Fellowship with God | Selected Scriptures
Brad O’Dell | May 10, 2026

What I want to start with is putting two words before you. Those two words are these: joy and peace. Peace and joy. I just ask you, as you come in this morning, would you say that those are realities that have been present in your life this morning or in this season? “Yeah, I’ve had the peace of the Lord really securely in my life. I’ve been walking in the joy of the Lord.”

We’re going to be in the Upper Room Discourse and some other passages today. I’m just going to throw the Scripture up on the screen and just show you what Jesus said not long before he left this earth. He said this to his disciples:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

And he says in the next chapter, “These things I’ve spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.”

Peace and joy. Fullness of joy. I wonder what or how that lands on you this morning. What would that even look like? Is that even attainable? Did Jesus really mean this? In this crazy world we live in, can we really have abiding peace and lasting joy?

Today I want to talk about the concept of communion or fellowship with God. And the key idea I want you to get out of this—and everything will kind of come from this—is this: joy and peace can be ours throughout the day as we walk in fellowship with God. Joy and peace can be ours throughout the day as we walk in fellowship with God. That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning.

I’ll show you my outline, then I’ll explain what we’re going to do in this sermon. And like I said, it’s going to be a little different. Our outline is this: we’re going to start by talking about kind of a doctrinal concept of union with Christ and show how this connects to this idea of fellowship with God. We’re going to just build that out, build those concepts in a little more. Then we’re going to get very practical for the rest of the sermon and just say, what does this actually look like in our day-to-day lives? And we’ll talk about walking in the Father’s love, walking in Jesus’ grace and truth, walking in the Spirit’s strength and help.

In my sermon I’ll be following John Owen’s book called Communion with God. I’ve been reading that lately, and I found it helpful, and I think I want to present some portions of it, and hopefully you will find it helpful as well in your day-to-day walks with the Lord.

I’m going to start with this doctrinal topic and open that up and just show us how central this is to our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of our relationship with God. Then, under each of the succeeding points, I’m just going to take one Scripture passage. We’re not going to do a ton with it. We’re just going to expound the main idea in the passage and then get really practical for how that applies to our lives. We’re going to apply it towards this theme of trying to find some regularity of peace and joy in our walks with the Lord.

Now, I know it’s Mother’s Day, and a lot of you might be asking, “Is this only for the moms and I can check out, or is this for everybody?” And no, the sermon is not just for moms today. I won’t speak directly to mothers very much. However, in prayer I did select this topic with mothers maybe particularly in mind.

Over the last couple of weeks I read about twenty articles, all from the last handful of years, on the modern state of motherhood in the West. As you can imagine when you run a search like that, there were some astounding things—you might even say alarming was the tone in most of these articles. I think some of the better pieces offered some encouragement and hope, and definitely the gospel-grounded analyses definitely had a different perspective that was helpful. But I think the overwhelming consensus is that modern motherhood does have some particular challenges.

I’ll just say this: one thing became really clear. Motherhood, for most in the West, is particularly difficult, at least in our day and age, due to this, that we have very thin and limited communal structures we inhabit. Very thin and limited communal structures that we live in.

See, for most of human history parenting was done in a much more extensive community. Grandmothers and aunts and siblings and cousins and longstanding, multigenerational neighbors and friends were around to share both the workload—that is, just the actual things of carrying the baby around—it doesn’t always have to be one person—cooking the food, finding activities for the kids; all that stuff, the workload. But maybe more importantly, there are a lot more people to help carry the mental and emotional load, or the cognitive and emotional load.

This is something that came up a lot. There is an increasing cognitive and emotional load that is carried by fewer and fewer people in the raising of kids. Throughout most of human history, it was very rare and usually tragic for a family to essentially be raising a kid on their own without these other people around to help carry the load. Today it is the overwhelming expectation that that’s how it’s mostly going to be. It’s rare to have extended family and extended community to help you raise children.

So, I do think that maintaining peace and joy is a special challenge for moms these days, and my prayer is that this sermon might have some things that are particularly helpful to you.

1. Union with Christ and Our Fellowship with God

What I want to show in this point is this, that sweet, regular fellowship with God is available from our union with Christ. Two phrases there—fellowship, union with Christ. Sweet, regular fellowship with God is available from our union with Christ.

What do I mean by this fellowship? I’ve said it a few times. This is a specific definition, and we’ll get clarity on it as we go.

Fellowship is a relational dynamic between persons, a relational dynamic between two or more people, where there’s mutual giving and receiving and mutual enjoyment of one another. Mutual giving and receiving. This isn’t one-sided or a one-way dynamic, but there is mutuality. Both are giving and both are receiving from the other, to the other and from the other.

But also there’s mutual enjoyment. That means there’s companionship or unity at some level. Maybe at the professional level we can say there’s a mutuality of respect and appreciation, but at a deeper level we would say there’s a mutuality of affection, love, intimacy.

Here’s an example of how we use this phrase that might help us just see some of these dynamics at play. In Christian churches, we have fellowship meals. If you are not in the vein of Christian churches, maybe you don’t know what a fellowship meal is, but for those of us in the church, we know what a fellowship meal is, right? You have people over for fellowship, and what happens there? Usually everybody brings something, so everybody’s giving, but also everyone comes expecting to get to know others better and also to be known by others better. There’s that aspect where everyone’s giving, everyone’s receiving, everyone is seeking to enjoy one another. We all kind of understand what that setting is like, and we see those dynamics at play.

The idea is this type of relationship with God, one of sweet fellowship, is available to us. It’s available because he gives himself to us, and we are able to give ourselves to God. He loves and delights in us, and we love and delight in him.

This fellowship is available to us because of this doctrinal idea of our union with Christ. I’m going to give a more technical definition, and then it’s going to get easier from there. And again, we’re building a scaffolding here, and then we’re going to make this really practical and see how this fleshes out, but I think these are key concepts.

The Westminster Larger Catechism says it like this: “The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of God’s grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably joined to Christ as their head and husband, which is done in their effectual calling.”

I’m not going to get into some of the particular phrasings and confusing words there, but the language is very specific and helpful.

Maybe a simpler way to think of it I got from Kevin DeYoung. I’ll point you to a book here on the screen. I’m going to use this book for just this quick analysis on this idea of union with Christ. This is a very helpful book. If you’re thinking, “Man, I kind of want to get better in my theology, in my doctrine, but I mean, I pick up that systematic theology book, and it hurts just to look at it, right?” This one is nice. These are a little page, page-and-a-half long, very concentrated, devotional-style explanations of basic patterns of theology. You can use it as a daily devotional and just get little snippets. It’s also a good little resource for you to kind of brush up on a certain theological topic. I grab it for just quick crises on certain things all the time.

DeYoung says this: “Union with Christ is not a single blessing we receive in our salvation; rather, it is a necessary phrase to describe all the blessings of salvation.” So, all the blessings of our salvation are a matter of our union with Christ.

Scripture uses some important metaphors to describe our union with Christ. We saw some of these in the catechism. It’s like a marriage, where the church is the bride and Christ is the groom. It’s like a body, where Christ is the head and we are members of that body. Or it’s like a plant, where we are grafted into Christ, receiving from him new vitality, new life, new power.

It is most commonly seen in the New Testament—if you read the New Testament much, you’re going to see this all over the place—it’s most commonly denoted by the overwhelming repetition of this phrase “in Christ,” especially in Paul’s writings. “In Christ” or “in the Lord.” All we experience in salvation we experience in Christ.

We are found in Christ, preserved in Christ, saved and sanctified in Christ. We walk in Christ, labor in Christ, obey in Christ. We die in Christ, live in Christ, and conquer in Christ.

This is why Jesus, at the end of his high priestly prayer, says that “my prayer is that I may be in them,” and it’s why Paul says that “Christ in you is the hope of glory.”

Our union with Christ. What I want us to just see with that is our union with Christ is this central aspect of spiritual life, of our spiritual life, because it is only in our union with Christ, the fact that we are in Christ, that we are brought into relationship with God, a relationship where we can have this sweet, daily fellowship.

John Owen has a good phrase, and I think it gives us some imagery to help us. He says,

“The Father communicates all his love to us through Christ, and we pour out our love to the Father only through Christ. Christ is the treasury in which the Father places all the riches of his grace taken from the bottomless mine of his eternal love. Christ is the priest into whose hand we put all the offerings that we wish to give to the Father.”

You see there that mutual giving and receiving, and it all happens in Christ.

Now, I started the sermon with those questions on joy and peace. The question is, how do we actually experience that more regularly on a day-to-day basis in our lives? And my core premise is this: I think a big part of the answer lies in our learning how to walk in the fellowship with God that is ours in Christ. Christ is the treasury into which the Father places all the riches of his grace and the blessings of our salvation. So, the question is, what does it look like to walk in Christ and to make regular withdrawals from this treasury throughout our day-to-day so that we can have some joy and peace that persists even in various circumstances we’ll encounter?

I want to offer this paradigm that I think will be helpful. This is kind of the how, and then we’ll start to see how this plays out in specific ways. I found this helpful in my own walk, and I think you will too. And the paradigm is this: the core two things are receive and respond. Get those words in your head: receive and respond. Fellowship consists in receiving and also in giving. That’s what those are there. We receive with faith and thankfulness, and we respond with commitment and praise. Thankfulness is a natural posture of receiving.

So it might look like this—let’s just say it’s a crazy day. You’re stressed, your mind’s been in a lot of different places; you’re struggling to kind of figure out what to focus on and why. You might just stop and say, “God, you’re in control of everything, and I thank you.” It’s a statement of faith: “God, this is who you are, and I thank you for it.”

Now, you’re not just in the midst of your day, but you’re communing with God, and you’re receiving from him the fact that he has control of the situation. Then you respond. You say, “So, God, though I’m overwhelmed, I’m going to move forward in faith and know that you’ve got me.” Right? You just respond. That’s the response that he put on your heart in the moment.

Receive and respond. We’re going to see this play out more specifically here as well.

I’ll put another layer on here that I think I would just encourage you to try as well, and this other layer is trying to get your body, your physical body, to experience what your mind and your heart are trying to meditate on. Sometimes those two don’t always happen naturally. So, when you do this, take another step and actually rest. Experience rest. What I’m going to ask you to do is just breathe. Take a deep breath in, breathe it out slowly. Do it a few times.

When you do that, your body actually shifts, and some of what you’ve said you believe and the rest that you are seeking to experience in God will actually start to take place in your physical being. You might release as well. Actually let the tension out of your muscles, because that helps you actually start walking in these things.

The other thing I’ll say is this: rejoice. I’m going to encourage you to do this: when you’ve received a grace of the Lord, you’ve responded to him, smile. Just smile. Make yourself smile.

It is a weird thing that, even if you know you have no reason to be happy, if you make yourself smile, your body gets a little happy. Isn’t that kind of strange? All the chemicals in our brain will just start activating. And you can smile, and it’s a way of you telling yourself, “This is real, God is real, and I’m walking in that.” And as your body realizes that, then your mind and your heart and your soul grab hold of it a little bit more.

The other thing you could do is sing. To sing does something in a deep part of ourselves that just our cognitive processing doesn’t quite get to a lot of times. Smile and sing, because these are ways to consistently walk in what you’re doing here.

2. Walking in the Father’s Love (1 John 3:1)

Now, Owen encourages us to commune with each member of the Trinity individually, and it helps it become a little more actionable. I think that’s helpful as well, so that’s what we’re going to do in the rest of this message here. This idea of fellowship with God—this is what we’re looking for—and we’re trying to see what it looks like to actually have peace and joy in all the circumstances of our life as we walk closely with our Lord. So walking in the Father’s love.

Look at the Scripture, 1 John 3:1, a verse we all know, a powerful verse. “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are.”

Scripture everywhere establishes that the source and fountain of all God’s love is in the Father. We know that Jesus came and he revealed the Father’s love to us in its fullest way, but what he revealed and what he proclaimed and displayed was only that which was always in the heart of the Father toward us all along. As the Father loved the Son from all eternity, so he has given that same love to us, calling us his children. It’s a beautiful thing.

I hope you never lose sight of the wonder of the fact that of all the ways God could reveal himself to us, he revealed himself as a loving Father who wants his children to walk freely in his love.

There are a lot of analogies in Scripture that God applies to himself that bring this home. I’ll put some up on the screen—a small selection, but it gets the idea across.

Again, with the idea of Father, he’s a Father who shows compassion to his children. Maybe you’re someone here this morning who says, “Man, I need someone to care. I need some compassion.” Your Father is one who shows compassion.

He’s a Father who gives good and perfect gifts. Maybe you’re someone here this morning, you’re saying, “Man, I just feel a little destitute. I feel like I don’t have what I need.” Your Father is a Father who delights to give good and perfect gifts.

He’s a shepherd who leads his flock to provision, safety, restoral—Psalm 23, as we all know. He’s a shepherd who gathers his lambs in his arms, and he holds them tightly to his chest in protection. A really beautiful image.

The Father says he’s like a mother, a mother who comforts her child, or like a mother hen who gathers her chicks under her wings in protection.

What I want us to do is throughout our days, I want us to look for opportunities to walk in fellowship with the Father in his love. Your Father’s always before you, ready to pour out his love to you. What we are to do is to look for all those opportunities that we can turn our minds and our hearts to him to receive that.

A couple examples. When things are going well at work—just a way to see it in our lives—what might this look like? We receive. When things are going well, we say, “God, thank you. Thank you for your sure and steadfast love in my life.” You respond. You say something like, “You really are worthy of all my praise, and though this is a really good day, may I really, truly live this day unto you.”

You receive, you respond; you breathe, you smile. Now, you’re not just having a good day, and you go home to your wife and say, “It was a pretty good day. Yeah, I don’t even really know why it was, but I don’t know. Things just went smooth and I was pretty happy.” That’s nice. Days like that are nice. A sweeter experience of it is to commune with your Father throughout the goodness of your day and to see it all as a gift from his loving hands.

Maybe the more common scenario: when things are not going well at work. What might this look like? You receive. You just have to stop sometimes and say, “God, I know you love me and are in control, and I thank you that I can rely on that.” It’s a statement of faith. “God, I know You love me.”

Man, if you could get yourself there, immediately it can change your perspective. “I know that you love me and are in control. I thank you that I can rely on that.”

And then respond. Respond in the way that the Lord’s calling you to respond. You might say something like, “God, I confess. I confess I’ve been angry. I’m stressed. You know my thoughts have not been good. They’ve been awful! Please forgive me in your love. I know you love me. I want to show my love to you in the midst of all this. Please help me.”

Now you’re walking with your Father, and here’s the thing: it’s a bad day at work. It might not be a better day from there on externally, but inside, it’s a whole different experience. You really can have a joy and peace that the Father’s love is with you, even while things are stressful and hard. You can take a deep breath, blow it all out, release the tension, and rejoice in the fact that your Father’s with you, he’s for you, he loves you.

The thing is, no matter what the circumstance is and its inherent stresses, we can have that joy and peace. That’s what I want to point us to, fellowship with the Father in love.

3. Walking in Jesus’ Grace and Truth (John 1:14, 16)

John says this about Jesus: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth….For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

One of the most wonderful statements in Scripture: “From his fullness we receive, grace upon grace,” or exceeding, unending grace. It’s one of the premier, wondrous glories of Jesus Christ, that he is full of grace and truth, and from his fullness we get to receive fullness of grace, or unending grace.

John Owen calls this the chief characteristic of Christ, that he is full of grace. And grace can be understood in at least two ways. There are more, but I think this is most helpful for just a short sermon like this.

Two things—first, it’s God’s favor towards us, right? That’s a simple one. A fuller way to say it would be God’s disposition and also his actions toward us of goodwill, favor, kindness, compassion; and this is independent of our worthiness to receive these things in any given moment.

Oftentimes, we just say unmerited favor, right? We’re unworthy, all favor; and that ultimately is true, in a sense. But also, sometimes we are living lives that are praiseworthy. We are living lives that are righteous in the moment. We are living lives where we are worshiping God and living unto him, right? The idea is not that those things earn God’s grace, it’s that whether you are in that state or not, if you are a child of God, his favor is upon you. It is independent of how you’re living in any given moment, and that is a sweet and wonderful encouragement.

Secondly, grace is not just something that is given to us, but something that does something in us. It’s also God’s enabling power worked into us to actually walk in the life that he’s called us to, this good life that Jesus is calling us to, that we’ve been looking at in the Sermon on the Mount. We need strength. We need enabling power to do that, because it’s not in us ourselves, and God’s grace is worked into us to actually work out that into our lives.

But he isn’t just full of grace. Jesus is also full of truth, and this is very important. Speaking about Jesus being full of truth, here we’re speaking about the fact that Jesus is perfectly righteous, he’s good, he’s pure. Jesus perfectly communicates what is right and wrong, what is just and unjust, what is godly and ungodly, right, all of these in an absolute sense. It’s important that we have both. If we have only grace and no truth, well, then we kind of feel good in the moment, but we actually don’t have any type of spurring in us to pursue hard after the life that God’s called us to. We don’t have a conviction that comes from the truth of Jesus. If we only have truth, well, then we really know the standard of God, and we really know what we are trying to attain. It’s focusing, but it’s crushing, because eventually we will not be able to attain it, and we need grace to come and to minister to us in those times where we fall short, of course.

We need the truth of Jesus to convict and call us; we need the grace of Jesus to continually restore and enable us. And like Owen said, Jesus is this storehouse and this treasury of grace and truth, full of grace and truth; and we are to seek to draw from that in all the areas we can to receive peace and joy.

I thought of parenting when I came to this point. I think of parenting with the idea of truth in mind. I think oftentimes with parenting, we just actually don’t know what to do in any given moment. We don’t know what to do. We don’t know what’s the right course of action. Are we supposed to parent like this, or are we supposed to parent like this? Are we supposed to give our kids to these institutions or these institutions? Are we supposed to—in this moment when our kid does something crazy, and we didn’t know that was in them—are we supposed to respond like this, or do we step back and respond like this? Do we bring other people into their lives to speak into their lives in a way I can’t, or do I invest more time and try to break through that barrier myself? And there aren’t easy answers to any of these things. Sometimes there isn’t a clear answer. Sometimes you just don’t know what to do.

I think it’s a comfort to know that Jesus is full of truth. He is full of that which is right and good and pure. And though I might not have an easy answer, I know I can turn to him and say, “Jesus, you know what is best, you know what is right. So please give me understanding. Give me wisdom. Give me strength that I need to do what needs to be done. And as I give it over to you, then I’ll just do what I think is best and walk in it.”

Even more often I think we mess up as parents. We have failures of character. We give in to life stresses and pressures, and it comes out in our family relationships, in front of our kids. It’s a crushing thing to have a failure of character in front of your kid and to see its impact on them.

I just want to say from God’s word to you this morning, parent, Jesus is full of grace upon grace for you. Because of his grace, you can be secure. You can confess where you’re wrong. You can confess where you’re wrong to your family members, to your children. You can ask for forgiveness. And you can trust that he has enabling grace to help you walk in righteousness and to walk with him moving forward.

Those are difficult times, all these things. They’re stressful. They’re discouraging. But there can be a joy and a peace in Christ that is underneath it all, even in the midst of some of these difficult experiences.

4. Walking in the Spirit’s Strength and Help (John 14:16-17; 16)

Jesus says,

“I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth. Nevertheless, I tell you, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”

That’s one of the more just stunning passages in Scripture, where Jesus says, “Listen, it’s good for you that I’m going away, because I’m sending another. It’s going to be better when he comes because of the ministry that he’s going to work into you.”

The word translated “helper” in the ESV is this Greek word from which we get the word “paraklete.” “Paraklete” is one in the Greek who comes alongside another or one who gives support; and that’s who the Spirit is for us. He’s God working in us. He works to enlighten us, to regenerate us. He leads us into holiness, he transforms us, he gives us assurance, he gifts us for ministry; and of course, he gives abundant strength and help. He delights in giving us strength and help in our moments of need.

Of course, there are innumerable moments where we need this ministry of the Spirit. The point is we can have sweet fellowship with him as we seek and receive these ministries and also the fruit that he produces as he works.

It looks like this, when you’re struggling with temptation to sin—I don’t know what your struggles with temptation are, I don’t know what the ones are that come up really regularly for you. Sometimes we turn away from God, we try to hide, we harden our hearts. Sometimes we get discouraged, sometimes we get angry, sometimes we distract and cope—all kinds of things. But there can be a peace and a joy even as you’re experiencing temptation, as you believe in and receive the Spirit’s gift of self-control.

Self-control can look a lot of different ways, but if you’re turning it over to the Spirit and seeing him work it out, there can be a communion with the Spirit, even in the midst of temptation to sin, which is where we would least expect to see him being present.

When you’re stressed or anxious, the fruit of the Spirit is peace. You can turn to him and receive this from him. Let it work into your heart.

On a more positive note, when you are full of the love and joy of the Lord, right—you just are in a good season, a sweet season, things are going well—you can have fellowship with the Spirit, because he gave you that. He worked that into you. And you can join fellowship with him by giving him praise.

Maybe just when you’re tired and beat down…I’ll say maybe one of the things we hear as pastors the most from people is this: “Pastor, I’m just tired. I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I’m overwhelmed, and I don’t have the energy to get it done.” Too busy, too tired. It’s a condition of our day. When you’re weak, the Spirit says he is one who helps us in our weakness. He intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, and he intercedes for us according to the will of the Father. So even when you’re too tired to pray for yourself or to sort through what’s going on in your own heart, you can turn to the Spirit and say, “Spirit, I thank you that you see. You know the deepest part of me, and I know that you are interceding on my behalf, even though I don’t know how to intercede for myself right now.” You can have a sweet fellowship with the Spirit even when you’re exhausted and beat down.

That’s the paradigm I wanted us to see today. I want you to grab hold of it and just see if you can work it into your day-to-day lives a little more, because as we receive the grace of the Lord and respond to him in faith, this is what it is to walk in fellowship with him, or—other language of Scripture—it’s what it is to live unto the Father as Jesus lives unto God. It’s what it is to abide in Christ. It’s what it is to walk by the Spirit so that we don’t gratify the desires of the flesh—all the scriptural language is speaking to the same reality. We really can do this all throughout the day and experience the peace and joy that Jesus has given us in our union with him.

Now, one more word for moms in the audience today. I want to just say this: If you’re a mom here this morning, if you are in the work of mothering (even if they’re not your direct children), I want to thank you for your sacrifice of love. It’s very difficult for others to see it all. However, your Father sees, and he knows. I mean, the love of God is presented as—I can only think of it—it’s like a really proud dad, or like a really proud parent, where yeah, I mean, they see where you could grow; yeah, they see that you’re not perfect. But you know what they see? They see all the wonder and all the good and everything that’s going right, and they’re just proud of you. That’s how your Father looks at you.

Secondly, motherhood is a high calling, and it will stress the weak points of your life. When you do big things, it puts big pressure on you, and it stresses the weak points of your life.

I’d like you to hear that Jesus is a sympathetic savior and a friend. He’s full of grace toward you. If you find it difficult to receive grace from others, or to give yourself grace, I would encourage you to look at Jesus, who is full of grace for you, and to receive it this morning. Take a deep breath, smile, and know that it’s true. There is unending grace to help in all of your areas of need.

Finally, I’ll just say this. Motherhood has some unique burdens and challenges and griefs attached to it, even as it has all of its unique wonders and joys, right? Don’t forget those. But I think sometimes it can be difficult for others to bear those burdens with you and to understand them. Sometimes the experience of motherhood is kind of feeling lonely or feeling unseen. Just hear this: the Spirit understands at the very deepest part of your soul, even if you don’t understand it all yourself. And it is his joy and his privilege to be alongside you, to give you strength and help. And he is already interceding for you, asking that the Father’s goodness and will would be done in your life. Trust in him and receive his ministry of help.

I pray the peace and the joy of Jesus would just be with you in a special way this Sunday. I’m asking that by the love of God, the grace of Jesus, and the strength of the Spirit. Let’s pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for just these big core truths; that God loves us, he’s full of grace, and he’s here to help in our times of need. If we’ve been around the church long, we all know that. Lord, we confess that oftentimes it’s just not an actionable reality in our lives. We want to be a people who really do walk in a close, intimate relationship with you and receive the ministries that you provide us by your grace, all the gifts and blessings that are ours that we enjoy in Christ because of your love for us.

Lord, I pray what Paul prayed for the believers in Ephesians 3 for us this morning. I pray, Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of your glory you may grant us to be strengthened with power through your Spirit in our inner beings, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith; that being rooted and grounded in love we 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 God that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

God, you are able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. So to you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, amen.