This morning I'd like to have you guys think about a specific term, the bar. Okay? The bar. And the reason why I want to use this term as a bar is because we want to talk about standards in our lives. Okay? Expectations that we have of ourselves, expectations that others have of us, expectations that the Bible has of us, expectations that God has of us.

These are all standards by which we're supposed to evaluate life. These are what's more standards by which we're supposed to be striving for in order to accomplish. Right? And the fact of the matter is we are always regularly operating by certain standards. We're always evaluating things by a certain bar.

For example, you take a look at a room and the cleanliness of the room. You have three individuals who are looking at the exact same room. Potentially you can get three different interpretations. A young student might look at it and be like, "Looks good to me." Another person might look at it and say, "She's really disheveled." The other person could look at it and be like, "I can't stay here.

I can't be here because it's so disgusting." Right? Why? Because they're operating off of some standard evaluating this is not clean or this is fine. Right? And the reason why I bring this up is because I would like you to think about and ask the question, "How high is God's standard for you?" Think about that.

How high is God's standard for you? When it comes to things like in every facet of our lives, the scripture actually speaks about certain standards. So for example, I want to list off a few. We have standards of how God wants us to forgive those who ask for forgiveness.

And the standard is 70 times 7. And all the disciples said, "How can we do that?" When we have standards of how we're supposed to be patient with one another, God describes it as long suffering like I've been with y'all for thousands of years. Right? And it's, "How can we do that?" When it comes to even topics of our holiness and purity, scripture says, "Not even a hint." You're so set apart there shouldn't even be a residue, not even a hint of immorality among you.

When you think about other standards of our joyfulness, of our thanksgiving, it's always unceasingly even when you experience trials of many kinds. So what I'm highlighting is God's standard for us in every aspect of our lives, godly living, holiness, mercy, grace, love, and the list can go on, is perfection.

It's so incredibly high that the natural response should have been, "Huh? I'm going to look up, I'm going to look down, I'm going to be like, 'I can't do it.'" Right? Like that's the kind of natural reaction that we might have. Well, the problem is sometimes that is the reaction we have.

Unfortunately, sometimes we Christians run into a problem where we have the tendency, where the standards that we set for our life of what is normative, we assume is dictated by my deficiency rather than God's character. Let me repeat that. The standards that we set in certain elements of our lives, arenas of our lives, we make the false assumption that it's dictated by my deficiency rather than God's character.

What I mean by that is as you live your life, you're going to experience certain things where you're deficient, meaning you're weak. You're not capable, got no skills kind of moment, right? Like I don't have the capacity to do this. And what ends up happening is you feel discouraged.

What ends up happening is you start to also change the expectation you have of yourself. And then if you continue to live life, you'll also look around and then you'll validate it. Why? Because you'll look at everybody else and say, "See?" Right? You look at the deficiencies and failures of others and then come to a conclusion, therefore, God does not expect of us more than we can do.

Is that biblical? And my case today is going to be no. The Word of God shows to us the perfect standard of God in every realm of life and typically it shocks us because it's so much higher than we presume. There are moments when we are thought to believe that the standards are relegated to what patterns we set.

But we recall God has ordained a perfect pattern in Christ. So direct question to you right now, how are you doing in your standards? How are you doing in the expectations and the levels that you're trying to pursue? Have you settled for something that is far less than what God has ordained?

Have you settled for a standard that is more appropriate just simply to you or to man than what is acceptable to God Almighty? Now as we say this, this is sometimes paradoxical, right? It's like, wow, it's true, biblical standards appear. But I see with my eyes and we also know through biblical content that we are deficient.

So how do we navigate this? And we're going to talk about that today. But I would like to take a moment to encourage you before I go into this because every time I get an opportunity to speak to our church broadly, I want to always say thank you. I am very thankful to God that we are here.

As a matter of fact, just this Saturday I was sitting with the leaders and I told them, you know, right now my heart is so thankful because every time I'm at church I look around, there's people meeting in rooms, encouraging each other, praying for each other. There are people regularly emailing me, can we study the Bible together?

Every time like, you know, one of the pastors says, hey, we're going to read this book, there's like immediate sign up. There are people who are wanting to get engaged, wanting to serve, wanting to grow. That's the truth, right? And I am so encouraged by that. And then yet this passage that I read, then all the more actually speaks to you.

Rather than this passage in Colossians chapter 1 speaking to individuals who have no desire, no standard and are completely dead in their faith, the passage is actually speaking more so to a context like ours. Where perhaps we're growing, but we need to hear all the more. That God's standard is still yet farther above than we can imagine.

Why do I say this is because Apostle Paul in immediate context is in a scenario where he himself is in a dire situation. We believe Apostle Paul is writing this letter from prison. But the reason why he's writing this is because he got a report. He got word. He got news from Epaphras, his fellow servant of the gospel, that people in Colossae, in the city, are responding to truth.

If you turn your eyes over to chapter 1 verse 3, this is what the scripture says. It says, "We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid out for you in heaven of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel." So when you think about that, Apostle Paul, when he sees the Colossians church, he's seeing faith, love, and hope, the trifecta of Christian genuineness and sincerity, right?

He's seeing them loving people and he's seeing them hoping in eternity. So if you think about it, they're doing great. They're doing fine. But does that mean then that he has no words for them? Actually, on the contrary. We believe actually, although sometimes, we typically only tend to pray for the people who are hurting, having a tough time, in weakness or sin or failure, Apostle Paul here is actually praying for those who are doing well.

And so let's read again together what he says. He says, "For this reason also," right? Because the gospel is powerful and is powerfully working in them, he says, "Since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience, joyously giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints and light." I want to give to you the main point and thrust of the entire sermon.

Here is the exhortation for you in the form of Apostle Paul's prayer for you. That to those who are responding to the gospel and growing, he prays that we would not settle for great, we're doing okay, but that there would be a fullness. And that is why the title of the sermon is called, "Raise the Bar to Full." We're not even talking about, "Hey, let's just move and progress from the point that you are now," but rather having a standard that is of God and his perfection.

Having a standard that is above and beyond your own personal vision for your own life, but rather something that exceeds and surpasses the expectations of what's norm for all the people around you. Because Apostle Paul surely does not in this context give them a pat on the back and say, "Great.

I am so happy for you." No, he says, "I pray for you that you would have God in full." So let's talk about this fullness. What kind of fullness are we talking about and why am I making such a big deal of this? Well, if you notice, just from the very beginning, right?

Just from the very beginning, you notice how Apostle Paul's prayer has so many of these, like I can say, superlative words, right? He says things like, "May you be filled," which literally means full to the top. You're capped off, okay? And then he talks about how in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, as you walk through the passage, I'm just going to accentuate some of these words for you.

Think about this, that he desires us to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, okay? He doesn't say, "I want you to walk in a progressive fashion." He says, "I want you to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord." We could possibly just stop there and all of us be floored, thinking, "What?

That's the standard?" But then he goes on. "So that you would please Him in what respect? All respects." And then he says he wants us to be bearing fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. And then he says, "Strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might." Not according to ours or not according to somebody else, not according to circumstance or situation, but according to His glorious might.

"For the attaining of all steadfastness, patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father." Do you notice how many all-complete, these suppurative words that Apostle Paul uses? And that's why I want us to think about this idea of having the bar raised to full, because truthfully speaking, I actually kind of feel a little bit silly.

If I'm given a sermon saying, "Guys, let's do better. We can do better." That's a little silly, considering the fact that Apostle Paul says, "No, we want to attain to the fullness of His glory, fullness of strength." Walking in a manner that is worthy of God. This is not, "Hey guys, let's try a little harder.

Let's do more." That's not it at all, is it? We're talking about a kind of standard that Apostle Paul is giving us a vision for, which is completeness in Christ. As a matter of fact, he says it very explicitly. If you turn your eyes to Colossians 1, verse 28.

In Colossians 1, verse 28, Apostle Paul says this. He says, "We proclaim Him, admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me." Do you see his vision?

Do you see his drive and the purpose that he's trying to pursue? He is not trying to do small fixes, small improvements. He is seeking completeness in Christ, presenting you as one who is full in the Lord. So again, there is a question for us. Is that the kind of vision you've bought into?

Is that the kind of vision you've bought into and therefore pray for yourself? Is that the kind of attitude you are drawing? I have to say in this generation, what I feel most often is that there are this kind of "it's okay" mentality. I think that, those three words, "it is okay," "I'm okay" kind of mentality has been a great disservice to us.

People are asking you, "Hey, how are you doing spiritually?" "I'm okay," right? "We're fine." That kind of mentality is so detrimental. It betrays what Paul is trying to say. I want you to think about this even from, let's say, our enemy's perspective. As I try to, again, emphasize the importance of this idea that we want to strive for the high perfect standard of God, think about it from our enemy's perspective.

To our enemy, this is the best. When Christians say, "I'm okay. I'm doing fine." Now I get it. We don't want to be awkward. So this is the normal way we talk. If someone asks you, "Hey man, how are you doing?" You're not going to be like, "Well, I'm doing my best to strive for the perfect standard of God." You know, like we're not going to do that because then that would be really awkward, right?

And then people might be like, "All right, calm down." But at the same time, all I'm trying to do is say, not trying to change the way you talk, but trying to challenge us to be sober. If we talk like that, I hope we're not thinking like that. I hope we're not thinking that I'm just simply fine because in our enemy's position, he is thinking that makes my job easy.

Why? Because for our enemy, he reserves his greatest efforts for those who have great potential to do great work for the Lord, right? Our enemy is fighting against what? People who are not moving? No, rather he's thinking, "I want everybody to think they're okay. I want everybody to think they're fine." That makes his job easy.

Brothers and sisters, the challenge today then is for you to buy into this mentality and this ambition. I want every single one of us to have certain visions that are lofty, and that vision is given to us. It's straight given to us from the Word of God. And it's my personal conviction, whether you are lazy, whether you're just a sloth, you still have vision.

That's your vision. Your kingdom is ease. So we want a vision like this, the perfections of Christ. And therefore then we should be able to say in our hearts and pray, "God, admonish me, teach me, give me that wisdom. Lead me in all completeness in Christ. I am not okay by the standards of this normative.

I am not even okay with the standard of what is okay in our context of our church. I will strive for your standard." And we have to be, by definition, that kind of broken individual who is not looking at our own deficiencies and saying, "But I can't." But by faith we are receiving the vision of God.

Let me highlight that again. I am willing to guess that every single one of us, we've heard sermons like this before, strive for the high standard of God. But in actuality, when we live our lives, with our eyes, we see more of our deficiency. With our eyes, we see more of our weakness.

With our eyes, we see more of how we fail. What's more, we see how everybody else does too. It takes faith to say, "God, I still believe that's your standard." It takes faith when you say, "God, you have qualified me." It takes faith to say, "God, I have your strength." Amen?

And so by faith, we have to go fight against the things that we see with our eyes and say, "God, I accept your perfect standard." Now, in order to highlight this even more, I want to give you guys some specific tangible questions to check, to do a quick cross-check.

And this question comes by way of asking you, "Do you then have any difficulty receiving challenges from other people?" Do you have any difficulty receiving instruction and challenges from other individuals? But a more maybe precise way to ask this question is, "Do you have difficulty when you are challenged even though you think you're doing okay?" Right?

Let me repeat that. Do you have difficulty receiving instruction and challenge when you think you're doing fine? And to make it even more tangible, I'm going to call out some possible scenarios. First, husbands. Are there moments when you think you're trying your best, loving your wife, leading your family, and then your wife comes to nag you?

Don't answer that. It's a trap question. Okay? But I can imagine that many men who are married could potentially feel that way. Like, "I'm doing the best I can, working hard, you know, earning that bread," all that kind of stuff. And then the wife comes along and says, "I just feel like you don't share.

You don't share your thoughts. I don't know what you're thinking. Could you share more?" Right? And the guy, how do you respond? "What do you want me to share?" Right? "What do you want from me?" Or if the wife says, "I just feel like you're not being considerate. You go take off and do your task and do your errands and you do your job, but you never really consider me." And the guy's sitting there thinking, "Just ask.

What do you want from me?" You know? Like, those are possible scenarios that could potentially happen. Now wives, wouldn't it be awesome if the husbands completely turned that attitude around? And they're like, "Oh, you want to talk about it? Let's sit down on the couch. This is great. Inspire me.

Make me a better husband. Give me more." Right? Can you imagine if a husband received that kind of challenge that way? Right? "You want me to be more considerate?" Rather than thinking like, "Oh my goodness. You don't think I've been considerate?" You know? Rather than thinking like, "I feel really underappreciated.

Do you know how much I think about you? I married you. Look at your finger." Right? Like, you could think like that. But, but, if you flip it around, the guy could be thinking, "Give me more. Because my vision is not this. Do not get me wrong. My vision for my husband role is not status quo.

I want to be the best husband. I want to be perfect in Christ. I want to be like Christ who washes his wife, leads his wife, sacrifices, loves her to death. So give it to me. Tell me how I can improve." Can you imagine what the lady would say?

"What's going on?" Right? It would be weird. Students. Because for a lot of the students, your parents are still trying to put their input into your life. Right? They're trying to tell you what to do, how to manage your time. And you're sitting there like, "I'm a grown man.

All right?" You know? You have your independence. I'm going to be honest with you. That never goes away. And I've got my own kids and family. My mom still does the same thing. Right? It's just not going to get better. Can you imagine rather than saying, "Get off my back.

I know what I'm doing. I'm mature. Okay?" What if you turned around and said, "Thank you. I know you're trying to make me a responsible, mature adult. Let me think about how I'm using my time." You know? Like, can you imagine what they would say? They'd be like, "Uh, this is awkward." Right?

Like, turn that around. And especially in the workplace. You're working hard. Nowadays, it's not abnormal for a lot of people to put in extra hours. Right? They put in extra hours. They're putting in like nine, ten hours. Some of you guys even more. Your boss comes around and is like, "You missed this." And you're just like, "That's it.

I quit." You know? Like, your boss comes around and is like, "Why did you forget to do that?" And you're like, "Do you know how hard I'm working?" Right? Like, you can get really, really angry. But what if you turn around and it's like, "Oh, my gosh. I missed it.

Thank you so much for pointing that out to me. You know, I need your help to get that done. Can you help me?" Can you imagine how different that would be? Now, don't get me wrong. I am not saying that your boss is always right. I am not saying that your, you know, parents are always right.

I am not saying that your spouse is always right. That is not what I'm saying. I am asking you, where is your heart when you are challenged in that moment? How are you in your attitude receiving the challenge when you believe, "I didn't sin. I didn't hurt you. Why are you asking me to do this stuff?" Where is your heart?

Where is your vision? Is your vision like, "I'm fine. Why are you making me do more?" Or is your vision, "Thank you. Let me check myself. Am I achieving the fullness that God wants me to achieve?" That's what I'm challenging you to do. Not just simply challenging you to be a doormat and have everybody run over you.

I'm challenging you to think, "Is my heart in a condition where you will readily assess yourself? You will be broken. I know I'm already working hard. I know I'm already trying my best. Thank you because God has called me to more." That's the kind of hard attitude I'm trying to inspire in you today.

It is above and beyond intellectual. It's above and beyond just simple fixes. We want to achieve, too, the fullness that God wants for us. More specifically in this passage, then, Apostle Paul leads us down some of these areas that we need to be full. The first exhortation is this.

The challenge comes by way of command. It says, "Raise the bar to full knowledge." Raise the bar to full knowledge. As we look at this passage, it's awesome because Apostle Paul reinforces the idea with three synonymous terms. He says, "I want you to have, be filled, topped off and capped with the knowledge of God's will, with much more spiritual wisdom and all understanding." I love that.

Now recently, we had an exam, an eldership candidacy exam for our brother James Hong, who I love dearly, and he did an awesome job. As I was sitting there, I was both, on a human level, very impressed, on a spiritual level, challenged. I was so challenged. Here at this church, we believe in the high authority of the Word of God, but what would that mean if we didn't know the content of it?

To believe in the authority, sufficiency, and inerrancy of the Bible and yet not know the content, it would mean nothing. During that exam, I felt challenged, like, "Oh my goodness, I've got to know this stuff," especially because there was a question like, "What are the names of the cities of refuge in the Old Testament?" Then describe it.

How do people get there? How does that point to Christ? It was going down the list of just describing, naming them all. Some guy next to me gave me the elbow and was like, "Hey, do you remember that from your ordination exam?" "Yeah, right here." I was like, "It was hard." Then I felt that conviction, like, "I should know this stuff." Because honestly speaking, it points to Christ.

I felt so, so challenged. Now, obviously, God is not challenging us to say, "I want you to know facts." I remember the exam questions of list all the cities that Apostle Paul visited in all three of his missionary journeys. I remember I memorized an acrostic and all that kind of stuff.

Knowledge is obtaining facts and information, but Apostle Paul gives us a picture here and says, "I want you to understand first a knowledge of God's will. You as Christians should be experts in this arena. What does the Lord desire?" We're talking about expectations of God today. You as Christians should be experts in answering the question, "What is God pleased by?

What has he been planning to do? What does he want for you?" These are questions you should be grappling with. I don't fault you. If you're young and you haven't had the opportunities to wrestle with your heart and wonder, "Is what I want in God's will?" and you wrestle with that, I don't fault you for that.

You need time to do that. But we should be striving to know first and foremost, "What is displeasing to my God? What is honoring to him? What does he want me to be?" Those passages of the scriptures where God says, "My will for you is that you should be sanctified, you should be holy, that you reflect Christ," all of these things, you should know.

You should know it like the back of your hand. You should. But what's more, he says, "There should be then spiritual wisdom." Now the Hebrew definition of spiritual wisdom, it's big. It's a big gloss. But the most predominant one, the one that happens most, is the idea of skillful wisdom.

An individual who, because of their craft and trade, knows how to accomplish their work in an incredibly efficient and wise way. Likewise, in the book of Exodus, it talks about these skilled craftsmen who helped build the tabernacle, right? It called them wise workers. Why? Because they have a skill.

You should have a skill in navigating your spiritual life, right? It may be a corollary, it's like, "You should have the street smarts when it comes to your spiritual life. You should understand how things operate. You should understand how things are normative with God. You should understand these things." And then what's more, it talks about understanding.

And in this, there should be an ability for you to interpret truth. It is one thing to know facts, it is another to skillfully use it, it's another to interpret. You should be the scientist of Christianity. You should be the one saying, "Oh, look at that observation. Oh, test my hypothesis." You should be the scientist examining the faith.

And that's my challenge to you. This is God's desire that we be rich in Him and in all speech and in all knowledge we would grow. And God says as a warning to every single one of us that throughout history, throughout the past, there is pain for those who are not seeking the knowledge of God.

For example, Proverbs chapter 19 verse 2. Scripture says it is not good for a person to be without knowledge. Hosea 4, 6, "My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge." Now just by way of a practical application of this, I feel like in our day for some odd reason, well, I kind of know why, it's been almost noble to be like, "Yeah, I'm not a theologian or anything." It's also become noble to say, "You know, for me, I don't get involved in politics.

You know, for me, I don't get involved in policy stuff. I don't get involved with that." Because there's almost something noble about being your average, run-of-the-day Christian and you don't have pride and arrogance like those people. Right? Like that has become something of a norm these days. But let me make a challenge to us.

In our day, it's not not talking about politics that we need. Okay? Let me rephrase that. We don't need Christians to get out of politics. You know what we need? We need Christians with self-control. We need Christians who are driven by knowledge of truth. We need Christians who are driven by the character of God because they understand His will.

We need individuals who are actually more in tune with truth, more in tune with knowledge, and more in tune with honesty. That if they don't know about a topic, then they should be willing to say, "I just don't know yet." Right? But the fact of the matter is, it is not a noble thing, neither is it a cool thing for you to say, "Well, I don't get involved with that stuff." To me, that's cowardice.

It is actually the exercise of the great muscle of your brain and your heart to grapple with issues because it grapples with value. It grapples with how you practice your life. And so we as Christians, we are actually all the more challenged. There should be a fullness of knowledge in your life.

To claim ignorance is neither cool or noble. Amen? Now, Scripture says that knowledge helps put everything into motion. Okay? Knowledge helps put everything into motion. Therefore, knowledge, when you understand God, when you understand His spiritual realms, you are going to have an established value system. When you have a value system, now you have your priorities, right?

What's important to you. Now you have your policies, the methodologies, and then you have your execution, what you actually practice. Your knowledge is going to affect all of that. And therefore, our next challenge is raise the bar in every good work. Okay? Next challenge to you is raise the bar in every good work.

Let's turn our eyes to Colossians chapter 1, verse 10, and let's take a look at this passage one more time. And this is what it says. So that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work.

Wow, what a challenge. That in our life, in pattern, in what we do, we should always be evaluating, is this pleasing to God? What's more, His expectation is that you would be bearing fruit in every single work that you engage in. This is so hard. I mean, if you're honest, God is challenging us to raise the bar on everything.

He is asking you, do not have a compartmentalized life where in your workplace, because you think you're doing some monotonous, again, regardless of whatever kind of job you have, whether it be blue collar, white collar, whatever color collar you wear, that's hard to say. Whatever colored collar you wear, okay?

Doesn't matter. God says you work heartily for the Lord. God says you bear fruit in that. It applies to every single thing we do. Sometimes because sometimes the things that we engage in doesn't have a direct effect on us. It's not mine, right? Sometimes the stuff that we get engaged in is just monotonous.

It's so repetitive. It's just always done. We have the tendency to lower the standard, and God says, "No, you bring the fruitfulness to everything you do." Here's an interesting passage that I want us to think about. In this book, Colossians chapter 3, turn there. Colossians chapter 3, verse 22, Apostle Paul challenges a group of people.

They actually have a very unique colored collar. He says this, "Slaves, slaves in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance.

It is the Lord Christ whom you serve, for he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality." Do you see what he's saying? Do you see who he's speaking to? This is wild. And non-Christians out there looking at this passage, it's like, "How dare you?

The Bible condones slavery." No, it does not. What is it condoning? It's condoning godliness in your labor. It's condoning fruitfulness. It's condoning Christ-like character in everything you do. That more above, like so far in importance above simply the kind of work you do or the position that you hold is your godliness of character in the work that you perform.

That in every good work, God expects you, how many aspects, all aspects to walk in a matter and a pattern worthy of the Lord. What a challenge. What a challenge. And as we think about this, this could become incredibly discouraging, right? It's like, "My gosh," you know? It means everything, everything that we do, God is expecting us to be fruitful.

Now I want to speak to this a little bit because I do believe it's difficult. We live in a generation where I think people across the board have a susceptibility to be discouraged, right? And I see a regular pattern nowadays where I talk to young individuals who are working and if they have the capacity, sometimes they look at their jobs and then they quit because they're very discouraged.

They find no fulfillment in it. They don't find a sense of purpose. They don't find a sense of meaning, right? And that is a discouraging thing. What's more, sometimes they look at their work and it's just too big. You feel like a wee little tiny man who's walked up to this gigantic fortress and it almost feels like you're just being expected to take over this massive, massive fortress.

That's how it feels sometimes. Well, again, I want to give you that encouragement. We're not trying to find that fulfillment or the power to overcome that fortress in the work itself. If you are looking at your work, waiting for it to fulfill you, you have it backwards. God is trying to convince us of the power, the supply, the resource, and you bring the fruitfulness, right?

It is both you and God. We understand from Scripture when Apostle Paul says, "Listen, some of us, we workers in the field as Christian laborers, we plant and then I come in water and then it grows. Praise be to God because why? God causes the growth. He brings fruit.

And then he looks to you and he says, "Bear fruit. Walk like you mean it. Walk like you believe." The two of those together is absolutely important for our lesson today. There is a massive call for us and God says to us today, "I want you to strive for this, not looking at your deficiency and getting discouraged, but having faith in God.

He has already given us the power." And that leads us to point three, raise the bar in all power. Raise the bar in all power and let me explain to you what I mean by this. He says, right, "Increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthen with all power," this is verse 10b and 11, "strengthen with all power according to his glorious might for the attaining of all steadfastness, patience, joyously giving thanks to the Father." I want you to take a moment to think about that.

God says, "I want you to be filled with knowledge and therefore I want you to be full in every good work in all respects," right, pleasing the Lord. But I want you to also be filled with the resources of God, to be filled with the power of the Lord, not according to the power of this world, but according to the glorious might of God.

Now, in order to encourage you and really make this more tangible, let's think about this a little bit. At the beginning of the sermon, I said a certain important phrase, which was, "For our standards that we live by, sometimes our standards are in accordance to mankind," meaning it is acceptable to the people around us.

We should be living by the standards that are acceptable to God, but we are regularly tempted to accept and adopt the standards that are acceptable to man. In order for it to be acceptable to even you or to me, we exercise a rationale, okay? So I want you to think about it this way.

Now, I'm making two comparisons here. There is a standard of man and a standard of God. Therefore there is also a rationale of man and a rationale of God. Therefore there is also a power of man and a power of God. Let me explain that even further. Let's take an individual who is operating by the power of man.

Listen to his rationale about his work, about who he is, about his attitude. He has standards and expectations that he operates by, and he has an explanation for you. Take, for example, an individual. If he says, "Man, I've got this pattern where I isolate myself all the time. I go into hiding and I don't want to be around people." Do you know why?

Because my family was volatile. And every time I opened up and shared, they just squashed me. They yelled at me. So sad. According to human wisdom, that makes sense. I could see why you'd go run away. Imagine if I'm a person who is suspicious of everybody. I give you that kind of side eye.

What are you doing? I'm very hard to trust individuals. It is very difficult to me to open up to you, and I just don't trust you. Why? Because I've been duped before. Because I got hurt before. It makes sense. I see why you would do that. Can you imagine if I have a wall of preservation where I'm always defending myself, and you ask why?

And I say, "Because I've always had to fend for myself. I grew up in a broken family and nobody actually fended for me. I felt like I was by myself. I have this wall." I see. It makes sense. The rationale is there. What if I'm a hoarder and I'm just greedy, and every time I get a chance, I just grab onto things?

And you say, "Why are you doing that?" I say, "Because I was always deprived when I was growing up. I never had anything. My little brother, spoiled, got everything. I was always expected to give." Okay. It makes sense. Do you see how that individual has a standard? That individual has a rationale, but that individual also has a power.

That person has powerlessness. And I'm willing to bet he believes that if he had a better family, if he had better friends, if he had better protection and money, he would believe he was in power. Dead wrong. Right? But God is telling you, "You have been qualified by me.

I have given you the spirit and the power of Christ in you. And I want you to operate not by the rationale of man when he says, 'I want you to walk in a manner worthy of Christ,' it is in accordance to what God has given you. It is congruent to what God has empowered in you." And he says, "I want you to have this in full." That is Apostle Paul's prayer.

That's what we have to strive for. God desires us not to walk by the power of our own might, but by the power of Christ. And this will produce in us an incredible steadfastness, an incredible patience that doesn't make sense to the world. Why? This guy whom it would make so much sense to be angry, bitter, and distraught is walking with joy, walking with hope and great love.

God wants you to be full of that kind of power. Amen? Now, we want to move to the final and last exhortation, which is raise the bar to full joy. Raise the bar to full joy. And he says that in this passage, as we take a look at the final verses, verse 11 and 12 he says, "Strengthen with all power according to His glorious might for the attaining of all steadfastness and all patience, joyously giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in inheritance of the saints in light." And here he says there should be a kind of joy in you, a thanksgiving to the Father as you look forward to the inheritance of the people of light, the children of light.

And if you read it a certain way, it's almost kind of like if I put it into the context of expectation, right? If the Father told you, "Hey, I want you to do this now," and you're just like, "That's right, I should do it. You know, before I thought I was doing okay, but I should do it, you know?

And I want you to do it right. Everything you do, do it right." Like, "Okay, yeah, and I want you to do it with power." It's like, "Okay." And then you find yourself having that little bit of attitude. It's like, "Okay, fine, I'll do it." And he's like, "Oh, wait, wait.

Do it with the right attitude. Smile." Right? So if you can imagine a scenario where the parent is scolding a child, like, "Go clean your room." And the child says, "Fine, I'll do it." And he walks away. It's like, "Nuh-uh. Get back here." Right? You're like, "What?" "Change your attitude." Right?

Like, that's kind of how I initially read the passage. Like, "Oh, gosh, there's this incredible high standard of God that we're supposed to strive for, the perfect standard of God. Not only does He want us to do it, but He expects us to do it with joy." "Oh, come on, you know?" The fact of the matter is it's absolutely appropriate.

And in order to illustrate the fact, I want to use a popular TV show. It's actually been discontinued. Many of you guys know it. It's called Kitchen Nightmares. How many of you guys know that? You giggled already? Good. Yeah, it looks like enough of you. So you will get the analogy.

Now, I love this because there's a chef named Gordon Ramsay who is, again, a celebrity now and has been for a long time. And he walks into these established restaurants who, over a long period of time, maybe they were like super popular a long time ago, but over a long period of time, they started to lower their standards.

They started to have moldy food. The food came out slow. Their service was horrible. The atmosphere was dingy. And then he jumps into that scenario. He breaks some egos. He points out and calls them out for their low standards. And then he motivates them to do more, brings them back up to the codes of your food and health department, and then inspires them to do more in their culinary arts.

That's what he does. It's awesome. But you guys know why I don't show you a clip of it because there's way too much cursing. It's just way too much cursing. But the whole premise of the whole story of him trying to get people with low standards to have high standards, I love it.

It's awesome. So there is this one scenario. I'm just going to describe it to you. He's at this restaurant. And he does this thing where he's like, "All right, that's it. Everybody get out of here." And he pulls them in. Just imagine I'm doing this with an English accent.

"Come on, lads. Come on over." And then he brings everybody in, the chef, the sous chef, and the salsasters, and the owner, gets them in a fat circle. And he brings this little bucket out. He puts it on the table. He's like, "What is this? What is this?" He's all mad.

He's enraged. And everyone's like, "What? What? What?" And he's like, "Look at this mashed potato. It's made of power. And there's mold." And they're like, "Oh, my gosh. There's mold." Right? And they're all distraught. And the chef is just standing there with his arm crossed because he knows what's coming.

Right? So the chef looks like, "What is this?" And the guy's like, "What? No one's complaining. Nobody complained tonight." And the chef's like, "What? Hey, man. Why did you even become a chef?" And the guy's like, "Because I love food. I have a passion for food." And the chef going around, he's like, "You have no passion for food.

You don't even have passion for these people. You have no respect for this industry. You are nothing." Right? And I'm like, "Oh, what a gangster." You know? Like, he's just calling out that man and just demolishing him like this, you know? And then, you know, they have a pan out to one of the hostesses or one of the servers, and he's like, "He's right." You know?

He's just like... It's so funny. It's so funny. But you guys know exactly where I'm going with this analogy. Right? We're talking about not only doing the right things, but we're also talking about the kind of joy and passion that God wants us to have. Now the analogy is so good, it just operates by itself, and I don't even have to talk about it that much, but there should be a level of distance between the analogy of Chef Gordon Ramsay versus the analogy of our love for Christ and what we're doing in terms of setting the bar for our Christian faith.

Right? Because what Apostle Paul is saying is not, "Do it right. Make those potatoes." Right? We're talking about an individual who has anger, right? Gordon Ramsay has anger, indignation, and a sense of, "What is this?" Because the food is not up to par. And that is an incredible convicting challenge for me because we're talking about the gospel, we're talking about our faith in God, we're talking about eternity.

Apostle Paul is saying, "You have been qualified. You have been qualified for this inheritance, everlasting, permanent, unstained by anything. This is a great treasure that you have been given. Shouldn't you at least have the same kind of indignation and passion? Shouldn't we also, and likewise the other side, have the same kind of joy and gusto?" Apostle Paul is not saying, "Do it.

Just do it right. Cook it right." No. "Do not be full in everything in all respect, be full in every good work, but have joy in thanksgiving because that is appropriate for Christians who are calling upon the name of the Lord. We are not simply raising the bar, gritting your teeth, and trying to do it.

We're actually trying to exercise our faith. God, I believe in you." Likewise for us then. What a challenge, right? Personally for me, what a challenge, right? Like there's, man, I just got to share it just honestly. Like as I studied this passage, I kind of thought about, "Godness, God, what you're doing right here, Lord, you're saying to me nothing short of 100% surrender is okay for you." Right?

God, as I was meditating on this passage, I'm sitting here thinking, "God, every moment when I started feeling less, right, and I got all discouraged, and I threw a little pity party." "But I'm working as hard as I can." You know, like these are the moments when I could exercise my faith in you, to have great joy and know that what you have started in me, you're going to complete.

And right now, my vision is not this. I am not just okay. May it never be that I say that. I'm being transformed by Christ. And in moments when people point the finger and say, "But what are you doing?" I'm not going to get all defensive. I'm going to say, "Thank you for asking." Because I cannot just simply year to year do and repeat everything I'm doing just because I've done it before.

I have to intentionally think, "How am I trying to attain and strive for the perfect measure of Christ?" And there is no single element of my life that is not open to that kind of scrutiny. Whether it be my service, my home life, whether it be my own relationships, my thoughts, everything is open to you, Lord.

And I pray that you would be challenged today, that there would be that kind of, I guess, godly discontent in you. This is not currently my vision. My vision is for more. And just like Chef Ramsay could look at something, taste it, and say, "What is this?" For those of us who have taste of heaven, those of us who have taste of Christ, we should be able to look at the world, have all these people present it to us and say, "Look!

Look how impressive!" We say, "What is this? Where are your standards, man?" It's utter trash. I have an inheritance, the people of light, that God has secured for me. Amen? Let's pray. (snow crunching)