Ephesians 3:14-21 Paul's prayer for power (SM11/044)

thank you very much for reading for us let's pray that God will help us to understand Lord open our eyes we pray that we may see your truth more clearly in the person of the Lord Jesus who brings the love of God to us in such relevant and powerful ways open our hearts that we may receive that love and fashion our wills that we may live lives of love patterned on all the Christ has done for us help us then to be imitators of God as your beloved children and speak to us through your word now we pray in Christ's name Amen well we come this morning to the last section of this first half of Ephesians which as you will have heard in the reading ends with a great doxology of verses 20 and 21 we're going to keep going through Ephesians to the end of the letter but today we really reach the sort of halfway point Ephesians has been described as the Grand Canyon of Scripture I imagine that's because in this book we have an amazing Vista of the majestic power and beauty and the awesome scale of the mind of its creator the Grand Canyon everybody says who visits it suddenly appears to them you sort of suddenly come upon it and there it is in all it's awesome splendor and when we think of the mind that could create the wonders of our physical universe and then we think of the spiritual blessings with which God has blessed us in Christ you can see why people have said this letter is one of the great high spots of the whole Bible and nowhere is that more clearly seen than in those amazing words at the end of verse 19 which I'd like you to look at please if you will with me that last a clause of verse 19 that you may be filled with all the fullness of God I just stop and think about that for a moment you may be filled with all the fullness of God filled up to capacity with the very life of God himself now if we're Christians this morning I guess that deep down is what we most need and what we most desire and it is certainly God's desire for the church in its corporate nature and for every individual Christian it is at the very heart of this letter if you flip back a page to chapter 1 verse 23 right at the end of that chapter you remember perhaps when we were looking at that how we saw the Christ head over everything for the church is the fullness of him who fills all in all next week we're going to be in chapter 4 verse 10 Jesus who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things that you may be filled with all the fullness of God or chapter 4 verse 13 we are to attain to the unity of the faith the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and perhaps the most famous verse chapter 5 verse 18 don't get drunk with wine but be filled with the spirit so God will be satisfied with nothing less than the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and if that is our great need it is certainly the need of our broken culture within all its disappointment and cynicism and its propensity to disbelieve everything what we need is Christians who are filled with all the fullness of God now that's where the poll passage comes to its climax it provides the key to unlock the riches of these immeasurably wonderful verses that we might be filled literally unto that is right up to the level of God's fullness and that is a huge challenge to us to realize the wealth that we have in Christ to the full for there is no limit on that fullness except the limit which we ourselves make by the poverty of our faith or by our unbelief it was truly said many years ago that no one has less of Jesus Christ than they really desire for his riches are limitless and His grace and love as we've reminded ourselves want to pour those riches into us it's our resistance our unwillingness which prevents us from being filled with all the fullness of God now what we need to see and you'll find an outline on the back of the notice sheet is that this challenge is met by prayer that is the nature of this paragraph and that tells us right at the start that if this potential is going to be realized in your life and mine this week we are 100% dependent on God we have to ask him and Paul's prayer is a model for us to follow you may know that Ephesians contains two prayers two great prayers of the New Testament the first at the end of chapter one and this one here at the end of chapter three and there is I believe an inspired symmetry between the two prayers the first prayer back in Chapter one is a prayer for Revelation chapter 1 verse 18 he's asking God that having the eyes of your hearts enlightened you may know what is the hope to which he's called you and what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the Saints the object of that knowledge is the riches of God's grace with all the hope and assurance that that will bring into our lives as it becomes more and more real to us that is a prayer for revelation this second prayer is a prayer for realization that you may be filled with all the fullness of God for the appropriation in experience of the knowledge that Paul has taught us if the first prayer is a prayer for God's light to open our eyes the second is a prayer for God's life to transform our behavior and of course chapters 4 & 6 4 to 6 we'll be talking about that more and more so we're moving from know what you are to be what you know you are and from God's power working for us in Christ and the gospel to that same power working in us to transform us and the comparison makes it clear that the realization of Christ's life in all its fullness in our lives is a process it begins at our new birth and it will go on until the day we see Christ face to face in his glory and are finally transformed into his likeness it's the process that we often call sanctification we might call it growing into maturity or growing in godliness in Christ's likeness it is the development of the life of God in us that we might be filled with all the fullness of God and however much of that fullness you enjoy this morning I can assure you that there is more to come there is more for every tomorrow so not surprisingly there's a logical process a logical development of growth which the prayer focuses on and which we need to grasp first of all let's look at the god to whom paul prays you may remember last week we saw at chapter 3 verse 1 that he started a sentence and then broke off for this reason I Paul a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles and then we had no main verb and I said last week the verb doesn't occur to verse 14 well that's where we've got this week for this reason I bow my knees before the Father so what he's got what he is saying is for this reason and we'll see what the reason is in a moment I am praying I bow my knees it's an appropriate posture for prayer it's not essential of course but many Christians like to kneel in prayer because it demonstrates physically what is going on spiritually humble submission to God dependence on his grace that's what prayer is and it explains why we find prayer so difficult in our generation because it is hard for us to know that we are really uh turley dependent on God I mean if you live in a subsistence economy give us this day our daily bread has a reality and an urgency to it which we just don't really know anything about and the danger for us is that we forget who does give us our daily bread and then we start to think that somehow we can be self-sufficient we are physically in various ways we imagine that we could be so spiritually and before we know where we are God is obviously to be worshipped and to be acknowledged but it's not central to the business of living our everyday lives but the more we see the reality of who God is the more it will motivate us to pray now what is the reason well again let's turn back a page to the end of chapter 2 which was where he picked this idea up for this reason and in chapter 2 verse 21 you'll see that he speaks about the whole structure that is the church being joined together growing into a holy temple in the Lord and then in the last verse in him you also are being built together Jews and Gentiles who believe in Christ into a dwelling place for God by the spirit for this reason I bow my knees it is the reason of the development of godliness holiness among the people of God so that the church can be what God designed it to be if you were with us last Sunday morning you'll remember in verse 10 of chapter 3 that it is through the church that the manifold wisdom of God is being revealed to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places so you see how it all fits together if that is to be the reality that the church by being made up of individual members who are each one a unique reflection of the Lord Jesus himself whose lives are being transformed by him so that as we are separated from one another tomorrow and ply it into the place of the world well you will be tomorrow you are there as the Lord Jesus representative and if we are going to do that in such a way that Christ is honored and the gospel spreads in our culture and so that the hostile powers see in the church already the sentence which they will face that they are defeated by Christ and will be destroyed if that reality is to happen then we are totally dependent on God to do it and that is why we pray and what a God we pray to see verse 15 here in chapter 3 is bursting with encouragement I'd bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named he is our Father we belong to him he cares about us but if all fatherhood derives its name and nature from God the Father it means that in every sphere the heaven Lizz as the verse says that is the sphere where the supernatural powers are at work and the earth which is the sphere of human life whether it's heaven or earth he is the only ultimate authority everything exists because He willed it in creation and no powers of angels or demons or human beings can have any authority apart from his will this is the god to whom Paul prays he's described him in chapter 3 verse 9 as the one who created all things he described him in chapter 1 as the father of glory so this God is worth praying to there is no other God of course there is no one else to pray to but what a great and glorious God the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named now the bulk of our study this morning must be on the petitions that Paul presents and we're going to look at verses 16 to 19 which is the heart of the prayer and what strikes me is that this is a prayer all about power which in New Testament terms is the word Dunamis which gives us the English word dynamite but the word doesn't just mean explosive power the word basically means the ability to get a task done now dynamite I suppose does have that ability but you don't always want the task to be destructive and Dunamis is not just a destructive power though sometimes it does destroy the forces of evil but it is the ability that God gives for the tasks to be completed that is what he is praying for that sort of power when there's a Fault in the boiler at this time of year and the central heating doesn't come on I personally have no clue as to why it's happened or what to do about it so I need a plumber or a heating engineer and eventually in London I managed to get hold of someone and I say to the heating engineer can you put it right now really I'm asking him do you have the ability power to solve the problem that power includes knowledge it includes skill it includes experience it includes energy what I'm looking for from my plumber friend is a package of ability to get the job done now if verse 19 is the goal that you may be filled with all the fullness of God the question is how am I going to get there and the answer is only by God's ability he has the package of ability that I'm looking for if you trace the prayer back grammatically from that climax in verse 19 you'll find that it hinges on two major requests each of which has a desired outcome and we know that because at the beginning of verse 16 there's a little word that says so that and at the beginning of verse 18 in the original it's repeated that we don't have it in the English translation so that so that too so that's at verse 16 and 18 in the original text introduce the two balancing halves of the requests and the outcomes so let's look at them together because they're enormous ly encouraging here we are seeking to deploy Christian living in a hostile unbelieving world we need to be filled with all the fullness of God so firstly Paul asks for inner strengthening I praise as Paul in order that verse 16 according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being so what he's asking for here's the request is that God will give his readers and us strength which comes from his divine enabling his power now the measure of this power in verse 16 is enormous ly encouraging it is according to the riches of his glory we know that the glory of God means the essential nature of God it's the weightiness of God the heaviness of God if you like one way of expressing it is that the glory of God is the God nosov God it's everything that makes God God in his uniqueness and therefore of course he is unbelievably rich in glory now notice that the prayer also asks that the source of this power will be reflected in its measure that is to say he prays that the great power of Christ will strengthen us through the work of the Spirit according to the riches of his glory not out of the riches of his glory but according to we can perhaps understand that this way if you approach a very wealthy man on behalf of a Christian ministry that you're concerned about and you want to ask him if he would be how happy to support it financially and you come along to him and explain what the ministry does and he says well that's very interesting I'm pleased to help and he's an extremely wealthy man a multimillionaire perhaps and he gives you 20 pounds and he says there you are I hope that will be a help well he gives you out of his riches he has given it's generous of him to give anything but he gives you out of his riches but if after you've presented the need to him he then sits down at the table with you takes out his checkbook and says now how much do you actually need and is prepared to write the check for that son then he is giving to you according to his riches and that is our generous and all-powerful God that is how he gives not a 20 pound note out of his wallet but whatever your need is he will write the check now that of course doesn't mean that he's going to make you infinitely prosperous wealthy and wise we're not preaching a prosperity gospel because the Bible defines what our needs are and our greatest need is that we grow in our knowledge and love of him so it's not saying he'll write a check and make you incredibly wealthy but it is saying that where there is a genuine spiritual need there is no hindrance at God's end to meet that need he is generous and all-powerful now we need that power then to enable us to live this life of fullness and the power comes from God himself through the Ministry of the Holy Spirit who dispenses the riches that are in Christ and he does it the verse says in our innermost being as he lives within every individual believer so that he may strengthen you with power through his spirit the Spirit is the agency of the power in our innermost being or in your inner being now the equivalent in the next verse is that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and biblically the inner being and the heart are the same here they are the control center of the personality where we make our lifestyle choices and where we set our moral compass when you became a Christian what happened to you was that the Holy Spirit came to take up residence within your personality he applied the work of Christ for you on the cross you trusted in the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sins repented of your living for yourself turned to God acknowledge Jesus Christ is Lord and what God does then is to bring the life of God in the power of the Holy Spirit inside the personality of every believer that is what the new birth is all about it is a miracle of God's grace and that life then begins to work in us changing us on the inside in our thinking in our motivation in our priorities and eventually the inside shows on the outside as we live different lives so there is the request for God strengthening to go on doing that day by day by day so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith verse 17 and that being rooted and grounded in love see we talked about turning to Christ about inviting Christ into our hearts and lives and that is right but Christ dwells in us by his spirit and his spirit progressively enables us to realize more and more fully what happened at our conversion now for that to occur the Holy Spirit is the divine agency and look at the verse faith verse 17 is the human appropriation so all the power to be filled with the fullness of God comes through the Ministry of the Holy Spirit given without measure to God's people but faith is the human appropriation faith is the condition and the means for us to experience more and more of the power of God in our lives now is that what we are longing for is that what we are actually lacking in our lives as we look around at the ineffectiveness of the church in our community today wherever it is and we were reminded again this morning of the massive needs all around us part of the reason must be because we as Christians are so often not filled with all the fullness of God it's not so that we feel guilty about that we're human beings we're natural people we're full of weakness as we've reminded ourselves in the confession this morning and it's not that God is trying to make us feel miserable about it and guilty about it but that he is trying to stimulate our appetite for more to know him better to love him more to follow him more closely and the mark of the dwelling of Christ in our hearts verse 17 says will be love rooted like a plant grounded like a building on a strong foundation God's love the soil God's love the foundation through Christ love is always the measure of spiritual maturity so he's asking for that inner strengthening that the Holy Spirit will bring the power of God into our lives and the and the outcome of that will be that we will grow in love grow in a deepening awareness of God's love for us as we've been meditating on it this morning and grow in a love for him which is a response poor and weak and feeble though it is to his great love for us that's the first thing if we're to be filled with the fullness of God it will be the power of God transforming us into being people of love now in verses 18 and 19 the second part of the petition and there's a balance here with the first two but verses 1617 but you'll notice again that in verse 18 the need is for strength for divine power I bow my knees to the father asking that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth and it's interesting that the word that's translated there is a different word from power it's the only time this word is used in the New Testament and it means to be in a position to do something to have the capacity to be strong enough to do something now you'll never be in a position to comprehend the dimensions of verse 18 Paul is saying unless God enables you to do it so here is the request for understanding and that's something that all Christians need that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints all of us are on that journey but what is the object of the comprehension what is the experience of that well Paul mentions those four dimensions doesn't he it's a famous verse the breadth the length or height and the depth but there is no object traditionally Christians have said well it refers to love he's talked about love before in the preceding verse he's going to talk about love in the next verse and certainly it wouldn't be wrong to see love as part of that but I don't think that's the whole picture because the request for power leads to love in verse 19 and it would be a very strong parallel between the first request and the second request if the same pattern was followed so verse 16 power in order verse 17 to be rooted in love verse 18 power in order verse 19 to know the love of Christ and as the power and the love operate so you may be filled with all the fullness of God so we just need to take a moment to remind ourselves of context here remember Paul's writing to Christians in occult Ephesus a city given over to magic and superstition many many spells and incantations and magical texts have been excavated from Ephesus translated by the archaeologists and the scholars and studied from first century Ephesus and the interesting thing is that these documents show that the four dimensions breadth length height and depth are used in Ephesus as an expression of supernatural power so there are documents that have been unearthed from the first century in which people pray to false gods and to demons to ask to be initiated into the totality of the power which they imagined these hostile forces had they want to know well in terms of the prayers that have been excavated they want to know the breadth and the length and the height and the depth in other words Paul is using language which the Ephesians would be very familiar with but of course he's applying it now to God and he's saying I want you to know the totality of God's power and if you're looking for a New Testament equivalent as we ought to to see if that's a right interpretation Romans 8:39 talks about neither powers nor life nor depth but it also says nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation can separate us from God's love the powers are linked in Romans 8 to the height and the depth so I'm inclined to think that Paul is using the four dimensions in that way to point out the superior power of the only true and living God seen in the Lord Jesus who's been raised to the Father's right hand and seen in his people as they live the Jesus lifestyle of self-sacrificing love if you want more about that then I recommend dr. Clinton Arnold the American scholar and his book Ephesians power magic it's a very interesting treatment of this theme in the letter and to quote him he suggests that we might paraphrase verse 18 as that you may have the power to understand the incredible vastness of God's power the incredible vastness of God's power the outcome will be an increasing experience of the love of Christ to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge now of course that love will always be greater than our experience of it but we can know it more and more so that then our key phrase will also become progressively true that you may be filled with all the fullness of God filled with his power filled with his love and as we meditate on the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge as we think often about the cross as we see how the Lord Jesus carried our sin in his body on the tree as we remember that greater love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends and Christ lay down his life while we were enemies then the connection between the power and the love is going to become increasingly clear to us and as we go on in Ephesians we'll see it's increasingly important in the next three chapters because the divine power becomes the source of living a life of love just look across the page at 5:2 and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us that's the Christian lifestyle a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God well now let's just step back from the text for a moment and think about the challenge of life this week think about that difficult situation at work I think about those some hard decisions that you've got to make or maybe you're involved in an ongoing caring for little ones or for old older parents or maybe you face insoluble problems about your priorities or the future you just don't seem to know where it is God wants you to go or maybe it's just that you have a sense of the overwhelming sadness as you see a crumbling culture all around us and godlessness in the ascendancy I don't know what it is that you're dealing with but you know can you face that without God's fullness oh of course you could survive but if your life is going to count for God neither you nor I can live this week without the fullness of God well then we've got a pray haven't wait for God's power we've got to respond to the Holy Spirit as he teaches us in the word every day as he prompts us to faith and to obedience and we got to ask God for an enlarged awareness and experience of his vast power in all its breadth and length and height and depth that sent Christ to the cross that pumped over all the hostile forces that showed us that god is love and we got to draw on that limitless energy and resource every day so that all through this week we're going to be praying those prayers of faith Lord in this situation please give me your wisdom Lord I need your patience at this moment I can't do this but you can so I ask you by your spirit to grant me patience Lord I need to be courageous here and naturally I just want to go low-profile and say nothing please give me the courage because you're within me Christ dwells in my heart by faith and the power of the universe is there to fill me with all the fullness of God you can multiply the number of occasions it will happen to all of us day after day through this week and sometimes we'll fail and when Satan tempts us to despair and tells us of the guilt within we'll look up again and see him there who made an end of all our sin and we'll trust him again and we'll return to him again and we'll draw upon the resources of his power again that we may be filled with all the fullness of God that is the normal Christian life and so verses 20 to 21 as we close keep us looking to God the God whom Paul prays to yes but the God whom Paul praises look with me at verse 20 is a magnificent verse now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work in us to him be glory in the church it starts by saying now to the powerful one the able one the one who can do and that is the power that is at work within us this is the God whose power exceeds all dimensions see verse 20 is really a tremendous crescendo to the first half of the letter if you strip verse 20 right down to its basic he is saying God is able to do what we ask that's the basic but then he builds on that you see he says God is able to do what we ask or think now sometimes I think things that I would love to see God do but I hardly dare to ask them but I can imagine them and God is able to do what I ask and what I think but then he will not rest content with that he says in verse 20 God is able to do all we ask or think so there's no area of life that's outside of God's ability and power but then you think well there's some very big things that we need to see happen and Paul says yes but this God is able to do more than all we ask or think and so the crescendo rises he is able to do more abundantly than all that we ask or think and that isn't even enough he is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think and just as verse 16 was according to the riches of his glory so verse 20 is according to the power that works within us the power of the Holy Spirit bringing the risen life of Christ the authority and power of the Lord Jesus into our lives so my friends whatever the opposition of the hostile powers is and it is strong and threatening Jesus is stronger but the evidence of his person and power is seen not in us saying oh well I'm a powerful Christian not in some form of triumphalism now the evidence of his power is not seen in some sort of human confidence but in a life of sacrificial love walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us and that needs the power of God it's not power for self gain that's what the occult powers offered them in Ephesus its power for self giving as Christ roots his people in his love and strengthens us to live that trend formed lifestyle now it was that power in Christ Jesus that revealed God's glory when he raised Christ from the dead and delivered us in Christ from the Dominion of the devil and all those hostile powers and it is that power at work in the church enabling Christians to follow Christ's pattern of love and to give our lives in loving sacrificial service for a lost world that brings God's glory into the world that enables the reality of God to impact your office your hospital your school wherever you are and even in our generation because it says throughout all generations in verse 21 and on into eternity forever and ever this God who can this God who is all-powerful who has all ability he is the one who glorifies himself in the person of Christ and in the body of Christ verse 21 glory in the church that's the Christian life receiving and living within that power every day that you may be filled with all the fullness of God so no wonder the chapter ends with this glorious doxology to the praise of the glory of His grace and of course everything I've said this morning is an impossible dream isn't it unless God is the god of verses 20 and 21 and if that is the case then all things are possible to those who believe and we show we do believe how by asking God by praying by saying Lord unless you are with us unless it is your energy and your life within me I cannot live this Christian life for one moment but if you will be to me all that you've promised to be if you will fill me with your fullness in whatever way I need that ability and power that will lead me to live this life of love that is a testimony to the gospel that shows the transforming power of God at work in the world well then Lord I'm going to ask you to do that because I believe you can and you can do far more abundantly then all I ask or even imagine for this reason I bow my knees before the Father let's pray Lord we believe help our unbelief and we pray that by faith you will enable us to grow in our belief we pray that you will strengthen that faith as we exercise it we pray that this week there may be moments in which we prove these things to be true at a personal existential level we pray that your power may fill our lives day by day that we may be strengthened as we ask you for that power not just as we set out in the morning but all through the day in the various circumstances we find ourselves in so that we may be channels of your grace and love and truth and we pray that to the people we meet this week may know that you are a God of such immense love because by your power you're changing us into the likeness of the Lord Jesus so please fill us Lord with all your fullness we pray and may our lives and the lives of all your people around the world as we draw upon this limitless resource of power and love reflect your glory and be used by your spirit to bring many many others to know and love you too we ask it in Jesus name Amen you

Channel: St Helen's Bishopsgate

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Keywords: God, Jesus, Bible, Gospel, Paul, letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians 3, Christian, Christianity, sermon, talk, evangelical, expository, St Helen's Bishopsgate, St Helen's Church, David Jackman

Id: GSNaVcmE0gM

Length: 39min 46sec (2386 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 19 2012