Eph 3:14-19  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. 
	Over the course of the recent weeks, we have been seeing some of the elements that are part of a continuing on into maturity in Christ Jesus. We have been witnesses to the fact that God has a far greater heart after mankind than some would yet realize. His plan and purpose for the church is fully set in the life of Jesus Christ, inseparable, unto His glory in this whole of creation. We have dealt with some of the aspects of what spiritual maturity encompasses. It is not a thing that can be developed. It is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, revealed by the Holy Spirit, and living His life forth, from us, unto this whole of creation. This evening, we will continue to consider our passage in the light of who we are in Christ, and more directly, the Beloved of God, as His perfected Church. He is to be the all encompassing focus of who we are, how we live, and why we have even been created to sojourn on this earth.
	As with all scripture, the Holy Spirit has given us the means to further comprehend His Word through similar passages that build, explain, open, and highlight each other. It is humanly amazing how absolutely interlocked the Word of God is, as we study it. Yet, it is not spiritually amazing, since every passage, every word, every thought, is from God, unto us, and pointing assuredly to the Lord Jesus Christ. 
	2 Peter 3:18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.  Last week, we spent much of our time with the truth of the need to grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We will not belabor that point, but we will add the truth of the need to grow in grace. The grace of God, how wondrous to consider! He has placed us into the dispensation of the grace of Christ Jesus. 
	Oh the glorious grace of God! It is beyond the scope of our human minds to realize just how fully blessed we are in the heart of God. It is by His grace that we have been showered with all the mercy that has been wrought in the giving of the Lord Jesus Christ to bring us into the very heart of God. There have been many songs that extol the amazing grace of God to us ward. There have been countless tellings of the mighty grace of God covering His Beloved, day in and day out, through the perils of the sojourn on this earth. Even so, with all the songs and all the testimonies, there is a depth to God’s grace that we have not even begun to plumb in our lives. It is only by the grace of God that we are alive at this moment, to learn of the greatness of His omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence.
	Yet, as glorious as is the grace of God unto our salvation, and unto our walk in this realm, there is much more that it entails in our lives. The knowledge of it is what will serve to bring glory to God in the entirety of His creation. The verse reads to Him be glory both now and for ever. It will be as the universe resounds with the chorus of the amazing grace of God’s love by His Church, His Beloved, that all nature will be shaken from its slothful decay, and infused with the swift manifestation of just how mighty God is to save, even such as we, unto Himself. The gracious aspect of God’s eternal plan will reverberate throughout the very depths of all the cosmos, even hell itself, as God is given glory upon glory for the great accomplishment of the victory of Jesus Christ. 
	And that is just the initial view that this creation will witness of the mighty working of God in all His grace. Oh the wondrous grace that has been poured into His Beloved in the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide, direct, teach, and keep those who are the called of God, those who would respond to the grace of God in action. Just as Christ is a gift of God’s grace, so also is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as we have previously described. The grace of God has made every provision for us by the Holy Spirit. He is the means by which we are brought into the reality of the life that we now have in Christ Jesus. 
	As well as the grace of God in us, we are the vessels though whom the grace of God is expressed unto others. This is not stating any thing along the lines of our having the slightest earthly means of attaining to any aspect of God’s grace for others. That is in no wise what we are contemplating before the Lord. Rather, it is as the grace of God indwells us, through the precious Holy Spirit, that we become the vessels through whom that grace is evidenced by others. Our lives become the living testimonies of the grace of God, as we live on this earth. He brings us into those situations where His grace is abundantly evidenced for the benefit of ourselves and the benefit of others. Those about us often seek to know how we can still be strong as everything seems to be collapsing. They truly marvel at how we are still able to rejoice in the Lord, as the world crumbles all around us. In the glorious safety of the Holy Spirit’s comforting arms, we give forth the truth that we are kept only by the grace of God. As that is seen, so are others drawn to know what is the tremendous truth of a life hid in Christ, covered by the grace of God.
	2 Peter 1:2-8 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
	Oh the joy of God’s Word as He brings forth more of the great love that is ours in Christ Jesus. Along with grace, there is the peace of God that floods our beings. That peace is multiplied in our lives, through the knowledge of God. We are at peace with God throughout His dealings in our lives. There is no angst with the work that God is doing in us to establish His perfection. While that work is a bitter end to our self-lives, it is never to our undoing. There is the peace of God reigning in us, bringing us to the end of ourselves throughout the very midst of these seeming trials and tribulations. Yes, the things we go through are not pleasant, neither are they necessarily the way that we would choose to do things in our lives, but we know and we rest in the fact that they are the way the Lord has chosen to most effectively and efficiently deal with us in His loving kindness and tender mercy. He makes Himself known to us and that brings peace in the midst of the chaos of our natural tendencies.
	That peace is the cornerstone of who we are in Christ, as His Beloved. It is multiplied day by day along with His grace. It is the reality that there is glory due to the Father for the grace that has been established in the union of mankind with Himself, in Christ Jesus. As the church, the body of Christ, manifests the life that is secure in the peace of God, the entirety of this realm of bedlam and anarchy viewing the revealed handiwork of the peace of God will be shaken to its core. There will be no peace for those who make the choice of being at enmity with God and refusing to accept the peace of God through the victory of Jesus Christ.
	According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: … Virtue, what a word to be used to describe who we now are in Christ Jesus. It is a word that connotes a variety of truths about the Beloved of God. It is the targeted reality of how we should be seen on this earth, in Christ Jesus. To many, it represents an ideal, a goal after which a life should be focused. But, in Christ, it is His nature by which we operate today, not a goal for the here-after. To be described as virtuous, is to be pointedly living a life that is pleasing to God in every respect. 
	This world, in its corrupted nature, often ridicules virtue in its stories, its music, its entertainment and its tainted values. Virtue is seen as old-fashioned and dull, not part of the “good life,” as it is presented in the mass media. That is because virtue is a Godly characteristic that brings this world face-to-face with its own defects. Virtue describes godliness, God-centeredness. There are those throughout history who have been honored because they were considered to be men and women of virtue in a human scale. The truth is, however, that true virtue will never be honored by this realm until that day of being brought face-to-face with the truth of God’s glory in Christ Jesus. 
	True virtue can only be seen in Christ. In Him, we are given the nature that desires nothing more than to be unto God all that He requires. It is that God-mindedness that is completely focused solely on what would please the Father in all things. This is a life that we live, not because we have too, but because we are now so attuned to the Holy Spirit that we can do nothing other than what He directs and proves in our beings. Our interaction with the world becomes one of service unto all. We become hungry after what would please God in dealing with our enemies. We lift them up in prayer, and in grace, and in mercy, to become the recipients of the great love with which we have been so fully loved. We hold fast to the love of God on their behalf, and on the behalf of all our loved ones, as well, and offer even our own salvation if it would ease the burden of their hearts into the only, true, person of refuge, Jesus Christ. 
	Our essence of virtue is the reflected glory of the One, Who now is the very life that we live before man and before this whole of creation. As such, we can expect the fiery darts of hell to seek to destroy the very depth of our character and our being. We will face the onslaughts of character assassination and false accusations. Our lives will be an enigma to this realm, just as was Christ’s life! He came as the light of truth and grace in the midst of this realm, wallowing in its self-pitiful darkness and vices. The power of this age tried to eliminate the revealed glory of God in Christ by crucifying Him on the cross. It will try to do the same to us. The key, however, is that, just as Christ was absolutely and perfectly victorious over all the entirety of the powers of this age’s death, so are we fully and victoriously included in His eternal triumph. He is our virtue on this earth. He is our very nature. He is our victory. He is our life.
	The Apostle Peter continues to detail the manner in which our life in Christ is to be evidenced on this earth…And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
	  Everything in line with our spiritual maturity is fully expressed in the fruitfulness of lives that are completely in conformity with Jesus Christ. There is no way that we can achieve or improve that which Christ has done. There are those who read the passages of our consideration, both in the Letter to the Ephesians and in the Apostle Peter’s letter, and see it as a challenge to us to do something that will better our standing and our way of life. They look for the ways in which our humanity can be improved upon through hard work and mental training. The effort is upon anything that can be done apart from Christ, or in addition to Christ. They are willing to accept the idea that we need some help from above, when things are beyond the scope of our own abilities, but up until that point, we need to do the best that we can, and then count on God to get us out of the holes that we may dig for ourselves.
	This is far from the heart of the passages that we are taking before the Lord. There is no place in any of them for an interpretation that allows for any human endeavor, not even an endeavor to try to do better for the Lord. Any human touch is simply a corrupting element that infests the core of our soul, like the rotten apple that degrades the rest of the apples in a bowl. There is no place for the efforts of humanity. That was proven in the garden, and in the failure of mankind to abide by the righteous law of God. No matter how well meaning man was, he fell, we fall far short of the glory of God. The intentions may have been fully honorable, but the reality of the depth of the insidiousness of sin could only be dealt with by the one, truly righteous man, the Lord Jesus Christ. In His death and resurrection, we received the new life that will show forth all the fullness of God’s intent for humanity. No one, other than Christ, was, is, or ever will be able to accomplish the perfection that God is after.
	When we try to add to the all-inclusive aspect of what God has accomplished, by inserting our human conceptions and efforts, we are making that erroneous statement that Christ did a good thing, but we can do better. That is the sinister mind-set infesting the whole of this realm. If anything can be added to what Christ has done, then His work was not perfect and therefore man can somehow improve upon that enterprise and offset the righteous consequences of sin. Man is forever, it seems, seeking to find an easy way out of his own depravity. Rather than to see the fullness of God’s effective work, and set aside the foulness of man’s deceptive nature, mankind seeks some way to devalue and dissuade God’s Holiness from condemning mankind for the corruption that we are. 
	There is nothing that can be added to the effective work of Christ Jesus! There is no other way of coming into the full knowledge of what God has accomplished in the union of man with God, in the Beloved, the Body of Christ, the Church. There is no other means of becoming that which God desires other than through the most effective working of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those who have chosen to live unto God, in Jesus Christ. As that choice is before man, so will the life that man lives, that you and I live in this world before the most Holy God of Truth, Love, and Holiness, be in evidence. If we are living unto ourselves, looking for the easy way out, we will give forth evidence of a self-centered life that is only after that which will satisfy our earthly lusts and depravity. There will be the evidence of trying to make it, with our feeble human understanding and efforts to make the best of a terrible situation. 
	If, however, we are living out from the guidance of the Holy Spirit, living lives unto the Lord, seeking after the fullness of God in everything that is part and parcel of our lives, there will be evidenced the riches of the glory of God. It may not be to our immediate understanding. It may not be in a manner in which we would choose to have it, but it will be in the most effective manner that will shine forth as a beacon unto all those around us, that God is in control of our lives, and that His glory is the full concentration of our hearts, before man, and before all the angelic hosts of the universes of God’s creation. 
	Such is the focal point of the heart of those seeking after a greater and greater knowledge of all that God has accomplished in Christ Jesus. A desire after Christ is all that we can bring before the Lord in our hearts. There is nothing else that will have any sway in the presence of God. He is so fully pleased with all that Christ has done, in His magnificent triumph unto the complete glory of God the Father, that all who come in His name are welcomed into the fullness of God. That is the church, that is the Body, that is you and me as we are before God in the right-standing that is ours in Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Our Savior, Our Everything. 
	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.