Welcome to Bible on the Beach. Today we'll be in Ephesians chapter 1 verses 15 through 23.
Glad you could be with us today. Paul has some wonderful words of encouragement.
I'd like to get right into it. Verse 15 says,
Because of this, since I have first heard about your strong faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
and your tender love towards all his devoted ones, my heart was always full and overflowing.
But thanks to God for you as I constantly remember you in my prayers.
This makes me think of so many people in my life that I've seen discover God in a real and genuine way.
They literally have the living water of Jesus flowing in their inner life.
Have you ever met someone like this? This is someone you want to be around.
This is someone that inspires you. This is Adam Watts. This is Nico Otspeed.
This is Steve Martinez. I could go right on down the line of people that you get around them
and you realize they have a water, a living water flowing through their life.
It makes you when you're not around these people, it makes you pause and give thanks for them in your life.
This is what Paul is doing here. He's remembering the disciples of Jesus
and the people that had stirred up a fondness in his heart.
It's a reminder that those are the types of people that we want to be in our life.
We want to be the type of people that have that water flowing through us,
that have that joy that we emanate to other people.
He says, I pray that the glory of God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
would impart to you the riches of the spirit of wisdom and revelation
to know him through your deepening intimacy with him.
And this is our hope and our prayer and our desire in our life that God would give us the wisdom.
What is wisdom? It's God's thoughts versus our thoughts.
God's thoughts versus our thoughts.
Being intelligent, that's your IQ, that's what you read.
Wisdom is God gives you his thoughts for a specific moment and a specific decision.
And you take that download, you take that information and you act in real time.
Did you know there's a continuous software update that God wants to download to you
into your brain and into your life every single day
that will help you avoid mistakes and help you be more successful?
It's called God's wisdom.
Now the problem is we pray for God's wisdom and when he tells us things that we don't like
or he tells us things that we don't hear, we then say, well, I don't want God's wisdom.
It's only wisdom if you're given information that contradicts the information that you already have.
If God gives you information that you don't like or it contradicts what you know,
but he asks you to trust him, you have to go with that.
So we need to say in our life, God, give me your wisdom, give me your ideas today.
Whether I understand them or agree with them or not, ahead of time,
I'm going to come in alignment with you and I'm going to agree that whatever you put in my heart
and my spirit, I'm going to follow that.
It's one thing to pray for wisdom.
It's another thing to have the courage to accept, to trust, and to act on it.
So Paul says, I pray that the light of God will illuminate the eyes of your imagination,
flooding you with light until you experience the full revelation of the hope of his calling.
And that is the wealth of God's glorious inheritances that he finds in us, his holy ones.
So God has an inheritance, a plan, abundance in our life that we're not even aware of
that he wants to give us and have us flow in and operate in.
But again, we've got to come into alignment with what he's asking us to do.
He says, I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God's power
made available to you through faith.
So there is a power, there is a strength that's available to us when we ask for it.
Have you asked for it today? Have you asked for God to give you strength?
Have you asked for God to give you power? Because if you ask him, he will help you.
He says, then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you.
That's what we want to be. We want to be God's marketing.
We want to be God's advertisements in the world.
It's a great way to think about being a disciple of Jesus, being a follower of Jesus.
Our lives should emanate in such a way that people think when they think of us,
wow, that's somebody who advertises for God in the best way possible.
Not in a loud, obnoxious, rude, antagonistic way, but in a deep, meaningful, loving, kind, humble, tough, persevering way.
That's the type of advertisement that God wants us to be.
He says, this is the mighty power that was released when God raised Christ from the dead
and exalted him to the place of highest honor and supreme authority in the heavenly realm.
And now he is exalted at first above every ruler, authority, government, and realm of power in existence.
So God is exalted above every ruler, every president.
The shrewd politicians always claim God is their own. That's a fool's errand.
There's not a politician on the planet or a country on the planet that has a corner or has a market
on the King of Kings, on the Lord of Lords, on the Alpha and the Omega, on the beginning and the end, on the first and the last.
The shrewdest politicians simply take the teachings of Jesus and they co-opt them for their own agenda.
That is not what it means to follow Jesus. What it means to follow Jesus is that you acknowledge you're the Lord.
There's your agenda, not my agenda.
And so people with the most power in this earthly world have the hardest time being humble.
You see, people with power don't like humility.
Jesus says, if you want to come into my kingdom, you have to be humble like a little child.
That means that you have to say, whatever you want, God, I'll follow you. Not my will, but your will be done.
This is why God reminds us that every ruler, every authority, every government, every realm of power in existence,
the Bible says every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, the glory of God the Father.
That's every politician and every country from the beginning of time to the end of time, not just in our time.
You see, the politicians change, the geographical boundaries of the countries change, but Jesus and his kingdom never change.
There's one hero in the Christian faith. It's not you, it's not me, it's Jesus.
There's one prerequisite for entering the kingdom of God in this world, and it's humility.
That's why the Bible says that every knee will bow and every tongue confess, because we start on our knees and we end on our knees.
We have to submit to God in order to follow God. We don't ask God to submit to us and then ask him to bless everything that we can think of.
He is gloriously enthroned over every name that is praised.
Think of the most influential person that you can think of on earth, and they can't scratch the surface of the power of the name, of the prestige of Jesus Christ.
Not only in this age, but in the age that is coming. You see, from the beginning of time to the end of time, there's one name that matters, Jesus Christ.
He alone is the leader and source of everything needed in the church. God has put everything beneath the authority of Jesus Christ.
God has put everything beneath the authority of Jesus Christ, and he's given him the highest rank above all others.
Now we, his church, are his body on earth, and that which fills him is being filled by it.
We can take comfort today, and God is in control from the beginning of time to the end of time.
If we just have the humility to align with him, he'll give us wisdom to live each day in a successful, fruitful manner.
I'm so glad you got to join me today here from San Clemente. Until next time, the Bible on the Beach. I hope you have a beautiful day.