which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
11 sermons cite this verse
… and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. God's inviting you to pray that prayer and believe it. Some of you are taking a picture with your phone, which I appreciate that. Thank you. But when you walk out today, we're going to give you the prayer on a card. Thank you. They're only $5. Today you can get three for 10. Or you can get the Above and Beyond special. We'll give you a whole pack for $100. By the way, you do have to have reading glasses to be able to pray this prayer every day. Unless you're 20 or under, you'll be fine. But I wonder if anybody wants to take that invitation today. what do you think your life would look like if for the rest of this year you prayed this prayer every single day and you believed that God was going to answer it I'd like to think that on the last gathering of our year, I'll be able to start the prayer and all of us without any assistance will be able to finish it. …
… and gave him as head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Jesus has triumphed over the powers of death and hell and he has pledged himself to be your protector, to be the armor that you put on. God seated Jesus in heaven, but that does not mean he's removed from our battles. He fills all things in heaven and on earth. He is with us. His spirit lives in us. We are members of his body. Our king does not sit with folded hands in some castle in the clouds. He exercises his dominion and power for us. All things must serve him and obey him, even death, even the devil. The armor that he gives, it doesn't appear to be worth much. It doesn't shimmer. It doesn't shine. You can't buy it or sell it, measure it or manipulate it, but it counts for everything because Christ himself is your armor. His word, his truth, his righteousness, his peace, his presence. …
… and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Friends, why is Jesus reigning? For our sake. The blessings of his reign are for us, especially. He is Lord of all. He is the sovereign one for the sake of his people, the sake of his bride. And friends, this is what question 51, question and answer 51, that second question there, highlights for us. How does this glory of Christ our head benefit us? And it gives us two ways. He gifts and He guards. He gifts us. As the reigning King, he graciously pours out gifts upon us. Think about the picture of a king and a king goes out to conquer a country and he wins in battle and what does he come back with? What does he come back to his own country with? He comes back with the booty, right, that he won. All the possessions that he's taken over, he comes back to his people with those and all of these possessions and prizes and booty, what He does is He gives it out to His people. Here are the blessings of victory, pouring them out. …
Because, as Paul wrote, God has put all things under his feet and made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. That's in Ephesians chapter 1. When Christ rose from the earth, when he ascended into heaven, he went not to a palace or a mountaintop, no. He went to a throne in deep heaven in charge of running the universe. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. Still, from the book of Ephesians. We have a king, and our king is in control. Here's how the Hebrew writer stated it. When he, speaking of Jesus, had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven. That's where he is right now. He sat down. That phrase implies a completed work, an accomplished feat. In other words, no one and nothing escapes his authority. So of all the people to ever breathe air or walk on earth, Jesus is the only one to be seated at the right hand of the Father. He has subjected every possible foe. He has defeated every imaginable enemy, and now he is above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else, not only in this world, but also in the world to come, Ephesians 121. I wonder when the apostle Paul wrote that, if he listed ruler, authority, power, leader, or anything else, …
… and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. He says, you know the power that's available to you? He goes, let me illustrate the type of power, the immeasurable power that's in you. Let me just give you a little glimpse of it. He goes, remember when Jesus was crucified? Picture that body laying right here. mutilated you don't even recognize him as a man it's just lifeless it's just a piece of flesh and blood everywhere he says it's like the power he used when he took Christ and he raised him imagine that power but he didn't just raise him to where he stood up he says then he exalted him and took him to the highest place far above all rule and authority. That means it's not like, okay, here's Satan and here's Jesus. No, it's like just far above everything. So you took a dead body. God, this is his power toward us. He took a dead body and raised him far above everything and said, now he's got the name above every name and it's not just for this age, it's forever and ever and ever. Okay? He says that type of power is what extends to us. And don't you love that imagery again where he says, and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church which is his body. …
… And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him, that's Jesus Christ, to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. I would just like to draw out of the text the stuff we can feed on tonight as we get ready to meet the Lord at the table. What does this teach? This teaches that Jesus Christ is head over everything for the church. We just began to look at it last week, but I want to look at it this week. There's two ways in which Jesus is head. He's head over everything, the whole world for the church, and then secondly, he's the head over the church as his body. See that in there? First of all, he's head over everything, the whole world, for us, and then secondly, he's the head over us, his body, the church. that doesn't sound tremendously exciting, but I want you to know that it is, and I'd like to show you why it is. First of all, question that comes up, how is it possible for Jesus to be head over the world now? How can he be head now? People are very confused about this statement. They can understand the idea that someday Jesus will be king, but they have a little more trouble figuring out how Jesus can be ruling or governing the world in any way now when the world looks to be such a mess. You know, I haven't known what to do since Woody Allen had his big problem because I love to …
… And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. This is about God's power. I know if you came to the earlier services, and some of you do, you'll know that the subject was about God's power then. Don't worry. It's as vast and as rich a subject that it's very, very possible for us to talk about it tonight through this passage and not in any way overlap with what we said earlier. There's just so much to say about it. What's comical about this power is how Paul almost has to, even though he's Paul, stretch to find a way of describing God's power. When he says this is like the working of his mighty strength, when he talks about his incomparably great power right there, incomparably great, He uses three Greek words that if you're reading them in Greek, you actually see how comical it is because every one of those three words is a Greek word that we have brought directly into the English language. …
… not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Tonight, what I'd like to do is I'd like to depart a little bit from my ordinary style. The ordinary style, I think, is to take a point or two and to say it over and over and over again very emphatically. And instead, I'd like to actually run through here and make many points and therefore in a more calm and necessarily less emphatic way in order to cover the material, give you more of an inventory of what Paul's praying for here. The main reason is this. It was just occurring to me this week a couple of times. Children, when you look at children who are transparent, they can't hide what they are. When you look at children, one of the things that has impressed me having to raise some has been that they are bottomless pits when it comes to love. …
… all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. this prayer is for what? It's for knowledge. Again and again, it says, I pray that you may know. I pray that you may know. I saw one Bible that I had looked at, a study Bible, that had a title over this paragraph, and it said, Paul's prayer for knowledge and power. That's misleading. Beware of what your study Bible tells you. The footnotes are not divinely inspired. The headings are not divinely inspired. Even the chapter and verse divisions are not divinely inspired. That's misleading because Paul does not pray for knowledge and power. He prays for knowledge that you have power. He prays for knowledge that you have a hope of your calling. He prays, having told us about all the incredible things we have in Christ, that we might have a spiritual knowledge of it. He says, the only thing you lack is a spiritual knowledge of it. …
… things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Now, I may be wrong in how slowly I move through this chapter. I don't know that I've really got much of an alternative. When you read that chapter, couldn't you tell that you knew that there was so much going on in every word and every phrase that you couldn't take it in? It's very much like biting into some dessert that is way too sweet. It's just too much. It's like, you know, one bite and you know that you're in the sugar shock. It just overwhelms the senses. And the same thing happens here. Paul just lays one upon another upon another, and the truths are so astonishing and so glorious. I want you to know that really, without exaggerating, if you could take in, if we could take in a tenth of the meaning and the power of these truths, you would receive enough strength never to sin again. …
… And he says here that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. He states here in this first chapter that God the Father raised him from the dead, seated him in his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and powers and dominions, and every name is beneath his name and everything is beneath him. You recall in Colossians chapter 1 when he spoke of the creation, he says that Jesus Christ has created all things for himself. He's the head of all things. He's above all things. He takes preeminence over everything that is presently in existence. That is including the church. So what I want us to look at for just a few moments is this. That is what is implied in saying that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. What does that really mean? All right. Let's look at several things here. First of all, it means that he is the sovereign authority over the body of Christ. That is, all of us who live in this earth, who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we are a part of the body of Christ. …