PRAYER - Ephesians 3:13-21 - Praying for Those We Love

Welcome to the City Covenant podcast.

We are a warm, welcoming church located in downtown Spokane, dedicated to practicing the way of Jesus in the heart of the city.

Please join us as we dive into the Word of God together.

Well, good morning.

Good morning.

I'm Sylvia Dilworth, and my husband John and I had been co-pastors in Oregon for about 36 years, both of us pastoring churches there for 36 years.

Then for five years, we after that we went to Kenya and served the Lord there.

And then the past five years, we've been living here in Spokane in order to be near our daughter who lives here.

And I'm so grateful that Asher asked me to preach on this portion of scripture this morning because it reminded me of something that happened to us a long time ago, really now.

But our family decades ago went to Yosemite National Park.

And as most of you know, Yosemite is just famous for its trails and its uh hiking and its enormous uh vistas that it presents.

And so one morning we decided to get up and hike to Vernal Falls, which is along you hike along the mist trail, mist trail, and they don't call it mist trail for nothing, because as you hike along the Merced River there as it comes off the falls and it tumbles over all the rocks, you're just engulfed in the mist, and it feels great on a hot day as you climb.

But what's really amazing is that at the end of this trail, right before you get to Vernal Falls, is there are 500 stairs that are huge, that are cut out of the granite.

500 stairs as you go higher and higher and higher until you finally stand at the very top of Vernal Falls, behind a wire fence, a safety fence there, and you can actually look down over the cascading falls.

It's truly spectacular.

It's probably the most spectacular hike I've ever been on.

In our passage this morning in Ephesians that Asher asked me to preach on, the Apostle Paul prays a spectacular prayer, whose petitions are like a staircase by which we climb higher and higher and higher.

So let's listen to what Paul prays for those he loves in Ephesus.

It's on page 1007 in your Pew Bible, if you want to follow along.

For this reason, I, Paul, oh, sorry, 14, verse 14, for this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and earth derives its name.

I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide, long, high, and deep is the love of God, the love of Christ.

And to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

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, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

I told you it was a spectacular prayer.

Asher is doing a series on prayer.

And last week he started that series and he said, prayer is essential to the Christian life.

We can't be a Christian without praying.

And so today we want to look closer at what that means to continue in that prayer life, specifically praying for those whom we love.

How do we pray for those who we love?

Paul felt like he was a father to many of his churches that he had begun.

And he especially felt that towards the church in Ephesus.

He loved them as a father or as a parent.

And in this prayer, you can see this love, this fatherly love that he has for the church at Ephesus.

In fact, one of the most moving scenes we have in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 20, we see Paul tearing himself away from the church of Ephesus as they weep and bid him goodbye.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

It says that he knelt down with all of them and they prayed and embraced him, and what grieved them most was the statement that they would never see his face again, and he had to tear himself away from them.

And so in this prayer by Paul in Ephesians 3, it expresses that heartfelt prayer as a father, as a parent towards those he loved.

So often I know my prayers for the people I love, and that's really most of my prayers for the people I love.

Most of my prayers sometimes are rushed or superficial or pretty repetitious, maybe even shallow.

I pray, Lord, keep my daughters safe.

Lord, make my friend happy.

Lord, bless my husband.

Now all those are great prayers.

God honors any simple, heartfelt, genuine prayer.

But does God only want our children to be happy?

Does God only want our spouses or friends to be blessed or safe?

Paul seems to imply in this prayer for those he loved that God wants to do a deeper work in our lives and in our children's lives and in the lives of those whom we love.

So perhaps as we study Paul's letter to those he loved, we can find out a deeper way to pray for those whom we love.

And prayers, Paul's prayer is like a staircase.

It has four steps, though, not 500.

There's four stairs that we're going to look at this morning: strength, Christ, love, and fullness.

The first stair is strength.

The prayer opens in verse 16 with, I pray that out of his glorious riches, God will strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being.

We all want to be strong in the Lord, don't we?

We want to be strong, Christians, strong in the Lord.

Don't we get tired of being full of doubt or cynical or lukewarm?

Don't we grow weary of shying away from what Christ really wants to do through us?

The strength that Paul prays for here is a supernatural empowering as opposed to our own abilities.

We desperately need our Savior's strength so that we don't run away from what God calls us to do like we saw Jonah do last week.

God strengthens us so that we can better serve Him.

God strengthens us so we can better serve Him.

As H.

Hellman writes, strengthen people live from their soul instead of external realities.

Strengthen people, live deeply connected to Jesus.

Strengthen people, grasp the love of Christ.

Strengthen people, live from truth instead of their emotions.

And so Paul prays for those he loves.

I pray that out of his glorious, riches, God will strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being.

But what does that little phrase there mean in your inner being?

That's where Paul wants us to be strengthened in our inner being, literally in Greek, the inner man.

What does that mean?

I believe that Paul uses that term inner being to mean that core of our soul, that spiritual hidden person that we have within us, that's opposed as opposed to that outward activities that we spend most of our time with.

This phrase inner being is not used very frequently in the New Testament.

In fact, 2 Corinthians 4.16 is one of the few other times.

Paul again he writes, therefore we do not lose heart, though outwardly our person is wasting away.

Outwardly we're wasting away, but our inward person, our inward being is renewed day by day.

So Paul prays for strength in his loved ones, strength in that inner core of who they are to be renewed despite outward circumstances.

He prays for strength in our inner being where basic choices are made about right and wrong, strength in that inner life where values are sorted out, that inner core where promises are made or broken, where our conscience and our will reside.

That inner being, Paul says, must be strengthened, fortified.

Paul prays for glorious inner strength, inner reinforcement.

But why does this inner being need to be prayed for?

So much strength.

What's going on in there that it needs so much prayer?

Because in our society, right, so much attention is given to our outward performance, our outward physicality, not that inner soul, that inner part of our being.

And sometimes that's an expense of our inner world.

So we live in a materialistic society, right?

With Amazon just right there on our iPhone, ready to impulse by anything we want at a moment's notice.

But Christ says give our money to his kingdom and to the poor.

And that takes strength in the inner person to make that choice.

Our outward world calls us to disparage and even hate or ignore our political enemies.

But Christ says we have to love our enemies.

And that takes strength in the inner person.

Our outward world tells us to live a comfortable lifestyle, that we deserve it.

But Christ says that we're to entertain strangers, lepers, tax collectors.

And that takes strength.

Our outward world tells our children that they don't need Jesus and that the church is irrelevant.

But Christ says he is the way, the truth, and the life.

And the church, with all her blemishes and faults, is still his bride.

And sometimes even making it to church takes strength, especially if you have children.

So for those we love, we're to pray that the inner world of the spiritual will govern our outer world of activity.

And we pray this for our children.

I've prayed this for my daughters for decades now, that God would strengthen their inner person so that they would affect the world for God rather than the world squeezing them into its own mold.

But prayer for strength is not just a prayer for children or teens.

E.

Stanley Jones, the great missionary to India, at 80 years of age, after a great life of service and of writing, he was bedridden with a stroke.

It impaired his speech and paralyzed his writing hand.

And he was asked if he could handle this crisis.

And he answered, Absolutely.

For the innermost strands are the strongest.

I need no outer props to hold up my faith.

He was strong in the inner being.

Or Johnny Erickson Tata, that Christian author, speaker, um, organizer for the handicap, who's been a quadriplegic herself for over 50 years and has been in a wheelchair ever since, says outwardly things are very hard, difficult, even painful.

And yet it is well with my soul.

She is strong in that inner person.

Now what's interesting in this prayer of Paul, that it's bookend, bookended at the beginning and at the end, um, by an inference of discouragement, suffering, uh, imprisonment.

I didn't read it, but in Ephesians 3 13, Paul says, Do not be right before this prayer, do not be discouraged because of my sufferings for you.

And then at the end of the prayer, starting in chapter 4, verse 1, Paul says, As a prisoner of the Lord, I urge you.

Paul wrote this prayer from prison.

Discouraging, discouragement, sufferings, imprisonment.

This is what frames this prayer of Paul.

And what is interesting is what Paul does not pray for here.

He does not pray for release from prison, nor to be safe, nor to be happy.

He does not even pray for the circumstances to change.

Rather, he prays for strength in that inner being, in himself and in those that he loves.

And this makes sense, doesn't it?

Because um, it's during those times of discouragement, of suffering, of imprisonment, of whatever means that might be, that we need Christ's strength the most, right?

Often circumstances do not change.

And so when our children especially go through difficult times, circumstances, suffering, even tragedy.

What can you possibly pray for?

We pray that Christ would hold them, but we also pray that Christ will give her strength.

Christ would strengthen her heart.

Some of my friends whom I've known now for decades have uh suffered great loss in their lives over the years.

And yet they have gained great strength in their inner being.

I just marvel at these people.

I describe them as having a muscular faith.

They're so strong in Christ that they inspire me and they strengthen me.

And so I've prayed this prayer from Ephesians 3 for my three daughters since they were little girls.

And I'm still praying it for them to this day.

That they'll be strengthened in their inner being, that they'll be strong in Christ.

And so we pray for strength.

The second stair in this prayer by Paul is simply Christ.

Christ.

Paul says, verse 17, I pray that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.

Now, certainly, this is a prayer that we pray for all the people who we love in our lives, right?

That Jesus Christ would live in their hearts by faith.

And so I urge all you parents and grandparents, aunties and uncles here this morning that you pray daily for those children, those teens in your life, that you love, that they would come to that saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

John's and my prayer for our three daughters from when they're very little is that we pictured them walking by Christ, by Jesus, and at some point in their life that they would reach up and take Christ's hand and follow him the rest of their lives.

Children understand love, and so they truly understand the love of Christ.

John and I teach the kindergarten and first grade class here at City Cove, and um I wouldn't miss it because those little kids love Jesus, and they know how to pray too.

They really know how to pray.

And so we pray for the children in our lives, we pray for the children in our church that Christ would live in their hearts, that Jesus would make his home in their hearts.

In fact, the Greek word here for dwell in verse 17 means to make it home, that Christ would make his home in our loved ones' hearts, in our children's hearts.

But can a child really understand the gospel?

Can a child really understand what it means to give their life to Christ, to follow him?

Do they really understand what Christ wants when he asked them to make his home in their hearts?

I believe children do, that they do understand that.

And actually, research backs me up.

In 2015, the National Association of Evangelical surveyed Christians, people who are already Christians, and it showed that between the ages of four years old to 14 years old, around 63% to 70% of Christians make their first conscious decision to follow Christ or to accept Him into their life.

From the ages of 4 to 14, 63 to 70 percent of Christians make that initial commitment to Christ.

This is now being referred to as the 414 window.

It's during that decade that people seem most open to the love of Christ, most open to the gospel.

I was 13 years old when I accepted Christ, decided to follow him.

I bet if I were to take a survey here this morning, there aren't very many of us here today, but I'd I bet if I took that survey right now, that would prove this statistical truth.

So just think for a minute.

How many of you who are sitting here today that are Christ followers, that you have made a decision to follow Christ, how many of you first ask him to dwell in your heart by faith, or in some words like that, sometime between the age of four and fourteen?

Will you raise your hand?

Look around.

I mean, that is a lot of people.

Maybe some of you never knew a day that you didn't know Jesus.

I would throw you in with that then.

Maybe even when you're little before you're four, you never knew a day without Christ.

I've done the same survey in Kenya at a graduate theological college there, and the statistic remained the same.

I said that, that over, and over half I asked in that class had asked Christ to dwell in their hearts between the ages of four and fourteen.

Now, one older gentleman in the class kind of scoffed at that idea and said, I don't think a four-year-old could truly understand what that, the gospel, what that means.

But another gentleman uh stood up and respect respectfully said, Excuse me, sir, but I was four years old when I decided to follow Jesus.

And I've followed him ever since.

And I'm here to serve him today.

A famous musician.

And worship leader from Great Britain is Matt Redmond.

And at the age of seven, his father committed suicide.

And so it just devastated him and his mother.

A few years later, though, his mom remarried, and it turned out this new husband was abusive.

So it was a very dark time for his family.

In 1984, Luis Palau came to Port, came to London to do an evangelistic survey, service, like a Billy Graham crusade, but they call it festivals.

And he preached an evangelistic sermon.

And that night Matt and his mom attended.

And Matt was only 10 years old.

10 years old.

And Luis preached how the Father in heaven loved him and had come close to him and that Jesus would never leave.

And Matt says, it clicked.

It just clicked.

Even though I was 10 years old, it clicked.

I understood sin.

I understood that Jesus died for me.

I understood there was a father in heaven and that I was the father's little kid.

I knew from that night on that this was my life would be about, about following Jesus.

Man, that was a beautiful night, Matt says.

And ever since then, Matt has written some amazing worship songs.

10,000 Reasons, he wrote.

And it all started with a 10-year-old boy asking Christ to dwell in his heart by faith.

Entrance into God's kingdom is not complicated.

It does not require wealth or wisdom or education or a college degree or anything else that a child does not already possess.

By faith.

At any age, as a child or as a senior citizen, we can ask Christ to dwell, to make his home in our heart.

The third stair in our prayer of Paul's is simply love.

This prayer is a lot about love.

If you're seeing, looking in your Bible right now, Paul prays in verse 17, I pray that you'll be rooted and established in love.

Verse 18, I pray that you'll be able to grasp how wide and how long and how high and how deep the love of Christ is.

Verse 19, I pray that you'll know the love of Christ, this love that surpasses knowledge.

With Christ at home in our hearts, we find love.

Paul joins two metaphors here, doesn't he?

Kind of a botanical and an architectural one, that we be rooted and established in love, deep roots in love, a firm foundation in love.

Our lives are to be that foundational based in love.

We pray that for our loved ones then, that their love, their lives would be rooted in love.

In fact, love is what distinguishes us, isn't it?

Love is what distinguishes Christians from the rest of the world.

The hallmark, the mark of a Christian is to be love.

One of my heroes of the faith is a young woman by the name of Katie Davis Majors.

And she wrote a book several years ago that changed my life, really.

It gave me the courage to move to Kenya when I was 63 years old.

Because when she was only 19 years old, she did a summer mission trip in Uganda, fell in love with the children and the people there, and decided to move there and live there.

And so she did, much to her parents' fear.

But she felt like God was calling her there, and so she started a nonprofit organization, and she also adopted 13 little Ugandan girls.

13.

She lives by the conviction that she feels like God has asked her to stop and love the person who is in front of me.

Who is that person in front of me?

Love that person.

And so one night she was in Uganda and she went to the supermarket to grab some stuff for her kids, and it was raining, cold, and she ran into the store, and then she ran back out.

She just wanted to get home, and then she saw him.

This little boy huddled under the eaves, cold, wet.

And in her heart, she just wanted to get home.

But a voice said in her inner being, love the person in front of you.

And so she went over, took the little boy, took him into the supermarket, tried to dry him off a little bit.

I gave her her own her sweatshirt, took it off herself and gave it to him.

Um she gave him a few coins to take a pika pika home.

Uh she bought him a juice and some biscuits.

And then at the last minute, she handed him a little wooden cross that she kept in her pocket, and she gave it to him.

And he started to leave.

And then he turned around and he goes, What's your name?

How do people call you?

And she said, People call me Auntie Katie.

And he goes, People call me Daniel.

And then he was out into the night.

A year later, she was in that same supermarket and she heard someone call.

Auntie Katie.

And then she felt two arms, little arms around her.

And uh she looked down and there is Daniel.

And he was just beaming.

He goes, Auntie Katie, look, and he pulled out the wooden cross.

I still have it.

I'm so grateful.

I thank you.

I thank you for what you did.

I want to buy you something.

So he had one coin.

He went out on a with a street vendor and bought a little popsicle and brought it back to her to thank her.

I've never stopped praying for you.

He said.

And Katie was just taken aback because here she'd spent five minutes with this little boy, gave her a gave him a sweatshirt.

She probably had five more of them back home.

Um gave him a few coins.

Perhaps he had a lot more money elsewhere.

And yet he had blessed her every day for a year by praying for her.

Our love must be deep.

Fundamental to our lives.

And so that's what Paul prays for our love to be deep, fundamental.

But then he also prays in verse 18, he says, we pray that you'll be able to grasp how wide and how long and how high and how deep the love of Christ is.

Verse 19, and that we'll know the love of Christ, this love that surpasses knowledge.

Paul's language there is somewhat paradoxical, isn't it?

He says, we can know the love of Christ, but it surpasses knowledge.

So can you grasp that love for you of Christ?

Have your loved ones grasp the love of Christ for them?

Paul prays that we may know the width of the love of Christ, wide enough to welcome all people.

Men, women, Jew, Gentile, black, white, immigrant, citizen, young and old.

He prays that we may grasp the longevity of the love of Christ, long enough to last us our whole life, loving us from the first heartbeat within our mother's womb and to our last breath before we enter eternity.

He prays that we may understand the height of the love of Christ, high enough to lift us to heaven.

Prays that we may comprehend the depth of the love of Christ, deep enough to go through any trial, any discouragement, no matter how dark, frightening, tragic it might be, and that we'd know that Christ's love is deeper still.

There's an essay called The Pit.

So listen.

A man fell into a deep pit and couldn't get himself out.

And many different people had different reactions to his predicament.

A Pharisee said, Only bad people fall into pits.

A mathematician calculated how far he fell into the pit.

A news reporter wanted the exclusive story on the pit.

An IRS agent asked if he was paying taxes on this pit.

A self-pitying person said, You haven't seen anything until you've seen my pit.

A fire and brimstone preacher said, You deserve your pit.

Christian scientists observed, the pit is just in your mind.

A psychologist noted, your mother and father are to blame for your pit.

A New Ager said, Find the God within.

And you can love the pit.

An optimist said, things could be worse.

A pessimist said, things will get worse.

Jesus saw the man climbed into the pit and carried him out.

As Corey Timboom wrote from a concentration camp during World War II, no matter how deep the pit, Jesus is deeper still.

Paul prays that we might know this depth and height of the love of Christ.

And the last stair is fullness.

The top of the staircase, the vista from the top of this climb, the pinnacle of Paul's prayer is verse 19, where he prays that we might be filled with the fullness of God.

I told you this is a spectacular prayer, that we might be filled with the fullness of God.

Is that even legal?

I don't know.

I mean, the word filled here comes from that word in Greek that means to be overflowing, like a cup that's water's been poured in, and it's just pouring over the edges and pouring off the table and down the table leg.

It's not static, this idea of being filled.

It's not a document, it's not rational even.

Rather, it's a living experience.

To be filled with the fullness of God is to actually encounter that strengthening power of Jesus inside of us.

To be filled with the fullness of God is to experience that living Christ making his home in our hearts and directing our lives.

To be filled with the fullness of God is to experience that ever-deepening and profound levels the love of Christ on the cross for us.

In other words, to be filled with the fullness of God transcends just knowledge about God and leads us instead into actually encountering the vastness of God Himself.

And so this final stair, this top of the climb, to be filled with God Himself is really the essence of all prayer, isn't it?

As George MacDonald writes, he says, for in prayer it is not what God can give us, but rather God Himself that we want.

And that's what we pray for those we love, right?

That they might encounter the living God, that they might know that fullness of God inside of them, through them.

As the famous old hymn says, Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus.

Vast, unchanging, bounteous, free, rolling as a mighty ocean, in its fullness over me, underneath me, all around me is the current of thy love.

It's a moving, living encounter with the living God.

That's what we pray for, for those whom we love.

And Paul is just so overtaken with this spectacular view from the top that he ends with a doxology, verse 20, 21.

He says, Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that has worked within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

So don't give up praying for those you love.

Don't give up hope.

Because even when we can't see it, God is still working.

God is still moving, still seeking our loved ones to do that deep work within them.

Pray with me.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you that um you've put this prayer in scripture that we can examine and make our own.

So, Lord, what I do with other people here this morning, lift up those people in our lives that we've been praying for for years.

And we pray for them, Lord, that they might be strengthened in their inner spirit by your abiding spirit.

That they may know your love that transcends all understanding, and that they may encounter you, Lord, and be filled with the fullness of God.

For it's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for listening.

Please join us in person for community worship, the breaking of bread, and prayer.

We are located at 512 South Bernard Street, Spokane, Washington, 59204.