"LET ALL THE SAP FLOW IN"

MF Blume
JANUARY 24, 1999 am

Ephesians begins by listing all the wonders that are involved in the present work of God in the church.
THIS work has been reserved from the beginning of the world and never even made known until Jesus came.

Notice what this work is all about:

1:3 All blessings in heavenly places are for those who are in Christ.

1:4-6 God has this for us because He chose for people to be in Christ and be holy and blameless. he preplanned for people to be in Christ so that even the angels would praise Him for his grace that He gave us in Christ.

1:10 Before there was a Jew and a gentile, two separated people, God chose to have a single group made up of all nations and races, and even angels! All the Old Testament distinction between Jew and Gentile was only temporary.
God planned from the beginning of the world, long before there was an Old Testament, to have one people made up of all nations from the earth.

1:13-14 And God gave us a downpayment to guarantee we will have the full unlimited experience of inheritance when our bodies are raptured.

Ephe 1:9-12 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; [even] in him: In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.

Ephe 2:19-22 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner [stone]; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

Ephe 3:14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Ephe 3:15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,

PRAYER REQUEST ONE:
Ephe 3:16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
PRAYER REQUEST TWO
Ephe 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;
PRAYER REQUEST THREE
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
Ephe 3:18-19 May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

The dispensation of the fullness of times refers to the time when Jesus Christ came to this world.

I used to think it referred to the end of the world, but then I read this:

Gala 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,

The period of the fulness of times referred to God's right time for the great plan to be fulfilled.

Since Jesus came, there is now this great plan fulfilled in the world.
RIGHT NOW.
NOW there is the one group of all nations.
NOW there is a great temple built up and we are God's habitation.
And in chapter 3, Paul is saying that we can miss the whole thing right now and only skimp by if we are thinking everything is over in heaven and nothing is here right now that can be so full of glory, and miss the greater inheritance afterwards.

In 3, we read about three prayer requests that Paul had in lieu of the fact that right now there is so much to experience.

And that is what we want to concentrate upon this morning.
You can tell what the apostles stressed in their ministries by looking at what things they said they prayed for more than anything else.

PRAYER REQUEST ONE

3:16 says that we should be strengthened with might by His very Spirit living in us.
And he said, "according to the riches of his glory."
There are riches of His glory in the Kingdom of Heaven.
According to that degree of riches, we should be strong within by the Spirit of God.
Why settle for less than what there is for us?
We should be strengthened in a degree that would correspond to the wealth of God's glory.
It is like skimping by with a ten dollar budget, thinking we cannot spend any more than ten dollars, when in reality we could go ahead and spend and spend and spend, according to the great wealth there is for us in the Kingdom.
Stop skimping in the Kingdom of God.

PRAYER REQUEST TWO

3:17a
They should exert such faith that Jesus is a PRESENT SAVIOUR.
He prayed that Jesus would settle down and actually live and dwell in them permanently.
There is a faith we can exert so that it causes Christ to actually make a permanent home inside of us.

PRAYER REQUEST THREE

v. 18-19
They need to know by experience the love of God.
All of its vastness.
Height, breadth, width and depth.
All of it.
This far surpasses knowledge without experience.
Not just know about it.
Why waste all this precious time and simply know there is an experience of love when, according to all the vast wealth and riches of the Kingdom, we could all enjoy it right now?

We spend time studying books for our careers and jobs to better our positions in there...

We sacrifice sleep and time to do what our secular jobs require every now and then....
But sometimes we can take the things of God's business in this world, the things that bring praise and glory to Him, and slip by without much concern and dedication as we do with our jobs.
And the only thing that is going to last for eternity is that things which is done for the kingdom of God.
We ought to do the things of God and not leave the other undone.

We need this experience of knowing His love so that we will be flooded with all of God throughout every single part of our beings.

Verse 20 says that He can do this in such a manner that would be far beyond what our imaginations can think.
We need to be so rooted and grounded in love for him that he fills us through and through with his goodness.
3:14 says FOR THIS CAUSE.
What cause?
Because of the reason of the great plan of God that is right now going on.
Right now the church is being built up a into a great temple of both Jews and Gentiles, when only Jews were involved in God before Jesus came.
God is doing a fantastic thing right now in the great temple of believers.
And for us to fully enjoy it and take part in it, he prayed these three requests.

In order to right now enjoy all that God has for us, we are going to have to Exert faith to such an extent that we are rooted in his love and He makes his very home inside us permanently.

We must get rooted in Him.

Ephe 4:1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

And in chapter 4 he begins saying we therefore need to live lives that suit the calling we have been given.

In other words, according to the great work God is presently doing, why do we not live lives that suit it?
Why skimp by spiritually?

I challenge all of you, as Paul challenged the Ephesians, tap into everything you can possibly get out of this Kingdom.
Enter the stage of christianity where God does beyond what you can even imagine.

Go past knowing about it without experiencing it.
Get flooded with God, Himself, through your very being!!!!

Let me highlight this thought of we being rooted in Him and Him dwelling in us permanently by faith.

John 15:1-5 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every [branch] that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye [are] the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Verse 4 says "abide in me" then after this Jesus said, "And I in you."

This is what Paul said in Ephesians.
We exert faith so that Christ dwells in us.
We get rooted to the vine so that it causes all of the sap that is in the vine to be able to flow so fully and flood us the branches.
We unite in Him and get rooted in Him.

How do we unite and get rooted into Him?

What is the thing we have to have faith in in order to let Him dwell in us by our faith?
If we can determine what the faith He is talking about is all about, then we can concentrate on that faith and exert it strongly.
We can work on that and make our faith increase.
It is faith that allows Him to flow through us flooding us with that Life.

That faith that unites us into Him is faith that we are in union with Him in his death.

We are so united to Him that when He died all of us were said to be dead.
But people do not get all that this means.
For example, we actually ruin the flow of the Spirit when we look at ourselves as inadequate, and weak and we think it is such a struggle to get by each day as a christian.
We are totally forgetting our union with Him.

That is the reason Paul began the issue in chapter 1 with the fact that God's power for us is corresponding to the power of ascension when He raised Jesus from the dead.

You have got to remind yourself that you are over every power there is.
This is the faith that allows God's power to pass into you, and give you victory.
This roots us in Him.
We are rooted when this faith is strong within us.
Work on it.
Get your bibles out and read Ephesians 1:15-23 and see how the power God has for you is according to the power and the great victory with which He raised Christ from the dead and set him over all enemies.
That power cannot flow into you, though, until you believe this union is real.

Roma 6:11-12 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

We have to keep this record before us all the time!

We must stand on it and exert faith in it that it is true.
Experience His love flowing through you and go beyond simply knowing about it.
Take this seriously and tap into it all.

We are dead to sin through Christ.

"Through Christ" ought to be the most precious words to us all.
"Through Christ" means that because of our union to Him, whatever he experienced in death and resurrection is ours.
And since He died once to sin, then we died to sin.
"Through Christ," our old lives of inadequacy are gone.
But when we do not know about that and do not exert faith in it, then we simply think we are as inadequate as we were before we were saved.
We look at our weakness before we were saved and say that is us.
No, that WAS us.
Through Christ's death on the cross, we became totally new creatures.

Paul picks this up again at the end of Ephesians.

Ephe 6:10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

Draw your strength out from Him who is like a vine and you are a branch.

Draw out the sap.
You worry about staying connected.
Don't worry about the fruit.
The branch does not force fruit out and do its best to see fruit grow.
All the branch needs to do is make sure it lets the sap flow into itself.
And that happens by being plugged into the vine.
And we plug into the vine by exerting faith that we are ONE WITH HIM in His death.

Roma 6:10-12 For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

Why do we not have to let sin reign over us?

Because we are dead to sin.
When you believe His death was your death, so much so that it affects the way you live now, and you experience victory, then you are letting Him dwell in you by faith.

Colossians also mentions this:

Colo 1:21-23 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in [your] mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight: If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and [be] not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, [and] which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

We will be presented at the end holy and blameless, IF WE CONTINUE IN THE FAITH.

Some say, "How can I ever make it to heaven as a blameless person?"
Simple.
Learn right now to continue in the faith.
MAINTAIN this connection to the vine by believing you are dead with Christ, to allow the life to flood into you.
Abide in Him regularly and stay there.
CHRIST IN YOU IS YOUR HOPE OF GLORY.
And this is more than just having the Holy Ghost.
CHRIST DWELLS IN YOU IF YOU ABIDE IN HIM.
THE SAP IN YOU is Christ in you.

Colo 1:27 To whom God would make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Paul warned every man about this.

Talk to him and let him know we want this.