came up out of the water when John the Baptist baptized him. And as he came up, the Holy Spirit descended on him like a dark up into him. The Holy Spirit came.
And he said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased. So he's pointing to his Son.
And then on the mount of figuration again he repeats that when they go up the mountain, James, Peter and John, and the cloud comes in this massive light and thunders and stuff, and he thunders down, this is my Son who I'm well pleased. Listen to him.
So you see, he's been given all instructions for right living.
He is the word of God. And all scripture is inspired by God and is used for teaching truth, rebuking error, correcting false, and giving instruction for right living.
So the one who serves God will be fully qualified next and equipped for every good work.
It's amazing what Jesus has done for us.
And so the Titus put this into Jesus.
Now it goes on.
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. So he's the first. He was born, he was with the Father, the firstborn of all creation. There's nothing before him, and he's before everything in priority and focus and glory and everything. He's before all things. And in him all things in this universe hold together.
Sure.
It's just so amazingly beautiful and enormous.
And then he says he is the head of the body, the church.
That's us. He's our head that we look to, we worship, we try to emulate with all our hearts.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.
That in everything he might be preeminent.
Do you know what that statement means?
That in everything he might be preeminent. He must come first and foremost in every single thing.
We do or think or say.
He's supposed to have preeminence.
It's just what God is telling us.
You see, this is where the whole meaning of life and the whole of the universe integrates into God's purpose is through Jesus.
That's the focal point. Because he is all things to all people. And the Father has made him like that by his will.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. That's amazing.
In Jesus, the fullness of the Godhead. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are pleased to dwell. And the Father and the Holy Spirit wants to dwell in Jesus too.
That's what the Word says.
Just trying to emphasize his importance to us.
And you see, that's not idolatry because we're supposed to love Him. But more than anything else, he used to be our only.
I can't even use the word. What's the word?
Objective. I don't want to call him anything else. Is an idol before you. So it's just something that's beautiful to think about.
And.
And so then he says, and through him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross.
So, yeah, yeah.
So you see, Colossians after this wonderful Ephesians 3 has re. Emphasized to us how important it all is.
Now you see, the reality is that on earth, when we see in heaven, that there has to be an absolute of holiness and good and beauty, and that is God and that is Jesus.
And we are to be holy as he is holy. And so that's our objective of. He's going to help us to try and be like that.
But you see, there has to be a scale of values for Something to be that high, it has to be the opposite. And it's evil.
And when the universe was made and made the earth and the heavens, it was all perfect.
And there is no rebellion. They all acknowledge God in that position.
And then unfortunately, sin comes into the world. When Lucifer in heaven, the archangel elevates himself, this beautiful angel who's so good at singing and praise and worship, he gets elevated, he wants to elevate himself and he gets thrown out of heaven and he takes a third of the angels with him.
And so then, you see, he becomes such a.
The opposite of beauty and truth.
And he hates God because he's the opposite, really. He represents the most evil package in the whole of history.
And so he hates God now and he opposes him. So there's a battle.
So we talk about the fact that this is so magnificent in the power. And you see at the cross, Jesus totally defeated his power.
And we have to believe that by faith, but we have to realize there is a war going on.
And so God wants us to struggle and to persevere in this war.
And he says later on in Ephesians, you know, because he's spoken about who he is and he talks about in chapter four, the beauty of unity of the spirit and the bond of peace and how we're to grow as Christians in the fullness and maturity of Christ and then. And fulfill that in chapter five and in chapter six, he says, he's talking about this battle we have on earth because Satan is trying to oppose him all the time. And so he must be realistic about that so we understand the power and who God is. And he's defeated him completely. So we get him into the right context.
But he says for our struggle, our warfare is not against flesh and blood, against the rulers, against authorities, against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Therefore, put on the full arm of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.
And after you have done everything to stand.
So, so he's with us and he's trying to show us how to come through.
And.
And it's a demonic realm that we have to understand.
And, and so we don't overestimate him, but we mustn't underestimate him either.
And so he gives us the full armor of God to clothe ourselves. And I think we, our family. I used to do every day for everybody, but I miss a few days nowadays. But I go back to every day to put on the full armor and I speak it at grace for our family and all our loved ones everywhere.
And you know, to put on the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness and the shoes of preparedness and gospel of peace. We take, take up the shield of faith which quenches the fire darts, the evil one, and put on the helmet of salvation and take up the sword and spirit which is the word of God. And we to stand against the evil one and pray in the spirit.
He ends by saying, you may be able to stand your ground after you have done everything to stand. Stand.
That's verse 13. Therefore put on the full armor of God so that when the, the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you have done everything to stand.
So we do have this. We have nothing to fear because of the great wonderful victory of Jesus.
Its tensity fauna another 15.
I think I've done it about halfway.
Now. I just want to say to you that something is important in here.
It says when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground after you have done everything to stand. Now we do have attacks in our lives and God helps us and he protects us and we run to him and we covered in the full armor of God and we can speak power and chase him away by the name of Jesus and the blood of Christ. So we are equipped with that.
But now there is a day and all of scripture points to that day.
And I just want us not to really understand this and not to take, take care or anything at all but the reality. And he wants us to be ready for that day.
And that day is at the end of chronological time.
It's after we met in him and it's the beginning of eternity.
And on that day he's now dealt with evil.
And he's made a new universe. He's made a new new heavens and a new earth. And the new Jerusalem is going to come down. He's just before that.
And it's. And then it's a time that everybody who's ever lived will have to stand before him to be judged.
And on that day, you know, we're either going to be a sheep or a goat.
And he wants us to be ready because if we reject Jesus, it's going to continue with this animosity and evil on earth and in heaven. And he doesn't want any, any opposition, any rejection, any self will in heaven.
But he has to give us self, he has to give us free will.
So he wants to deal with evil completely and totally. And Satan's been allowed out of, out of the pit for a short while just before this great trial. And I said, why, Lord? That's because he wants to manifest and show the horror of evil.
And when we see the horror of evil and we see Jesus in his absolute glory and holiness, the comparativeness is so great that I believe all of us who are selected for heaven will never, ever reject God again.
So that's.
This big drama is going to come one day, and we have to be ready for that.
And so, you know, in our love for each other, we have to say, how can we get ready to live with Jesus forever in his way?
Because there's this great battle coming.
And so, Lord, just help us now to finish this, Lord God, and not be afraid of your truth. Lord God, we worship you, Lord.
And now you see, Jesus tells us this.
Do you know the Sermon on the Mount takes three chapters in Matthew, chapter five, six and seven.
And you know, the great preachers say it's the greatest sermon ever preached. It's so full of beauty of right living and instruction that you could ever imagine.
And it's very beautiful. But Jesus, because he has to get us ready and warn us and prepare us to live with him forever. Because Satan is a great deceiver.
He's a liar, a thief, murderer, but he's a great deceiver. And he wants to fool you and fool God's people and everybody on earth. He wants to keep people from coming to know Jesus because he wants to take as many people with him to hell.
So there is this battle going on, and we must talk about it because it's reality and we have to be ready for it. It's one of the instructions God's put in my heart is to speak about this.
But there's nothing to fear. But it's the truth, and there's great hope in Jesus.
So he says at the end of this great sermon of the Sermon on the Mount.
He has. He says something right at the end in Matthew 21:23, he says, not everyone who says to me, lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day, lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?
Then Jesus says, then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you away from me, your evil doers.
That's Jesus speaking at the end of this great sermon.
Now, it's an important message that we all have to know and hear. And I believe leaders of the church should prepare people for this moment and this, this great trial. We mustn't dodge around it and be afraid because people are, you know, a lot of people want to leave the church when you talk about the hardest things of the gospel and the truth, but it's actually not love, it's love. You know, those God loves, he rebukes and chastens. His love is amazing. And if we love each other, we're going to say, are we ready? Are we ready for this? Because it was great to see. Because if you read Matthew 24, when Jesus speaking answers his disciples, what's going to happen at the end?
You know, he tells them that it's going to be the first thing he says when they say, what's going to happen at the end and when are you coming back? Then he takes it on the Mount of Olives and he takes a deep breath. He says to them the first thing he says to him, watch out for great deceit.
Because the devil is so clever and so subtle. And now there's AI and we get indoctrinated with a press that just spews out lies all the time. So you don't know what the truth is anymore. There's this big indoctrination by the world system, the rule of this world against us. And we're in it at the moment. I mean, let's talk about these things. We can't just forget about it and say, let's talk about the happy, comfy things, because that's not love.
And so, you know, we've seen the power of God in his love can smash all of that right out the picture in us.
Because the love relationship is so important with Jesus.
You see, when he says, I will tell him plainly, I never knew you.
These people were doing many mighty works. I mean, they were delivering people from demons and prophesying and so on.
And they were told, your heart's not right.
They were doing it for themselves and for their glory rather than God's glory and other motives that weren't right. But did they really love God?
You see, the first and greatest commandment that God gives us is love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and all thy strength.
And. And the second is like wasn't to love your neighbour as yourself.
So you see, God wants us, this love to prevail in us on earth together, loving God and loving him.
And you know, he says here, not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven, that means the one who's obeyed my commandments and all my work that I've laid out.
So you see, obedience is very, very precious to God.
It's very, very precious. And you see, it says, he says in John 14, three times, he says, the one who loves me is the one who obeys me. The one who loves me is the one who obeys me. The one who loves me is the one who obeys me three times. He's trying to tell us how important obedience is.
Then tragically, he says, the one who doesn't obey me doesn't love me.
See, this is the whole crunch of the matter now, why he's making this frightening statement.
So this is why we need to fall in love with my brothers and sisters and hold it and hold on to this love and share this love with others.
You know, it's so powerful that in Iran now, close, millions are coming to know Jesus because somebody's brave enough to die for Jesus live.
And it's incredible, but it's just amazing.
But what they all say is they're having this seeing Jesus and then seeing His Word and his love, and it knocks them over because there's no love really expressed in Islam. They say it's just. I was just full of fear all the time. I never did it from the love of my heart.
And they fall in love with Jesus.
So you see, he must be preeminent in all things. So my last little appeal to us is, let's not be ashamed of Jesus.
You know, it's like you have political correctness, certain things you must be saying, but there's also social correctness.
And I'm surprised how many people who don't use Jesus in their conversation.
You see, he's the Name above all names.
And at his name every knee will bow.
And his name is powerful and precious, and we mustn't be ashamed of Him. And so we. We can use Jesus in our conversation.
His name is. He says, if I be lifted up, Jesus be lifted up. He will draw all men unto him.
So we lift up his name. We're drawing all people unto Him. We can't be ashamed of Him. And if somebody gets say, no, he loves you so much. And then immediately you say, why are you saying that? Because he loves you so much and he loves me. We've got to tell people about the love of God. That's what is changing all these terribly.
You know, even the Jihadists are coming to know Jesus now when they see his love.
We've got to expose Jesus love and say it, my brothers and sisters. So this is just equipping us.
I'm not very fluent in my talk anymore and I'll stumble along. But I hope you've heard our hearts together that, you know, it's such a joy to be in our little church.
It doesn't matter how small we are, but we can love each other. And love is wanting the best for each other. That's, you know, it's not a mushy thing.
And the best for anybody is to come to know Jesus and live with him forever.
And he says, you know, the power of love, it's so different. He says, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. Sorry, he says. Sorry. He says, we must love our enemies.
And you see that power of love. We can't change our enemy if he's mighty and powerful, but God has all power to change him. So we love our enemies instead of opposing him or trying to fight them. If we try and fight, Satan comes in and says, oh, I've got him now. But when we love our enemy, Satan can't come in and divide and rule because that's his trick. He wants to divide and rule.
So we love our enemy. Then God comes and sorts him out with his great power.
It's amazing.
So my brothers and sisters go on and on for our ages, but let's just meditate on these things and internalize them and share Jesus with as many people as we can. Because, you see, Jesus is coming back quite soon. All the signs are here. All the great preachers at the moment and the prophetic one, very few are saying, no, he's not coming right now. He's very close to coming. So this important message for these days now, to bring as many people to know Jesus as possible and to make sure that we love him enough to not hear those terrible words. And I long to him to say, well done, my good and faithful servant, when we see him.
So thank you for listening. And Father, I just thank you for this love, these little people, Lord, that you've drawn us together by your grace and by your intent. Lord God and Father, may we grow in love for one another. Help us to understand how to express that more and more, Lord God. But it comes from loving you first, Jesus, and putting you absolutely first in our lives.
And you want us to do that. So may we do that and we just praise you. We can grow together.
And even as small as we are, Father, you will swell our numbers when we preach the truth, Lord God, and help us to tell those we don't know around us. And be brave.
If they get a bit cross, say no, Jesus loves you. They need to hear that message no matter how cross they get.
Otherwise they're going to a terrible place.
And if we see a lukewarm Christian, say he, he says to the church of Laodicea, you are lukewarm. I hate that. I'd rather you hot or cold. I'd rather you be on fire for me or even an atheist. But lukewarmness shows you're compromised. You like the ones I said. I never knew you.
So let us not be lukewarm, Lord. Set us on fire for you and teach others to love you with all our hearts, Lord, not half of and this is the truth from your word, Lord. It's nothing to be afraid of. It's something to be greatly rejoicing in because of your mercy. And you're here to help us and to protect us and help us to do what you do. We're not alone. We don't have to do it by our flesh and our will. The Holy Spirit and Jesus comes and helps us to do it. So we worship you for your grace and love for us, Lord, and may we obey you now and go forward together, bringing as many as we can into your kingdom, Lord God, in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:39:03] Speaker B: Thanks for that.
The important for us to to be mindful of the truth. Sometimes we like all the we cherry pick the word but there's some truth that we don't like and the consequences are very serious. So as we leave we're gonna just before we go we're gonna worship God with our finances. We're going to send the bottom baskets round so stuck there.
And just giving back to God
[00:39:55] Speaker A: small
[00:39:55] Speaker B: amount of what he actually gives us. He equips us, he enables us. Everything we have is because of him.
Yeah, some body yoga think sparing a message on those passages in Matthew.
And I never preached it because I didn't know that it was the right time. But maybe sometime I will share that.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: All right.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Heavenly Father, I want to thank you for this time today, Lord. And as we have heard just how much you love us, Lord.
Sometimes, in fact not sometimes. Often Lord we. We take for granted the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and we don't fully allow you to reveal just the magnitude of what Jesus life, death, resurrection means.
So I just pray Lord that as we have heard this morning, that you will help us to love you.
And by that it means doing your will, obeying you.
Because Lord, we don't want to be like the Pharisees who Jesus accused of diligently studying the Scriptures, thinking that those are the way to eternal life. Yes, they are the it is the blueprint but without Jesus it's just words on a paper.
And so Father, yeah help us to love you.
Help us to love you Jesus and to do what you say.
And I pray that you give us boldness and courage Lord, to be more overtly your disciples in the world around us. Lord, sometimes we meet up with people in our community and we're so scared to mention Jesus and yet the loving thing is to bring them to Christ so they're eternally secure. So we just pray that you'd give us wisdom.
Pray for those that aren't with us this morning Lord, that you'd bless them, protect them, keep them and yeah just go with them. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Thanks everyone.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: Please join us for tea, coffee and some fellowship.
