I speak to you in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Please be seated.
Well, our text this morning is going to
be from our epistle reading, Ephesians chapter three,
verses four, 14 through 21.
This is one of the greatest prayers recorded
in Holy Scripture, and it is actually the
hinge upon which the book of Ephesians turns.
In chapters one to three, just as a
reminder, Paul gives us an incredible overview of
the cosmic dimensions of our salvation, a salvation
that is wrought in eternity past and will
be fulfilled and completed in eternity future, a
salvation that embraces not only Jew but Gentile,
that encompasses all of creation.
Now, it's worth remembering this, and this is
why it's such a wonderful book.
Often our default is to look at Jesus
as a spiritual band-aid for whatever troubles
we're going through.
Yes, we know that he's our Savior.
We know that he died for our sins,
but often we limit it to what he
is doing for us as individuals, whereas Paul
reminds us through the Holy Spirit that God's
eternal purposes have always been to gather up,
to unite all things together around and under
Christ.
Christ himself is not only the origin of
creation and its Redeemer.
He is the one who restores it, all
things being lined up in harmony with his
will.
It's a magnificent image he gives us.
It's an image of Christ drawing the church
up into the heavenly realms, seating us with
him at the right hand of the Father.
It's an image of God filling all things
through his church.
We see angels and archangels and even principalities
and powers who are beholding what God is
doing in and through the church and recognizing
the glory and the wisdom of God.
That's the first three chapters.
Cosmic, dynamic, just incredible.
The last three chapters, chapters four through six,
answer the question, well, what does this look
like on the ground?
Because that is a little bit daunting.
It's a bit bracing and, well, it's hard
to get our heads around the first three
chapters in a way.
Chapters four through six show us what it
looks like.
It looks like a church that is walking
in the way of truth, a church that
loves its members, not just in word, but
in deed.
It looks like a people who are turning
away from works of darkness and who are
embracing and walking in the way of light,
in purity, in humility before God and with
each other.
It looks like husbands and wives walking in
step, loving one another.
It looks like children and parents in healthy
relationship, relationships that honor God.
It looks like Christians in the workplace showing
forth God's kingdom there in the way that
they relate to one another, both in management,
if you like, and also as employees.
What it says is that through the church,
through our daily lives, not just through our
coming together to worship, but through our daily
worship of honoring one another, of honoring those
we meet with day by day and doing
the mundane, everyday things there, our lives are
transformed into beacons of God's kingdom.
The world is watching.
Angels are watching and easy, right?
No, and to top it off in Ephesians
six, we find that there are forces, spiritual
forces of darkness that are doing everything they
can to stop us from fulfilling this call
from being who God has made us to
be.
So that brings us to today's prayer, to
today's prayer.
Ephesians three, verses 14 to 21.
Very aptly, Paul prays that God would strengthen
his church, right?
What a calling we have.
It's huge.
It reaches from heaven to earth.
It encompasses every part of our human existence,
and Paul prays for us with that in
mind.
It's not a prayer to make us feel
daunted.
It's a prayer to encourage us, though, to
build up our faith.
The first thing I'd like you to notice
is that this prayer, which Kerry read for
us earlier and we'll look at again in
a moment in parts, this prayer is very
different from the prayers we often pray.
Often, I don't know how it is with
you, outside of liturgical prayer, we have times
of intercession, but often our prayer defaults to,
Lord, I pray that you would help me.
Get that job that I was looking for.
Father, I pray that that raise I've been
hoping for, it would come through.
Pray that you would help me feel well.
I pray that, Lord, you'd give me a
parking spot, right?
And it's not wrong to bring all of
our requests to God.
But the thing is, we don't pray for
enough.
Our prayers are too, they lack ambition.
God wants so much more for us than
just to smooth over our lives.
He wants us to enter into the fullness
of what he has called us into, what
he's called us to be.
And that's how Paul prays for us.
And it's a great guide for us as
we pray day by day.
Paul's going to the heart of it all.
He is praying that the Ephesians and us
as well, we could say, will have a
genuine experience of God's presence and love in
their innermost being.
He's praying for real inner change.
Now, why is he praying for this?
He's praying this prayer because we need changed
hearts, all of us.
Not just once upon a time, but day
by day.
We need this constant inner renewal of our
hearts, our souls, our minds.
And Paul is praying that God would make
this so.
You see, our hearts are neither deep enough,
nor clean enough, nor, in fact, big enough
to encompass God's presence.
Paul is praying because he knows only God
can do what he's asking to have done.
Only God can do it.
Now, the prayer itself, we're going to look
at it as three petitions.
Three petitions.
Firstly, Paul prays that the power of God
would strengthen the Ephesians' hearts so that Christ
may dwell in them.
Secondly, that they would be strengthened so that
they might know and grasp the love of
Christ.
And thirdly, that they would be filled with
the fullness of God.
So, we're going to look at the first
petition now.
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.
Now, before I go any farther, notice that
the prayer is not that God would answer
from his power, but that he would answer
according.
to his power.
How powerful is he?
In accordance with that much power, Paul is
praying.
So, it's a wonderful prayer, but it raises
right off the bat a rather interesting question.
Why is Paul praying for something that Christians
are supposed to already have?
Doesn't scripture teach us that we are not
only in Christ, but that he is in
us?
And yes, it does.
And yes, he is.
But we need to understand that Christ's indwelling
is, again, not just a sort of a
one-time thing.
It's a matter of degrees.
The word dwell, in verse 17, speaks of
more than his mere presence in our hearts.
It carries the sense of full occupancy.
Now, what do I mean?
Sometimes we have guests in our home.
And when they come, we want them to
feel very much at home.
We'll often set aside the downstairs for their
use.
They're welcome to come upstairs, you know, make
use of the kitchen, the living room, whatever.
At the same time, though, and this may
be the case for you, I imagine it
is, there's kind of an unspoken agreement that
there are some areas of the house that
are a little bit private.
The master bedroom, you know, and so on.
So, there are areas that we reserve a
little bit, at least, for ourselves.
Now, the problem is, when we start dealing
with God, is we often treat him as
though he's a guest.
Yes, he indwells us.
But, you know, there are certain rooms that
are kind of off limits.
Perhaps we just don't really want him in
there, because we want to keep control of
those rooms.
Maybe we're a little bit ashamed of those
rooms in our hearts.
But for whatever reason, he's there, but he's
there still.
We're treating him as though he was a
guest.
Rather than the Lord of the manor.
Well, that's not how Christian life works.
When Christ comes in, he doesn't come in
as a guest to go only where you'll
allow him.
He comes to reign over your heart and
mine.
He comes to live out his life in
our lives as master and as Lord.
Now, that's where faith and the strengthening of
God's Spirit comes into play.
The indwelling of Christ is so wonderful, it
is so glorious, and it can be so
overwhelming that our hearts can't actually take it.
We need God to strengthen our hearts.
We need him to come in and soften
them, to make them tender, to enable them
to expand to the degree that they can
actually contain the glory of Christ within us.
Because that is what we were made for.
To be the dwelling place of Christ by
his Spirit.
Isn't that amazing?
So, Paul prays that God would strengthen our
hearts.
And in the second petition, he says that
you, being rooted and grounded in love, may
have strength again to comprehend with all the
saints what is the breadth, the length, the
height, and the depth, and to know the
love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.
Well, how broad then is Christ's love for
us?
Well, it's wide enough to encompass you and
me and even the worst offender.
Paul knows this with a deep sense of
his own ill standing before God, before he
was called.
He had been a persecutor of the church.
He had tried to drive it out of
existence.
And yet, he met this incredible grace of
God that would actually encompass him, not only
forgive him, but call him to the ministry
of the apostolate, to send him out and
use him for the glory of God's kingdom.
That is how broad it is to encompass
all of us.
How long is his love?
Well, again, from the beginning of Ephesians, we
see that if we want to talk in
length, as far as chronology, from the very,
even before the foundations of this earth, from
eternity past, God looked down every possible future
and saw you.
He chose you, and he sent his son
to die for you, and he poured out
his spirit into your heart.
And looking down through to eternity future, the
Spirit himself is a seal guaranteeing you of
the inheritance that he's called you to, an
inheritance to share with Christ, reigning over all
of creation to the glory of God the
Father.
That's how long it is.
How high is it then?
Well, remember again that Christ lifted us up
and seated us by his side at the
Father's throne.
If you belong to Jesus, you have been
raised up to the heights of heaven, to
the highest place that you can be.
How deep is it?
Jesus came down from heaven to the cross
for our sakes, and there he experienced the
very depths of suffering and of darkness, again,
so that he might lift us up.
Brothers and sisters, this is the love that
anchors us.
This is the love that is able to
lift us out of our self-absorption, our
fear.
As we know and as we experience this
love, we are set free to love God
with all of our heart, soul, mind, and
strength.
We're set free to love our neighbors as
ourselves because we know what love is.
And as much as we meditate on this
love, as much as we sound it out
in this age, we're never going to come
to the end of it.
Actually, even in eternity, we'll never be able
to sound it out completely.
We can never exhaust it because it goes
on forever.
And the third petition, finally.
Paul prays all of these prayers, really, with
this final petition in mind.
Verse 19, he prays that we may be
filled with all the fullness of God.
Listen to it again, that we may be
filled with all the fullness of God.
Not some of the fullness of God, but
all of it.
What does that look like?
Well, on the one hand, we could compare
it to other characters, characteristics, if you like,
or dominant forces in our hearts.
If we're filled with anger, it means we're
controlled by it.
It shapes our thinking, our emotions, and finally,
it shapes our character.
We become angry people.
If we're filled with lust, we're ruled by
lust.
It shapes how we view the world, how
we view other people or things.
If we're filled with self-pity, that will
also shape us and put its mark on
our character.
All of these things dominate us.
They change us.
God wants us to be filled with His
fullness, filled with Him.
And He's the only one who is able
to actually overwhelm all of these other things
that would control us.
It means that, but it means much more
as well.
God's presence is more than an attitude.
It's more than thinking about Him.
It is God Himself indwelling us.
God Himself filling us with His own life,
His own goodness, His own power.
And we need that.
We need God to pervade us.
We need Him to permeate our lives because,
again, this is what we were made for.
And it is as God does this that
we begin to shine as lights in this
world.
It's where we become who we were made
to be again.
Now, the only thing that gets in the
way of this is our unwillingness to ask.
Now, it might seem like it's quite a
lot to ask.
It might seem like it's almost more than
we could imagine or think.
Paul is way ahead of us.
Notice how he ends his prayer in verse
20.
Now to Him who is able to do
far more abundantly than all we can ask
or think according to the power at work
within us, to Him be glory in the
church and in Christ Jesus through all generations
forever and ever.
You cannot out-ask God when it comes
to things like this.
He is inviting us to ask Him because
this is His will for us.
And we know that whatever we ask according
to His will, He will answer.
God wants us to be rooted in the
love of Jesus Christ.
He wants us to know His love.
He wants us to be strengthened in our
hearts.
And He wants to fill our hearts both
as individuals and as His church.
Without this experience of Christ's life within us,
without this experience of fullness, our faith inevitably
begins to dry up or out.
It becomes a bit of a barren landscape
for us.
Instead of joyfully serving Him, it becomes a
duty.
It becomes tiresome.
It becomes a great weight upon our shoulders.
But that is not what Jesus has called
us to.
Remember, His yoke is easy, His burden is
light.
What was His yoke and His burden?
It was love for the Father.
It was obeying His Father and doing His
Father's will out of sheer love and joy.
This is what we're called into, to embrace
this whole life of discipleship, this whole life
of being witnesses for God's kingdom and for
Christ out of this sense of joy and
love and from the overflow of our own
hearts as God fills us.
So, God says to us, come be filled.
Paul prays that we would be filled.
And can I invite you over these weeks,
make this your prayer day by day.
Pray it for yourself.
Pray it for your brothers and sisters here
in St. Matthew's and for the church around
the world.
What would it be like?
What would this world be like if we
all prayed that prayer?
God has chosen us to be the earthly
body of His Son.
He has chosen us to be filled with
all of His fullness so that through us
He might fill the earth with His glory.
And as He shows forth His glory in
us, again angels will fall down to worship
Him, demons will despair, and God will be
glorified in His church.
Amen.