Entreating the Extravagant Generosity of God

I invite you to follow along as I read two brief passages from the New Testament, first from Matthew chapter 7 and from verse 7, where Jesus says,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which … of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

And then in Ephesians and chapter 3, from verse 14: Paul writes,

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 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 Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

And just a brief prayer before we look at this:

Father, what we know not, teach us. What we have not, give us. What we are not, make us. For your Son’s sake we pray. Amen.

Well, it is a wonderful privilege to be here with you. I found it difficult to realize that the threshold of entry was the age of eighteen, and to go back to when I might have qualified, as an eighteen-year-old, to get in here, I have to go back some fifty-eight years. So it’s fun to be around the young folks. And I have been delighted to be entrusted with the privilege of our topic for this evening. I don’t know who came up with it. It has a kind of Piperesque dimension to it. And I want to make sure that we understand the topic.

First of all, we know who God is: that he is plural, he’s powerful, he’s perfect, and he’s praiseworthy. Also, we understand the word generosity for unselfish kindness. We understand extravagance: that which goes beyond what might be expected. And the word entreating—perhaps you haven’t used it recently. Perhaps you haven’t found it necessary. It means more than asking. Another word might be beseeching or imploring. If you know the story of Ruth and you read it, as I did, in the King James Version, you will remember that Ruth says to Naomi, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee.”[1] So, “Entreating the Extravagant Generosity of God” is, in short order, a talk about prayer. Why didn’t it just say, “A Talk on Prayer”? Because that wouldn’t have been such a good title.

And one of the evidences of being adopted into God’s family is that we actually pray. You remember in Romans chapter 8, Paul says this. He says, “And the Spirit of God in our hearts enables us to say, ‘Abba, Father.’”[2] In all of our conversations today, as we’ve spoken with one another, we have, in our words, revealed, essentially, what’s going on in our minds. But when we pray in the secrecy of our lives to God, we’re actually declaring what’s going on in our hearts.

And prayer is a spiritual discipline, it is a privilege, and it is a challenge. You’ll remember the disciples, who lived in the company of Jesus, needed the encouragement that Jesus gave to them, which is why we read from Matthew 7. And here we are, many of you, arriving here for this event, aware of the amazing generosity of your parents over Christmas. And what we’re discovering is that parental generosity doesn’t even come close to matching the extravagant dimensions of God’s provision for his children.

The challenge in it should not be evaded. Charles Simeon, who was the minister in Cambridge for fifty-four years, on one occasion pointed out to his congregation that it was easier for a pastor to preach and study for five hours than to pray for his people for one half hour.[3] And so, we do need the encouragement and the pattern that is provided for us, certainly in Jesus and definitely here in Paul.

You remember that when people asked Jesus about praying, He told them, “I don’t want you to be like those folks who posture in their public displays of devotion to God. I don’t want you to be like those who just prattle on and on, adding word upon word.”[4] Quite famously, Whitefield on one occasion commented to a friend about a brother of his who he said prayed in his company and prayed Whitefield into a blessing. And then he kept praying so long that he prayed him right back out of the blessing itself.[5] So we must be cautious.

Now, all that by way of introducing the text. We come to this text, and I want us just to consider three straightforward questions: What does Paul ask? That’s the entreaty. On what basis does he ask? That’s the generosity. And to what end does he ask? And that is the glory. So, I will spend longer on the first than on the other two. I mention that to you now, because you may be extrapolating from the length of time I spend on the first, and you’re saying, “We’re going to be here till about midnight.” Relax. You will be fine.

What Does Paul Ask?

He’s addressing them as the family of God. At the end of chapter 2, he describes them as citizens, as saints, as stones that are being built into the temple of God.[6] And you will notice that he approaches God on his knees. “For this reason,” he says—“the wonder of all that you’ve done in the gospel and in the church”—“I bow my knees.” Paul would have been well aware of the Psalm—95—which begins, “O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker, for we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.”[7] Customarily, Jewish men stood to pray. And therefore, it is a matter of some significance that we have this picture of Paul. He comes boldly because he has access, as he says in verse 12.[8] But the boldness of his access is combined with the humility of his posture, because he recognizes that he is coming to a God who is great and awesome. He, in comparison—we, in comparison, are small, and we’re finite.

And therefore, when we draw near to God in worship, as Ecclesiastes reminds us, we should take care how we come, so that we guard against presumption or casual familiarity[9] that is often the result of entertaining big views of ourselves and small views of God. Some years ago, Peggy Noonan, who writes in The Wall Street Journal, made this comment: “For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young [they are] perfect in every way. It’s yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.”[10] The self-assured need not pray. We’ll just proceed on the basis of what we know. It is when we’re aware of our own inadequacy and the grandeur of God that we approach as Paul approaches.

But what is it that he prays for? Perhaps we should ask the other question: What is it that he doesn’t pray for? You’ll notice that in his prayer, he’s not preoccupied with material things. He’s not preoccupied with his own predicament—not because those things weren’t present or weren’t valid but because they weren’t the issue. Jesus says to his disciples, “Why are you worrying about this and about this? Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”[11]

Now, Paul understood that the people in Ephesus were real people, like us this evening. They had concerns about marriage or about singleness, about parenting, about enjoying life, about welfare, about employment, and all these other things. But there is no mention of these matters as he prays for them now—again, not because they aren’t present but because that’s not the issue.

Praying about health, incidentally, is very rare in the Bible. Some of you may have heard Don Carson years ago commenting on this and saying that at the average church prayer meeting, more time is spent by people seeking to keep the saints out of heaven rather than sinners out of hell.

So then, if he’s not doing that, what is his entreaty? It’s there in the text: “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being.” “In your inner being.” Do you have an inner being? Yes, of course you do! Our inner being is our essential self, hidden from view yet real. It is the sharpest focus of our existence. Our inner being, if you like, is what will remain when our bodies are laid to rest in the grave. And here is the realm that Paul focuses in his prayer: “that you would be strengthened with power in your inner being.”

In other words, this is the real core. Now, you can tell from looking at me that I don’t know much about core or about free weights or about anything at all, but I am familiar with the terminology that people are talking about. Your golf swing is not directly related to your musculature; it’s directly related to your core. And so a tremendous amount of time and energy is spent, understandably, on the core.

But let me tell you: We’re “wasting away,” while “our inner self is being renewed day by day.”[12] And I assume you have grasped this. Otherwise, why would you be here for these few days, unless you recognize that the real you, fashioned according to the plan and purpose of God—the core of your existence—is the direct concern of your heavenly Father? When Paul writes to Timothy, he says to him, “[Physical] fitness has a certain value, but spiritual fitness is essential both for this … life and for the life to come.”[13]

If you doubt this, you could go to your bedroom before you fall asleep for the night and just read Ecclesiastes 12, where you have this amazing picture of a body being like a house that is becoming increasingly dilapidated. Now, when you’re your age, you don’t think anything of this. That’s why the writer says,

Remember your Creator
 in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come,[14]

when all of the things start to collapse. It is quite humorous, actually, when you have to ask for reading glasses, when your hands begin to tremble, when you have to have your meniscus repaired, when your legs give way, when you have inadequate occlusion—that your top teeth can’t meet your bottom teeth, and you have a problem there—when you drag yourself, eventually, along the street like a grasshopper.[15] What a picture! It’s in the Bible. It’s your future! There will be a day when you will go to CVS and go down aisles that, today, you can’t imagine why they even have the aisles. And you’ll find yourself asking for things that people like me could be heard asking for when you bumped into us.

Why does Paul entreat God on their behalf in this way? Why is he so concerned about their inner being? He tells us in verse 17: “so that…” It’s a purpose clause: “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” The strengthening work of the Holy Spirit enabling us and assuring us is actually in conjunction with what the Westminster Confession calls the ordinary use of the means of grace,[16] which means this: that the work of the Spirit of God within our hearts, as we pray to God and as we look to him, we do so hearing his voice as we hear it from the Scriptures; we do so engaged in his body, where we belong; and we do so having access to his ear, hence our prayer—so that Christ does not take up residence in our lives simply to cheer us or to soothe us. He comes to reign in our lives.

You remember C. S. Lewis uses, again, that picture of a house, where he says, “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes … to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He[’s] doing”—basic repairs. “But [then] he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does[n’t] … make sense.” What is the explanation? “You thought,” writes Lewis, “you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”[17]

What we have here is the issue of God’s authority as he comes to reign and God’s intimacy with us as he meets with us. I have friends who think that I am a dreadful sentimentalist for all kinds of reasons. And they may be right, because I actually find some value in an old song that’s seldom sung, which begins—I know, it’s got a kind of Thomas Kinkade feel to it, I think—

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God [disposes].

And then it says,

And he walks with me,
And he talks with me,
And he tells me I am his own.[18]

You say, “Well, is that sheer sentimentalism?” Or is it not closer to what Jesus is saying to His disciples in the Upper Room Discourse, when, in John 14, he tells them, “Listen: You follow along the road I’ve set you on, and you will discover that I will come to you, and I will show myself to you”?[19] In verse 23 he says, “We will come to him and make our home with him.” Why? Because of the extravagant generosity of our heavenly Father.

Now, you will notice, too, that he then says, “Your condition is being rooted and grounded in love.” It’s a horticultural metaphor followed by an architectural metaphor. “Rooted”—familiar material, “I am the vine; you are the branches,”[20] and so on—and the architectural picture of being built into a spiritual temple. The amazing thing is that we were once alienated from God. We were hostile. We were hopeless. And what he’s been saying to these Ephesian believers is that God has done something absolutely dramatic: He has made one new man out of the two. These believers that were present there are brought together by the power of God in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.[21]

Now, listen carefully: Only in Christ are the longings of our generation for hope, for humanity, for peace, and for unity—only in Jesus Christ are they answered. It is perfectly understandable that “Imagine” by Lennon became the mantra of an entire continent. What are they longing for? What are they hoping for? The same thing that Michael Jackson and Springsteen and the rest of them got together, nighttime in Hollywood, to sing: “We are the world, we are the [people].”[22] Actually, in that song they sing, “[We are] saving our own [selves].” Well, how are they doing? Or even on a more trivial level:

I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony;
I’d like to buy the world a Coke
And keep it company.[23]

You’re going to go out into this generation—you are out in this generation—a generation that longs for things that are understandable and yet has not been able to discover the key that unlocks the reality for them. And you have the privilege, as God, by His Spirit, dwells in your inner man, strengthens you with power, equips you, encourages you, so that you, “rooted and grounded in love” for Jesus and for the people of God, you may then go on to “have strength to comprehend with all the saints”—this is verse 18—“to comprehend…” This is the second part of his entreaty: one that we’ve just looked at, and now “that you … may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth … that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Only in Christ are the longings of our generation for hope, for humanity, for peace, and for unity answered.

Now, if you just take that and write it in your journal tonight and think about it before you go to sleep: Clearly, what Paul is asking of God is something larger and greater than our own personal preoccupations, our own longings for self-fulfillment, our own concerns, legitimate to one degree and yet overreaching in another. Paul is taking us in another direction altogether. He’s not asking, you will notice, that we should love God more—we always want to love God more—but that we should have the power to grasp God’s love for us.

Paul, of course, understood this. He was an archenemy of Jesus and the church. And yet his life was changed, wasn’t it? He understood mercy. He understood grace. This is true of anyone who really becomes a Christian. We may not be lying by the side of the road, struck blind by a great light, but when you become a Christian, you will have a whole new view of Jesus, you will have a whole new view of the people who love Jesus, and you will have a whole new view of mercy. And it’s out of the fullness of that reality that he speaks in this way.

Spatial objects are—you usually say, “the length, the breadth, or the height.” Here you, will notice, it is fourfold. I’m not sure what this means or what he’s saying. I know what he’s saying: He’s saying, “It’s overarching all of this.” Ferguson, my friend, says he may not only be thinking “in terms of [the] length and breadth, [that] reach[es] … to the four corners of the earth,” but perhaps “involv[ing] contemplating the [depth] to which the Son of God stooped … and the height[s] to which he has been exalted”[24]—that you might “know the love … that surpasses knowledge.”

That’s a paradox, isn’t it—knowing what is unknowable? It’s far easier to sing about it than it is actually to articulate it or to define it. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, at one point he says, “Eye ha[s] not seen” (it’s invisible), “nor ear heard” (it’s inaudible), nor has it penetrated the imagination (it is inconceivable), “the things [that] God ha[s] prepared for [those who] love him.”[25] But he says, “This he has revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.”[26] And here, now, he prays for this fledgling church in Ephesus that this might be their experience as a result of God’s generosity.

Now, that knowledge which is ours is experiential, but it’s not exhaustive. But his plan is that we might be “filled with all the fullness of God.” “All the fullness of God.” He’s going to, in chapter 5, say, “You shouldn’t go and get drunk with wine and waste your life in that way. Be filled with the Holy Spirit! And out of the fullness of God, then, live your life. Sing your praise. Commend the gospel.”[27] And this he prays for.

Oh, it’s so wonderful, isn’t it? The hymn writer puts it,

O fill me with thy fullness, Lord,
Until my very heart o’erflow
In kindling thought and glowing word
Your love to tell, your praise to show.[28]

Well, very well. That’s all under “Entreaty,” what he asks: strength to know this in our inner being and power to grasp the immensity of God’s love for us, to be filled with his fullness.

On What Basis Does Paul Ask?

Well, if that’s what he asks, on what basis does he ask? Well, the answer is in our title: on the basis of God’s generosity. And what he’s telling us here is wonderful, isn’t it? God is able to do what we ask. God is able. He’s able to do what we think of asking but aren’t sure that we can. He is able. He is able to do far more than we ever thought of asking. In fact, there is nothing we can ask for or think of asking for about which God does not say, “I’m able to do better than that.” Romans 8, you know: What a wonder that, having given up his Son for us, “will he not also with him [freely] give us all things?”[29]

And I guess that’s why Jesus so masterfully encourages the disciples around him at that time, arguing from the lesser to the greater. I mean, what a ridiculous idea, isn’t it? It’s almost humorous. You came down in the morning, you asked your father for a boiled egg, and he gave you a stone; or you came down and asked for a sausage, and he gave you a serpent. You say to yourself, “It couldn’t possibly ever be.” If even that were the case, even though you know that your parents are so generous, how much more—that God is far more willing to bless us than we are even to take the time to ask him!

Newton, of course, when he discovered the reality of this, wrote out of the fullness of his own heart. Listen to him:

Come, my soul, thy suit [repair];
Jesus loves to answer prayer.
He himself has bid thee pray,
Therefore will not say thee nay.

Thou art coming to a King;
Large petitions with thee bring,
For his grace and power are such,
[That] none can ever ask too much.[30]

Surely part of the reason for the loss of momentum in prayer gatherings, whether it’s in your university or in your church—where there is a loss of momentum, it may be traced in part to the repetitive focus of the average midweek prayer meeting, which focuses again and again on the material and the physical. Of course, we can bring everything before God. But the problem in our prayers is not that we ask for things too great or that our prayers are too big. The problem is that we’re guilty of doubting God’s ability and his generosity, and thus we become fearful of entreaty.

I don’t want to harm anybody in saying this, but let me just give you a word of exhortation. Well, maybe you shouldn’t do it this way… Let me just give you the word of exhortation: Quit using the word “just” in your prayers: “Oh, we’re coming to you just… We just” this, “We just” that, “We just” the next thing. It’s an apologetic way of asking God, like, “We know that you don’t really want to do this, so we’re just asking. We’re just wondering.” There’s no reason for just wondering or just doing it in that way at all. No! Recognize the generosity of God, and then come, boldly! Remember, James says, “You do not have, because you do not ask. And when you ask, you don’t receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”[31]

Loved ones, if I could convince you of one thing, it surely must be what Paul is saying here: that in the great span of your life… And the span of my life is hastening on, I can tell you. And this is where I am tonight in addressing you. Why would I receive the privilege of coming? Because I’m in the position of the psalmist in Psalm 71. And this is what he says:

O God, from my youth you have taught me,
 and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and gray hairs,
 O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
 your power to all those to come.[32]

You’re sitting where I once sat. I’m the old man that I was listening to when I was eighteen and nineteen and twenty. And then I listened carefully, being reminded of these amazing truths. Spurgeon, as he reflects on this, says of God, “My Master has riches beyond the [count] of arithmetic, the measurement of reason, the dream of imagination, or [of] eloquence [or] of words. They are [immeasurable]!”[33] Or in the words of Annie Johnson Flint:

[God’s] love has no limit; his grace has no measure,
His power [has] no boundary known unto men;
For out of his [glorious] riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.[34]

To What End Does Paul Ask?

Well, what does he ask? That’s entreaty. On what basis? That’s generosity. To what end? Well, that’s glory. You’ll notice how he finishes: “To him be glory in the church.” He ends with a doxology. Every so often in his letters he breaks in, essentially, and starts singing, praising God. For a doxology is really just the theologically informed praise of God.

And he concludes by praying that God will get all the glory he deserves. Just as God’s glory has been, is, and will be revealed in Jesus, so his glory is revealed in his people, in the church. Those believers in Ephesus reading this letter comprised Jewish Christians and gentile Christians, called by God from cultures and identities that actually hated each other and were raised to be deeply suspicious of each other. And yet here they are. They meet, and they sing, and they pray together. And in that context, that which the world longs for is displayed amongst the people of God in his power to transform, in the wonder of his perfect compassion, his love being displayed.

But it’s not simply that God’s glory is revealed in Jesus and displayed in the church. It is to be declared to the nations. This is a missions conference. Habakkuk looks forward to a day when

the earth will be filled
 with … the glory of [God]
 as the waters cover the sea.[35]

That huge vision is what took William Carey to India in 1793. That’s what kept him going as God’s plodder, when it was seven years of him laboring before he ever baptized an Indian Christian. The same thing for C. T. Studd, who dedicated his life to foreign missions after reasoning this: “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice that I could ever make for him could ever be too great.”[36] It is this which took John Paton from Scotland to the New Hebrides, away out there. Go to New Zealand, and start looking for them somewhere out there; you’ll find them. When he got there, a man, by way of encouragement, said to him, “John, the cannibals! You will be eaten by cannibals!” To which he said, “Eaten by cannibals or eaten by worms—what’s the difference? I am here to declare the glory of the gospel.”[37]

It’s not simply that God’s glory is revealed in Jesus and displayed in the church. It is to be declared to the nations.

And here we are. This is now twenty-first-century America. We represent all kinds of possibilities, all kinds of longings, hopes, dreams. You sit out there. I can’t see you. It doesn’t matter. God sees you. He’s concerned about your inner being. He’s concerned that you would be overwhelmed by his generosity. He’s concerned that you would be prepared to say, you know, “I’ll give myself up for you.”

And the invitation to the church is to do just that. When Townend and Getty wrote the hymn “O Church Arise,” they wrote these words,

When faced with trials [of every kind],
We know the outcome is secure,
And Christ will have the prize for which he died,
An inheritance of nations.[38]

So “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations.” Well, what about this generation? Do you believe that what God has done before he can do again? You’re students of history. You know what it was like in eighteenth-century England, if you chose to look it up. You discover it was a dreadful place. It was a dark place, a godless place. People could be hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. Little children were in the most dreadful circumstances, and it was brutal. But what happened? God raised up two brothers by the name of Wesley, a man by the name of Whitefield, and a Welshman by the name of Howell Harris. And in the space of some sixty years, there was a revolution that was brought about not by political energy but was brought about by the transforming power of the generosity of God unleashed amongst his people.

God is a specialist when it comes to the impossible. If God does not transform our culture in your generation by way of revival, it will not be because he can’t. Because he “specializes in things thought impossible.”[39]

“Ah, but,” you say, “what are we going to do? All you old guys are dying off. We didn’t hear from Carson. MacArthur’s gone. Sproul’s gone. Keller’s gone. And some of you guys look like you’re going as well.” That’s what you’re saying. You’re looking up: “Look at that old guy!”

Well, they said the same thing to J. C. Ryle. Incidentally, I hope you bought those volumes on J. C. Ryle. Fifty dollars! That is amazing. It’s difficult for me, as a Scotsman, to see stuff given away so kindly. But anyway, they said to Ryle, “What are we going to do now that all the good guys are dying?” This is what he said:

Fear not for the Church of Christ, when ministers die, and saints are taken away. Christ can ever maintain His own cause. He will raise up better servants and brighter stars. The stars are … in His right hand. Leave off all anxious [thoughts] about the future. Cease to be cast down by the measures of statesmen, or the plots of wolves in sheep’s clothing. Christ will ever provide for His own church. Christ will take care that “The gates of hell [will] not prevail against it.” All is going … well, though our eyes may not see it. The kingdoms of this world shall yet become the kingdoms of our God, and of His Christ.[40]

What does he ask? On what basis? And to what end?

Let us pray:

Heavenly Father, we want to live our lives earnestly desiring your will to be done and that your name would be glorified. We want to live and die believing that in Jesus, we may receive “grace upon grace,”[41] beyond our asking or imagining. And tonight, we pledge ourselves to be ready as instruments in your service, ready to go anywhere, anytime, anyhow. When we ask that you will send out workers into your harvest,[42] we are willing to be the answer to our own prayers. Lord, hear our prayers, and let our cries come to you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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[1] Ruth 1:16 (KJV).

[2] Romans 8:15 (paraphrased).

[3] Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simeon of Cambridge (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977), 149.

[4] Matthew 6:5–8 (paraphrased).

[5] William Jay, ed., Memoirs of the Late Rev. Cornelius Winter, in The Works of Rev. William Jay, of Argyle Chapel, Bath (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1849), 3:73n.

[6] See Ephesians 2:19–22.

[7] Psalm 95:6–7 (paraphrased).

[8] See Ephesians 3:12.

[9] See Ecclesiastes 5:1–2.

[10] Peggy Noonan, “A Farewell to Harms,” Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2009, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124716984620819351.

[11] Matthew 6:25–33 (paraphrased).

[12] 2 Corinthians 4:16 (ESV).

[13] 1 Timothy 4:8 (Phillips).

[14] Ecclesiastes 12:1 (NIV).

[15] See Ecclesiastes 12:2–5.

[16] The Westminster Confession of Faith 18.3.

[17] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952), bk. 4, chap. 9.

[18] Charles Austin Miles, “In the Garden” (1912).

[19] John 14:18, 21 (paraphrased).

[20] John 15:5 (ESV).

[21] See Ephesians 2:11–22.

[22] Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie, “We Are the World” (1985).

[23] Bill Backer, Billy Davis, Roger Cook, Roger Greenaway, “Buy the World a Coke” (1971).

[24] Sinclair B. Ferguson, Let’s Study Ephesians (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2005), 92.

[25] 1 Corinthians 2:9 (KJV).

[26] 1 Corinthians 2:10 (paraphrased).

[27] Ephesians 5:18–21 (paraphrased).

[28] Frances Ridley Havergal, “Lord, Speak to Me” (1872). Lyrics lightly altered.

[29] Romans 8:32 (ESV).

[30] John Newton, “Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare” (1779).

[31] James 4:2–3 (paraphrased).

[32] Psalm 71:17–18 (ESV).

[33] Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, revised and updated by Alistair Begg (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), August 22 evening reading.

[34] Annie Johnson Flint, “He Giveth More Grace” (1930).

[35] Habakkuk 2:14 (ESV).

[36] Norman P. Grubb, C. T. Studd: Athlete and Pioneer (1933; repr., Harrisburg, PA: Evangelical Press, 1943), 145. Paraphrased.

[37] John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides: An Autobiography, ed. James Paton (London: Hodder and Stoughton: 1890), 90–91. Paraphrased.

[38] Stuart Townend and Keith Getty, “O Church, Arise” (2004).

[39] Oscar Carl Eliason, “Got Any Rivers?” (1945).

[40] J. C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots, enlarged ed. (1879), 13.

[41] John 1:16 (ESV).

[42] See Matthew 9:37–38.