Sunday service sermon from 28th February 2016. Two readings from the Book of Philippians 3:7-14 and Ephesians 3:14-21, by Richard Lane.

• Philippians 3:7-14

  7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
  8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ
  9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
  10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
  11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
  12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
  13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
  14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

  New International Version

• Ephesians 3:14-21

  A Prayer for the Ephesians

  14 For this reason I kneel before the Father,
  15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.
  16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
  17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,
  18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
  19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
  20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,
  21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

  New International Version