How are you? How is your week going? Has it been filled with the richness of the gospel?
The vision for our ministry is the richness of the gospel manifested in the hearts and minds of God’s people. This is not just the vision for our ministry, but we hope that this may be the vision for your individual lives.
In Ephesians 3, Paul’s prayer brings into view the Triune God. He prays to the Father, asking that the Spirit may strengthen us and that Christ may dwell in us.
For what ultimate purpose? It’s for us to “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” (vv. 18-19).
One of the main goals of the Triune God working in us is to know the love of Christ that is for us. We are to know the breadth which is so wide that we cannot hide from it, the length which is so long that we cannot run away from it, the height which is as high as the heavens, and the depth which reaches to the pits of our souls.
Our desire is for us to know the love of Christ more and more together. We desire that the richness of the gospel be manifested in our minds.
However, we don’t want this richness just in our minds but also our hearts. Paul says that this love surpasses knowledge, meaning that this love has to go from the mind and go deep into the heart.
That’s why we desire that the richness of the gospel be manifested in our hearts, not only in our minds.
And what’s beautiful about Paul’s prayer is that this vision is not ultimately dependent on us. We will do our best to pursue this vision with all our programs and relationships. However, this vision is not possible through our own strength and ability.
Then, upon whom is this vision dependent? How can the incomprehensible be made comprehensible? How can the impossible be made possible?
It’s through God himself, “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (v. 20). He makes the impossible possible. He makes our vision obtainable. We go in Him and through Him. He is the One who is able.
How do we know this? It’s because of the sending of the Son. We receive the complete love of God, because Christ received complete wrath of God for our sins. We can live in the fullness of God, because Christ emptied Himself to the point of death on the cross.
Through Christ, now we are able to pursue our vision. New Life, let us pursue this together in humility and in prayer.
See you all at Lord’s Day Worship this Sunday! Pray for one another.
In Christ,
Pastor Tim
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