More Than We Ask Or Think

Please turn your Bibles to Ephesians, should be chapter 3, we're going to be looking at Ephesians 3, 20, the first part.

As you're turning there, I'll go ahead and explain the plan here. There are a number of one -off topics

I'd like to cover. Some of those I am producing tracts that will go out in the tract rack about, but I'm waiting for those to be printed and shipped here before actually preaching the message that pertains to those.

So Lord willing, in a week or two, we'll be talking about some topics related to church membership and the

Lord's Supper that there will be tracts to go along with the message.

There are some other topics I'd like to touch on, but I would also like to walk through this particular passage,

Ephesians 3, verses 20 through 21. If you have that, go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word.

I'll start in verse 14. For this reason, I bow my knees before the

Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his

Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now, to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory, and to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen. You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this passage.

We ask that you would direct our hearts to pray accordingly, as this passage teaches us to.

In Jesus' name, amen. There are a number of passages in Scripture that pertain to prayer.

Some of them are prayers themselves, and here we have Paul's prayer. This prayer should direct us in thinking about how we should pray, particularly keeping in mind this attribute of God, that he is able to do far more abundantly than anything we ask or think.

He is greater than us, he is more powerful than us, he is wiser and more knowledgeable than we are.

He is able to do, and he is even willing to do, far more than we ask or think.

Just to set the context for you a little bit, most of the epistles can be broken down into a doctrinal part and then a practical part afterwards.

This is the final passage of the doctrinal part of Ephesians. Paul explains this doctrine of the mystery of Christ, that Jews and Gentiles are brought together into one body in Jesus Christ, in chapters 1 through 3.

And then after that, he goes on to give them practical instruction that they should have for their life.

And at the end of this doctrinal portion, he prays, and then at the end of his prayer, he gives a doxology.

A doxology is a statement about God's greatness. When we sing the doxology after the

Lord's Supper, that is a statement about God's greatness, that he is to be praised. Dox, that prefix means glory.

Ology, you're familiar with that from all kinds of things, psychology, etc.

Ology means words about, so it's words about God's glory. We are saying words about God's glory in a doxology, and here

Paul gives this doxology at the end of his prayer. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we would ask or think.

Now this ends the prayer that he is given, speaks here in this prayer of bowing before the

Father in order that the people would know great things. In fact, this is important, it is that people would know impossible to know things.

He really is talking about a great thing. He's appealing to the Father. Okay, so he says in verse 14,

I bow my knees before the Father. This is distinguished here from the Son in verse 21, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations.

So when he talks about him who was able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, he's talking about the Father. And what has he prayed for the people to have?

Verse 18, that they may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

He wants them to know that which surpasses knowledge. He wants them to fathom that which is unfathomable.

He wants to be filled with that which fills all things. He is asking for something that's essentially impossible.

But he's praying to the God who is able to do the impossible. He's praying to the God who is able to do far beyond we understand, far beyond what we imagine.

And so his prayer being prayed to the God who is greater than man becomes a prayer that is possible because he is one who is able to do far more than we ask or think.

He is able to grant us a knowledge that surpasses the kind of knowledge that man could naturally have.

This is the nature of prayers in general are to a

God who is, who is glorious and able to do wonderful and great and glorious things.

It's important to understand that the, the greatness that's described here, that God is able to do far more abundantly has to do with his glory.

When we say more abundantly, it's not necessarily more abundantly along some other, other dimension, right?

You can imagine things more abundantly in terms of what we want, more abundantly in terms of, you know, if I asked for $5, he's going to give me 25 kind of thing.

This is not the kind of abundance that it's talking about. It's talking about an abundance in terms of accomplishing his glory.

If you consider the chain that's given here, he bows and I bow my knees before my father and verse 14 before the father in order that verse 16, and I'm going to say in order that to make it clear that a chain is happening here, he bows his knees before the father and order that according to the riches of the glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through the spirit and your inner being.

Okay. So he bows his knees in order that they would be strengthened, in order that Christ may dwell in their hearts, in order that they would be rooted and grounded in love and have strength, sorry, in order that they may have strength to comprehend that which is incomprehensible and order that in verse 19, they may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Okay. So he's bowing his knees in order that they'd have this one thing that gives them this other thing that gives them this other thing, gives them this other thing.

And ultimately they may be filled with the fullness of God. The objective of all this and praying to God is for the fullness of God.

So he's asked for a bunch of things in the middle, but that chain of his reasoning of why he is bowing to God is ultimately for the fullness of God.

It is for the glory of God. When he prays in this prayer to him, be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever amen, as not unrelated to the prayer that he has just prayed.

It is the end of the prayer that he has just prayed is that by end, I mean it is the purpose of the prayer that he has just prayed the glory of God.

When we are to think about how God is able to do far more abundantly than anything we ask or think, we should think him doing more abundantly to the end of his own glory.

This may be more abundantly and other metrics as well, but the primary metric is according to his glory far more abundantly than that.

And he is able to do more abundantly. Think about all the ways that he has done more abundantly to those who have asked.

If you go throughout redemptive history, throughout the Old Testament scriptures, Abraham asks

God that he would spare the city of Sodom if there be a certain number in there. And he kept reducing the number, kept reducing the number because God was able to do more than he asked.

In fact, even though there were not found ten righteous in the whole city, he still spared

Lot. God still answered that request that was even in a greater way according to his glory.

His glory is shown in the demolition of the city, but his glory is also shown in the salvation of Lot, which was

Abraham's primary concern. So God has answered Abraham's prayer even more than Abraham wanted.

Abraham wanted just the city to be spared so that Lot would be spared. Not only did he get the salvation of Lot, but he also got the destruction of the wicked.

This was something greater than what Abraham had intended and desired. Hannah prays to the

Lord for a son. God gives her a son. Not only does he give her a son, he gives her an excellent son, a prophet who is a priest who is greater than the one who raises him up,

Eli. And after this, God gives Hannah three more sons and two more daughters.

So God answers above anything that she had asked. After that, Solomon prayed to the

Lord and asked for wisdom. God gave Solomon not only wisdom, but also riches. Hezekiah prayed for his life to be extended.

God not only extended his life, but the life of the whole city as they were going to be destroyed by Assyria.

God extended their life until much later Babylon would come and take them. He did more abundantly for his glory in each of these cases.

There's one particular prayer that I think is worth our attention, and that is Christ's in the Garden of Gethsemane.

So in that garden, our Lord prayed, not according to his will, but according to the

Father's will, that if this cup should pass from him, that it would.

Now most people understand this prayer as a prayer that was not answered, as a prayer that was

Christ prayed that God would take this cup from him, and ultimately he didn't get this.

He was praying basically against God's will. It's fairly unthinkable that Jesus Christ could pray contrary to the will of God, and that only that conditional statement, not your will but mine, is the one that fixes it and makes it okay for him to pray against God's will.

Hebrews 5, verse 7, talks about that very prayer. It says, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.

And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered, and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

So what does Christ pray for in the garden? And of course, we don't know the fullness of his prayers, but no doubt there were many more specifics to it than that.

But he prays for the cup to pass from him, and what takes place? God heard him because of his reverence.

The whole point of this passage in Hebrews 5 is that he is an excellent high priest who we can trust for, for salvation, because he was heard when he asked for God to deliver from death, not because his prayer was rejected and God went ahead and let him die.

He was heard because of his prayers. Now what happened? He learned obedience through suffering and then was made perfect and became a source of eternal salvation.

God ultimately answered his prayer, saved him from death, brought him up from the grave, raised him up.

God answered more than that request. So God makes him perfect through suffering, and then also delivers him from death, taking the cup away.

God has accomplished so much through the way that he answered

Christ's prayer that was not merely that he would not go to the cross, like some people imagine, the only way that prayer could really be answered if God were to answer it.

No, God gave even beyond what Christ was asking for.

He is able to do far above anything that we ask or think, and of course he's able to do more than we think.

He is higher than us. He is omniscient. He knows all things.

He is omnisapient. He is all wise. We are, you compare yourself to incredibly intelligent people.

Think of, I don't know, think of very intelligent people like, what's the chess player, is it Magnus Carlsen?

Is that his name? Yeah. You know, any of us pale in comparison to some of the other intelligences that exist out there, and there's some very intelligent people in this room.

How much more do we pale in comparison to God's intelligence? He is omniscient, and not only is he omniscient, but he has arranged the world in such a way that he would be able to demonstrate to us his greatness by incredible discoveries.

In Isaiah, it speaks about how the farmer knows how to plant the crops and arrange everything because the

Lord teaches him. In other words, God has arranged creation in such a way that people would learn his wisdom, in seeing all the nuances of how it works and learning to manipulate it, that that teaches us that God is far wiser than us.

And having created a creation whose depths are immeasurable, and we continue discovering more and more things.

People get puffed up in pride because of technology, because they learn more about creation. They feel like they have a higher intelligence than God because of that.

What that is supposed to do is show you how much God has planted there for us to discover and show you how ignorant man is, because God is the one who put that all there for man to discover in the first place.

And in nowhere is there quite the demonstration of God's omniscience and omnisapience, his being all wise, than through the incarnation, something that man was not able to comprehend.

As people for many ages prayed for salvation to come from God, he answered far above any way that they were capable of imagining, that God would be joined with man in the person of the

Son, an incredible answer to prayer. Now not only is God able to do all these things, he is also willing to do all these things.

Now on one hand, that's natural that he would be willing to if you understand the point of this abundance.

Like I said, it is on the spectrum of or on the dimension of his glory. He is able to do more than what we pray for according to his will for his glory.

And of course he is willing to because it is for his glory. If you imagine your prayers being contrary to God against what he would want, you know we do speak of things like wrestling in prayer, then you might imagine that God is not willing to do beyond what we ask or beyond what we think.

But God is willing to because the greatness of our prayers is determined by how according they are to his glory.

And so of course he is very much willing to do far beyond anything that we ask or think because it is according to his glory to do more than we ask or think.

You see this also in Matthew chapter 7. In Matthew 7 it says,

Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will he give a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?

If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?

Why does a father give his child good things? Father desires for the sake of his own legacy to build up his children.

So God for the sake of his name in all the earth desires to give good things to his children for his glory.

Just like earlier we were talking about the beauty of the bride being for the sake of the dignity of the groom.

So it is that the blessings of the children are for the legacy of the father. This is something where God is willing to do what is good for his children because it is for the own advancement of his glorious name.

And not only is he willing, but he actually does, he actually does accomplish these things.

When you pray some prayer and you don't see it answered the way that you wanted it to be answered,

God has answered it in a more glorious way. When Abraham did not receive the spared city of Sodom, he received a more glorious answer to prayer.

When Christ prayed for this cup to pass from him, he received something more glorious than not going to the cross.

He was indeed delivered from death, but with an exaltation that came through the suffering of the cross.

When you pray, if you pray very specifically, if you limit the way that God is allowed to answer your prayer and you say, this is what must happen, this healing must happen, or you must provide for me in this way with this quantity of money, with this particular thing, etc.

Do not be surprised when those prayers are not answered. But if you pray more generally as to what the need actually is and give

God freedom in how he will answer it, he will always answer it in a way that is greater and beyond what you ask or think because he will do so according to his glory.

Our prayers are limited. They're limited, first of all, in the wisdom with which we pray them, naturally, because we lack wisdom.

I was reading recently Job 34. Some of the passages struck me. I'll bring up another passage from there in a moment.

But Job 34, verse 33 says, So Elihu, speaking to Job, basically saying,

God will give you your answers to prayer. You're not allowed to say, this doesn't count as an answer.

The way the BSB said it, I'm trying to remember, basically, should God answer you on your terms because you reject his?

I think that's the way the BSB put it. That's how so many of us go to prayer.

We say that God hasn't answered prayer when he actually did answer the prayer. You are just setting the terms.

Will he then make payment to suit you because you reject it? Don't reject his answers to prayer. Pray wisely, knowing the ways that God is capable of answering prayer.

He will answer far above anything that you ask or think. Now, there's also,

I would like you to also consider Psalm 132. Please turn to Psalm 132.

In Psalm 132, we have a song of ascent. There are just a number of motives in here.

What I'd really like you to think about is how the psalmist, and I just think this is a good example psalm, pray according to God's glory.

This is how you grow in your wisdom in prayer, is learning from the examples of Scripture and learning to pray according to the glory of God.

So I'd just like to walk through this and give you some examples of the kind of ways that you can appeal to God's glory.

Remember, O Lord, in David's favor, all the hardships he endured, how he swore to the

Lord and vowed to the mighty one of Jacob. Okay, so the psalmist is praying that God would remember

David, that he would remember that he endured hardships, and it is within God's character to uphold those and honor those who endured hardship for his name's sake.

We have all the beatitudes, blessed are those who suffer for the sake of Christ's name. Wouldn't we want the beatitudes to be elevated?

Wouldn't God want the beatitudes of Christ to be elevated? Wouldn't he want oaths, vows to the

Lord to be upheld? These are things that God has committed himself to. So you can pray accordingly that he would honor those promises that he's made.

Verse three, I will not enter my house or get into my bed, I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the

Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. This is describing David's vow to the Lord.

Verse six, behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah, we found it in the fields of Jaar. Let us go to his dwelling place, let us worship at his footstool.

Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. So now he's appealing to God's promises to exalt the temple.

Likewise, we can appeal to his promises to make Christ's name glorious in the church as something that we can appeal to.

How many times when you pray, are you just praying for something to happen and then just kind of repeating that request over and over?

Pray like the psalmist prays, where you appeal to the promises of God, you appeal to the priorities of God that his name would be made glorious in certain ways.

By the upholding of those who suffer for his namesake, by the upholding of vows made to him, by the upholding of his temple, his church.

Let your priests be clothed with righteousness and let your saints shout for joy. For the sake of your servant

David, do not turn away the face of your anointed one. You know, these are more things about the priesthood we have in the

New Testament. God has decided to make himself known through priesthood of all believers.

This is something that you can pray according to that in those answers to prayer that he would glorify himself in that priesthood.

The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back. One of the sons of your body

I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne.

A number of things here, there's God's oaths made to his people, of which there are many promises he's made.

Then this particular one to David, which we know is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ, that Christ would be made glorious.

And then moreover, for those who keep his covenant, for those who are faithful in his church, these are all things that you can appeal to.

That Christ would be made glorious through the answers to prayer. If you have a situation, for example, in your marriage or in a relationship, you want

God to answer that. Why should he answer it? Well, God has sworn to David that one would sit on the throne and be glorious.

And indeed, Christ is glorious. He is over all, but he has made himself known through his disciples. How will people know that we are his disciples?

By our love for one another. May there be a love for one another in order for that oath to be upheld, in order for David's sake, in order for God to be glorified through his people.

For the Lord has chosen Zion. He has desired it for his dwelling place. This is my resting place forever.

Here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions. I will satisfy her poor with bread.

Her priests I will clothe with salvation. Her saints I will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David.

I prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but on him I will, on him his crown will shine.

These are just a number of promises. You could walk through each one. See, okay, he will provide for his people.

God has promised us that he will provide many different times. Shouldn't he be made glorious in his providing for his people?

He has promised that Christ's strength would be made known. A horn would sprout for David. Horns refer to strength.

Shouldn't Christ's strength be made known in the way that God upholds his people? Pray in this way where you are appealing to the glory of God.

Do not just pray that God would give you something and think that you've done your task in prayer. Pray as the psalmist does according to the glory of the

Lord. This requires understanding God's purposes and understanding the ways that he would have himself to be made known.

The ways that he would make himself glorious. So many people engage in a false piety where they do not want to know deep doctrines of God because they want to follow the

Christian life in just a simple way where they they bring their prayers to the Lord. They read a little of his word, but then they aren't actually interested in knowing what the word says at a deeper level.

They don't think that anyone needs to. How often have you heard someone say, maybe you haven't, maybe this is a new pun for you, but some people say that I'm panmillennial.

And what that means is they're not amillennial or premillennial or postmillennial. These are views of the end times. They say

I'm panmillennial because it all just pan out in the end. Well, it's appropriate to have some humility about your understanding of the word.

If you don't understand, then I appreciate the comment. That makes sense. But if what your comment means is that this is not important for me to know how

God would glorify himself. And this is important to know. How does he glorify himself now? What is the trajectory of him glorifying himself?

If you really don't have an interest in that, then you aren't able to pray effectively and powerfully because you wouldn't even know how to pray according to the glory of God.

These are reasons to understand the truths that God has given us in Scripture, most especially truths that are often neglected, like eschatology, like our view of the end times, so that God would be glorified, that we would pray according to his glory.

Now, our prayers are not only limited in the wisdom with which we pray, they are likewise limited in the measure with which we pray.

Often that's just because of the wisdom, because of our lack of wisdom, we don't pray for as much as we should pray for.

Other times it's because we think it's easier for God to answer a little thing. And so we pray for something small because we think, okay, that's going to be easier for God.

It's more likely that he will give me that thing because that's easy for him. It's all equally easy for God.

In Isaiah, it says that the army and the mighty man alike are cast aside.

They lie down together. A single warrior and a whole army, both of them drowned just as easily in the

Red Sea. When God made the Red Sea collapse on Egypt's forces, it's not as though he expended more effort to destroy the whole army than if he had destroyed a single person.

It was all just one action. They all lie down together. He is just as capable of destroying a single individual as he is of destroying a whole army.

He is just as capable of giving you a small thing as giving you a great thing. Pray great prayers, asking for much from God's hand, understanding the way that he desires to glorify himself, aligning yourself with his word so that you would understand, and then pray greatly according to that.

Prayers likewise often lack belief, true belief. We are to pray knowing that God is able and knowing that he is answering.

If you think that God has not answered your prayers because you're not seeing it answered the way that you expected, then you're lacking a true belief in God's ability to answer prayer.

Job 35 verses 13 and 14 say, Surely God does not hear an empty cry, nor does the

Almighty regard it. Okay, an empty cry, that's someone who doesn't really mean what he's saying, who's pleading with the

Lord, but he doesn't really believe the Lord can answer. How much less when you say that you do not see him, that the case is before him and you are waiting for him.

This is what Job has been saying, that his case is before the Lord and the Lord's not answering his prayer. The Lord's just not seeing it, not hearing it.

Well, if you're going to treat the Lord like that, as though he's one who doesn't see, who doesn't hear, who isn't able, why should you expect an answer for that?

James 1 .6 says, But let him ask in faith with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

Do not doubt that the Lord is able and he is willing to do far beyond anything you ask or think.

So our prayers are lacking in wisdom. They are lacking in the measure.

They are lacking in belief. And likewise, they are frequently lacking in dependence, dependence on the

Lord. Why would God have us to be persistent in prayer? Especially given the consideration that we've had here.

If God does more than we ask or think, well, you ask for something and he's already going to do more than it. Why would he have us to be persistent in prayer to continue asking to making the same petition over and over?

You shouldn't just repeat the same words. You should bring them to him, renewing the thought with various pleadings according to his promise.

And perhaps that is the answer right there. The reason he would have us to be persistent is not that you would just repeat the same idea over and over, but that you would conform your mind to his.

He's able to answer all your prayers without you praying to him. He already knows what your needs are.

He is a good father. He's a perfect father. He knows exactly what your needs are and he could answer them all without us praying.

But he has us to pray in order that our minds would be aligned with his in order that we would conform ourselves to his glory.

And it is through a consistent pursuit, a persistent pursuit of prayer that our lives, our minds become more in line with his notion of glory.

We commit ourselves more further to praising him when we receive the answer and we humble ourselves further before him knowing our need of him.

All of these essentially extenuating the glory of that answer to prayer.

By having us depend on him in prayer, God makes the answers themselves more glorious in bringing him more glory.

Be dependent on the Lord in prayer knowing that it is even, it is not just the promises that you appeal to or the things that you say, but even the time spent in prayer truly depending on the

Lord that brings him more glory and is asking in a way that is asking for him to be glorified more greatly.

As we pray for the Lord to bless our congregation, to grow the work that is happening here, to expand

Christ's kingdom, most especially here in Silicon Valley, pray in these ways. Pray appealing to the promise of God.

Pray depending on him. And may we not be a people who are proud, who think that we deserve any kind of answer to prayer.

May we be consistent and persistent in our prayers, humbly depending on him in order that he would be made more glorious when that answer is given.

That is a special, there's a special application for any who are newer to this church.

Some have been here for a very long time praying for God's blessings on this church. Some have been here for a short while praying for God's blessings.

Know that if you've been here for a short while praying for God's blessings on this church, then when he answers this, there will be a special temptation for you to not appreciate that answer to prayer as much as had you been dependent for a long time.

There's a special burden to, on those who have only recently joined in these prayers to really devote themselves to the

Lord in asking that God would make his name glorious in our particular assembly and make his name glorious here in Silicon Valley.

Because you would have him to be more glorious, not just here in this place, but even in your own heart as you receive that answer to prayer.

Let us go to the Lord. Let us ask him knowing that he is able to do far beyond anything we ask or think.

Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for being such an excellent

God who is so great, who is able to make us fathom the unfathomable, to give us knowledge which is unknowable, that we might know the height and depth and length and breadth, the love of Jesus Christ.

We pray that you would make this known to us and we pray that you would accomplish it by the greatness of the power working within us, your spirit.