Eph 3:14-21 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 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. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.
	As we begin a new year, it is good to look back and see what God has been doing. There has been much going on in our midst over these past days, weeks, months and year. The call of God to His Church has been very active, not just in the hearts of those gathered here this evening, but in the midst of even our youngest members. It seems that there has been an emphasis growing to become more fully incorporated and knit together into that which God has determined for His Body of Believers. 
	This passage in Ephesians is a marvelous expression of a heart after God in prayer. It has several aspects which we, individually, and as members of the corporate Church, should have made part of us. We have been spending much time before the Lord concerning intercessory prayer, and one of the many keys that has been our focus is the fact that we need to be made empty of our selves and our concerns of how things should be, and rather seek after God, in one heart, after that which is to His glory on this earth.
	We are to be made the corporate expression of the One Who now indwells us, and lives His life out from us unto this earth. Our hearts need to be so melded together, that the spiritual realm can truly see only Christ in us. We are His representation on this earth, the vessel through which God has free expression of His Love in Christ.
	As we have been seeing, the vastness of this work of God defies human comprehension. It takes all the omniscience of God to clearly see the magnitude of the work He has put forth in His great Love wherewith He has loved us, and gave Himself for us. It places us into a position before the very throne of God, in Christ Jesus, to which the Apostle Paul herein refers.
	The Apostle Paul, in the prior verses announces the great mystery of Christ. The gentile nations are fully included in the manifest glory of the love of God in Christ Jesus, to the utmost. In fact, as he states in verses 10 + 11 ...To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:...
	This magnificent glory of God that has been revealed unto Paul for the benefit of the Church causes him to make the pregnant statement: For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,... Initially to be considered is the fact of the position in which the Apostle Paul places Himself before God. Now, please don’t take this as a doctrinal stand to be used in prayer. Far from any idea of man-made interdictions, we are attempting to consider the spiritual aspects of our lives in Christ, and are limited to but human language to describe spiritual reality.
	The Apostle Paul is bowing his knees unto God. Although this may well have been his physical position, praying on his knees, that is entirely immaterial to the conditions that this conveys spiritually. There is held, within this mental picture, much that we lose because of the culture of our day. Today, man refuses to bow before authority and power. There is a revulsion, within society today, against any form of submission to another, as represented in bowing before another.
	The Apostle Paul has no qualms about proclaiming this truth, because he knows to Whom he is bowing and unto Whom he is praying. There is no hesitation in declaring that the One, True, Holy and Living God, Creator of all should be considered in terms of humble servitude on our part. We should approach God, knowing full well, that He is due our homage, our praise, our thankfulness, our willing subservience. There is no shame in prostrating ourselves before Him in utter humbleness of being. All that we are is because of His great Love wherewith He loved us, in Christ Jesus. Our very presence before Him is simply because we are now found in Christ Jesus, and are covered over in His robe of righteousness. Sin has no place before God. It is utter consumed in the fire of His holiness. We have no concern upon that vein of truth, because Christ has done away with any speck of sinfulness in us before God, washed it away with His precious life blood.
	To this world, the entire aspect of being prostrate and subservient before God is a mockery of all that humankind cherishes. From the days of the Garden, man has wanted complete independence from, and equality with God. Man has made innumerable idols to fill the spiritual void apart from God, and will never admit that God is the only way of life. There are so many religions, so many choices available in the imaginations of man to do away with God, and yet, everywhere mankind goes, God brings him face to face with his humanity and his frailty. Death is the price of rejecting God. We are not just referring to the passing away of these human shells, but an eternity in death, complete separation from God. There is no greater loss mankind can suffer than to be without the determined relationship of creation with His Creator. We were made to be in fellowship, eternal fellowship with God. In Christ, we have that fellowship now, even before our earthly bodies return to dust. But, those who purposely reject God and His momentous gift of Love and Life, His Son, Jesus Christ, will never be in any relationship with God. They will be eternally gnashing their teeth and wailing in the pitiful choices they have made to do away with God in their hearts. Their stubbornness and pride will sentence them to that darkness of which only their godless seat of passion can conceive.
	There is no hesitation, for the Church to bow before God. There is no concern about individual rights and demands of independence. We have no desire for independence from our God. Far from it, we desire an ever increasing and utter reliance upon Him to be our everything. We echo the sentiment of the Apostle Paul, once again, in Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 
	We have no desire to be anything in ourselves. We seek not after the things that would bring glory to our names, and to our beings. Rather, we are whole-heartedly after God and His Glory on this earth. In that humble knowledge of Him, we prostrate ourselves willingly before Him, in an audience with our God.
	This brings forth another nugget of truth from this evening’s passage. The Apostle Paul humbly bows his knees unto God. There is the utmost measure of respect in this attitude of humbleness before God. Maybe this is another measure of the decline of this society, but coming to God in a respectful manner for Who He is seems to be on the decline, even in the midst of the Body of Believers. When we come into the presence of God, in Christ Jesus, there should be joy, and praise and gladness in our hearts, and a humble contriteness in our beings. 	Everything should be considered in light of the One to Whom we are presenting ourselves. We come to God, given free access through Jesus Christ. As such, and in Him, we should be very mindful that we owe Him our everything. He is not lording anything over us. We are not trying to brow-beaten into any form of bondage, but there should be a heart-felt honor to God. He is the Creator. He is the Holy One. He is Yahweh. He is worthy of our complete respect and admiration. Anything less is the mockery of this world which tries to infest and insinuate itself into every vein of our relationship with God. We should be in readiness to meet God in a sincerity of being that proclaims to the world that our God reigns supreme and eternal. That is not done with a lackadaisical attitude and without preparation. 
	Respect to God requires that we are fully cognizant of our demeanor before Him. Our words are measured in the light of Christ. Of course we can come before Him in singing and joy. We are not talking Puritanical solemnity. That was a man induced false sense of prideful behavior. There is gladness in the presence of our God. There is also utmost esteem for Him. And, because we esteem Him, we present Him with the best that we have to offer. We give Him our everything in all the serious reality of what that means in our lives. The things of God are never to be taken lightly or as entertainment. What is truly of God is filled with all that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ intends in His only Begotten Son.
	 Additionally, as we consider the Apostle’s bowing unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we discover another wonderful truth in Christ. Along with the reality of being in the complete service of God, in setting aside every human desire in true subjection to the spiritual reality of God in Christ Jesus, Paul knows to Whom he has come in prayer. It is not a matter of hopefully petitioning some leader, such as Caesar or some deity of wood or stone or gold. Paul is before the Father of Jesus Christ in a true sense of family. We are now made part of the very family of God by virtue of being in Christ Jesus. We are now fellow heirs in Christ. The Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is our very Father in Heaven. There is a true filial relationship that is ours now before the Father. We have free access, night or day to the throne of God. It requires no appointment, no special dispensation, no extraordinary envoy. We come to the Father because we are before Him in the Son. 
	This wonderful truth is laden with all the blessings of the Godhead poured out in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit, the Son, and the Father delight in welcoming us into His presence with all the joy of heaven opened before us. The throne of God is the Throne of Grace. It holds forth all the treasury of the heavenlies unto us as the Body of Christ. In Him, we are accepted into the Beloved and considered the apple of the Father’s eye. He looks kindly and wonderfully upon us, and works to make the very best of His storehouses to be effective in our lives on this earth. The honor and the glory of the Father envelops us into his very heart, and He is “always there for us”, as we say today. The grandeur of the Father enfolds all of us with the magnificence of Himself, and lets us marvel, along with all the saints, at the great love with which God so deemed to love us. This, too, should cause us to fall to our knees before Him, so overlaid with the magnitude of His Agape.
	  Another aspect to the Apostle’s bowing his knees before God is in the knowledge that he comes to the One who can answer prayer. This is not a frivolous step or consideration by any of us. So often we are heard to give expression to wishes. I wish I had money, I wish I could do that, I wish I looked like so and so. Then we take it a bit further with statements like, If only God would do this or that. We put our desires before Him and want Him to meet us where we want to be. That is the way of this world. The focus on us, our desires, our wants our thoughts of what would be best.
	We come before the One Who is Omnipotent. That means that He is able to do anything that is in line with His eternal purpose. There is not a power on heaven or on the earth or under the earth that has any sway in the plan and purpose of God. What He plans, He accomplishes. What He does, none can undo. What He sets into motion, no one or nothing can stop. Have we ever stopped to consider all this in light of our coming before Him. Sometimes we are so frivolous in our requests and petitions. We use canned prayers that we have been taught to say with ceremonial abandon. We proffer unto God fleeces and beggings in order to get the meager measures of our desires, without a thought unto the fact that we are addressing the One Creator of Heaven and Earth. This is not to imply that we should beseech Him for fame and fortune beyond our means. What I am trying to point out is that we come before the Father, the Only Living God in Whom all the power on earth and in heaven resides. As such, we should approach Him in the confidence that He will accomplish that which He sets forth in His power from before the foundation of the world was even laid. We are not sniveling cowards to beg before our God. We are members of His family unto whom He desires to lavish the fullness of Jesus Christ in all faithfulness. He is able to do far above all that we could even conceive, and thank the Lord that He does. He heals whom He chooses to heal. He afflicts whom He chooses to afflict. In everything He does, it is always with the glory of His Son in view. Can we come to Him in the light of that reality and not fall on our knees before the Almighty One, and glory in the righteousness of His power to usward who believe on Him? 
	Think for a moment about the time that each of us learned that God does answer prayer in a most marvelous manner. It might have been during a time of joyous celebration of marriage or the birth of a new life. For all of us, it was at the time of our salvation when we called upon God out of the depths of our iniquity to save us, and He responded wholeheartedly within the twinkling of an eye. Other times include those instances when we have been grievously in travail and anguish, times of death and destruction and disease when God reached down and pulled us up into the loving embrace of His very arms. God’s Omnipotence knows no human endeavor, it only knows the glory of God in Christ Jesus. In Him, we are moment by moment upheld in all the strength of the Holy Spirit indwelling and nurturing us. The beauty of the strength of God’s response to prayers is not limited the wondrous miracles of joy, but He is seen in every aspect of our sojourn on this earth. He proves Himself in life and death, in health and in sickness, in riches and in poverty. No area is beyond the power of God to prove Himself to His glory over and over again. Is that not sufficient cause to make us bow our knees before Him in prayer?
	Hand in hand with the Omnipotence of God is His Omniscience. As we have just mentioned, God proves Himself over and over again in our lives to His glory. He knows what is best for our lives. He works to make that knowledge our very heart’s desire. Much of what we pray is not in line with the glory of God being manifested in our lives on this earth. 	Thankfully, God will not answer a prayer that does not work to manifest the blessings of Christ in this realm. It is as the Church finds herself brought into line with the desire after Him, only, to be glorified, that we learn to effectively pray on this earth. The models of the prayers that Christ left us all had their focus on the glory of God being accomplished on earth as it is in Heaven. There was no self seeking or happenstance praying in the light of Christ. Everything and everyone that was brought forth was delivered into the glory of God being accomplished, completed and furthered. Whether that was in the person, through the circumstances, healing illness, or delivery from death, the focal point was the glory of God. Have we been brought to such a place in our hearts? Can we join the Apostle Paul on our knees before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and seek after His glory alone in every situation, removing us from the picture and seeking only after the Glory of God to shine forth on this earth through the vessel of the Church? 
	If that truly becomes the heart of the Church, this world will not tolerate it. It will bring forth tribulation and persecution, just as the world tried to eliminate the light of God in Christ Jesus. There is no need for fear or dread, however, because, glory be to God, He is the One in charge of all things. We bow our knees before Him in all His mercy and Love and we know that we are secure in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior, forever and forever.
	Eph 3:14-21 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 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. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.