The Fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-21)

Looking forward to that.

Okay, so we are in Ephesians chapter three.

If you need a Bible, please raise your hand.

We would love to bring one to you so that you can follow along with us in the passages that we're going through.

We're currently going through the book of Ephesians, verse by verse, chapter by chapter.

And today we are in chapter three, starting in verse 14, and we will finish off uh the chapter here this morning.

So I think most of you have had a chance to get there.

If you are able, would you please stand for the reading of God's word?

Just something we do in recognition that this is God's word and out of respect for God.

So, chapter 3, starting in verses 14, and we're going to go through 21.

For this reason, I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God's love, and to know Christ's love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.

Amen.

Lord, your word is a treasure.

It is so beautiful and wonderful, and we thank you for it.

We thank you for all that you've been showing us in this book of Ephesians, all that you've been teaching us.

Lord, I pray that there would continue to be true heart change in every single one of us to become more and more like Jesus as we surrender to you on a deeper level.

So I pray that that would continue today, that you would use this passage to change us.

Lord, I pray that you would speak through me here this morning, and that your word would come forth, and like I said, Lord, that true heart change would take place, that we wouldn't walk out that door unchanged, but we would allow you to do the work to mold us and to shape us into the people that you desire us to be, which is more and more like Jesus Christ on a daily basis.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So this whole passage that we're taking on here this morning is regarding Paul's prayer for this Ephesian church.

And it's a beautiful prayer, but I get the idea as I was studying through it that Paul doesn't quite have the right words in any language really to express the vastness of God's power and love.

Which we're gonna be talking about as we're going through.

But it's like language doesn't even have everything that the Holy Spirit is writing through him to express that vastness and the greatness, the power and the love of God.

And you'll notice in verse 14 as he starts off, it's gonna say for this reason.

Which it may make us think, you know, that he's referring to a previous passage, you know, for this reason, and then he moves on.

But Paul uses the word therefore typically when he wants us to look backwards.

Here it says for this reason.

So he's taking everything that he said in Ephesians so far, and he's also pointing ahead at the same time with what he's about to pray in this passage, because this is really one big transition passage that we're tackling here this morning.

Chapter 4 is the turning point in Ephesians, and this is the transition from those first three chapters into the next four chapters.

If you remember, the first three chapters talk about the riches of God that we have in Christ Jesus and how God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

The first three chapters is Paul enlightening the Ephesians on those riches.

And he gets real specific with a lot of those riches that we have in God.

And then chapter 4 through 6 is about really practical application.

How that or how they can get their hands on those riches and then invest them in their everyday life.

It gets very practical from chapter 4 on.

So in this transition section, we're going to see Paul's desire, the Holy Spirit speaking through Paul, writing through Paul, but see the desire for this church, God's desire for them, and really God's desire for us as well as we go through this passage.

And that's to be strengthened in the Holy Spirit, with Christ dwelling in us, being rooted in love for one another, understanding the depths of God's love, being permeated with Him, and then therefore bringing glory to God forever and ever, as we act like and we function as the church.

So that's kind of a preview of all the things that Paul is writing through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the desires of God for this church, and I think we can apply every single one of those to us here today as well.

So let's jump in and look at how Paul prays here in verse 14.

He says, For this reason I kneel before the Father.

So, first I want us to notice the posture of this once very proud man who is Paul.

He was proud of his obedience to the law, he was proud of his heritage, of the position that he held in the Jewish community.

Really, he was very proud of the legalism that he was acting out in his life.

But now he's kneeling before God the Father.

In prayer for a bunch of Gentiles that had come out of a pagan background, out of crazy idolatry, that were living in their flesh and are now living for Jesus.

And he's praying for the exact people that he once persecuted so badly.

And he's calling God his father.

I get the impression as I'm reading through this that he is praying with such confidence to God, but also with absolute reverence at the exact same time.

You know, calling God Father when we pray, a lot of us do that, that's how we start our prayers.

It shouldn't be the intro to our prayer.

Dear Heavenly Father, you know, and then we get to the things that we actually want to say.

It should hold the impact of us praying to our spiritual dad, which requires a relationship in the first place, which requires some familiarity, and which requires some confidence if we're praying to our spiritual dad.

But Paul does not forget reverence.

He does this while kneeling.

You know, this was not a typical posture of prayer for uh people in the Jewish faith back then.

Though we do see some people doing it in the Old Testament, but it's it's rare.

The Jews would typically pray with their hands up, reaching towards the sky, and their eyes lifted up as well.

So Paul's adding some reverence to the posture of his prayer since his conversion to Christianity, it appears at least.

In our view of God, like Paul, balance is so key in our relationship with God and in our prayer life.

Balance is just so important.

Knowing that we can boldly come to the Father, to his throne of grace with confidence that we are clean and we're pure and we're holy and acceptable to him as his kids.

And that he's always glad to see us when we do that.

But not being so buddy-buddy with God that we lose that reverence as him being the most powerful and just being.

Kneeling and calling him father, I think is a great example that Paul is giving us right here of the posture of our heart when we pray.

Even if we're not physically on our knees, the posture of our heart being kneeled down to God and calling him Father.

It's great balance.

So Paul prays from this position to the Father.

Look at verse 15.

From whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

So the context here is God's family.

You know, Him being the Father, over those that are already in heaven and over those of us that are still on earth as well.

You know, as we talked about in chapter 2, all of the church over all of history is being built together into a temple that brings him glory.

Which goes back to the idea of oneness.

That idea that Paul's really been talking about all the way through this letter so far.

We are one with Christ.

We are one in Christ.

We are one family, and we have one Father, as it says, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

Now, we're going to jump into verse 16 here, but first I want to talk a little bit about verses 16 through 19 as we actually get into what Paul is praying.

And these really, these verses really build on each other as we go along.

This is one long sentence that Paul writes.

We see a lot of those in Ephesians, but 16 through 19 is one long sentence that really builds on each other.

We're going to see four major points.

And we're going to see those set by the word that.

We're going to see the word that in 16, in 17, uh, and 17 and 18.

We're going to see that again in the 19th, and you can really read it and that.

And I want to keep that slide up there so we can really see that he's praying that they would be strengthened with the power through the Holy Spirit.

That Christ may dwell in their hearts, make a home in their heart, that they would comprehend the depth of God's love and be filled with the fullness of God.

And we're really going to camp on you can't be filled with the fullness of God if you're not doing those first three things that we see on that slide behind me.

So let's start off with verse 16.

I pray that, that's our first that, he may grant you according to the riches of his glory.

And I've lost count how many times Paul has brought up, and we've talked about God's riches so far in Ephesians.

As he relates to this wealthy city in Ephesus that's known for trade and commerce, and who is considered the bank of Asia Minor in this time in the Roman Empire.

You know, this city was extremely wealthy according to the world's standards.

Not God's standards, but according to the world's standards.

This city really had everything that the world had to offer at this time in history.

So Paul continues to point to the eternal wealth of God's riches.

And this is one more: the riches of his glory.

You know, Moses asked God back in Exodus 33 to see his glory, and God equated his glory to all of his goodness.

And God is so rich in glory that man cannot see his face and live.

That's what God told Moses at that time.

So he allowed Moses to see him from behind as he passed.

But that's all Moses could handle.

God is so rich in goodness and in glory that this was all that he could show Moses without killing him.

God's glory has no limits.

He has an absolute abundance, more than we can handle in our earthly bodies at least.

So Paul's prayer for what's coming next is through the abundance of God's glory, through the abundance of God's goodness, that he would grant the Ephesians these things.

So look at the second half of verse 16.

It says, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his spirit.

The Holy Spirit is filled with power and gives us power.

Jesus tells his disciples in Acts 1.8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

And then Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 24, 49, and look, I am sending you what my Father promised.

As for you, stay in the city until you are empowered from on high.

This is the Holy Spirit living not only in us, but through us as well.

This isn't physical strength that we're talking about here this morning.

This is a spiritual strength, the inner being, the inner man of the part of us that is eternal, the part of us that is in this world but not of this world.

He's praying for strength for the part of us that wages war against our flesh and wages war against the desires of the old man, of our flesh.

You know, there's a war taking place inside of us, and that war is going to be taking place this side of heaven, in us, until we die and we are in heaven.

Where our spirit wants to do the right thing, but our flesh is crying out for what feels good now.

Before Christ, our spirit was living for the world.

And it got used to that instant gratification.

But after coming to Christ, we now have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, empowering us to say no to the flesh, which still demands the worldly pleasures every day.

And not only that, the Holy Spirit provides power to be Christ in the world, to do things we could never do on our own, which we're gonna talk about a little bit more here in a little bit.

So Paul's praying for that strength that can only come from the Holy Spirit, and can only come if we allow him to move through us.

If you want to fail, do something under your own strength and under your own power.

Tell the Holy Spirit, nah, I got this one.

See how that goes.

We do it all the time, don't we?

Not even intentionally, not even realizing it.

But we do that, oh, I got this, I know how to do this, I can do this under my own strength.

But there is a surrender on our part that needs to happen for him to move in and through us.

He wants to strengthen us.

He wants to strengthen our spirit, but we have to let him.

He never forces himself on us, and he never forces himself through us.

We have to be willing vessels in which he can fill and move through.

You might be thinking, you know, but Chris, how do we surrender and know what he wants to do in and through us?

Well, you build up your relationship with him.

You pray, you read God's word, you spend time with him, you walk by the Spirit.

You work on relationship with him, and he's gonna take care of the rest.

And please hear me.

This is not about doing more.

This isn't about mustering things up and then going out and trying to do more and trying to grab power that we don't have.

It's about a deeper surrender to him that leads to his power then moving in and through us.

Now, let's look at the second thing Paul says in verse 17 here.

And that, there's that word again, Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

I want to show you the Greek definition of the word dwell because it's very interesting.

And it says to dwell, settle, it's a metaphor meaning divine powers, influences, etc., are said to dwell in our soul, to pervade, prompt, govern it.

To do, to dwell in it, inhabit.

Paul's praying that Christ may govern, influence, and inhabit our hearts.

He wants to make a home there.

And it begins with faith in him.

When we come to Christ, Christ dwells in us, but there is a continued surrender that allows him to make a home there.

You know, when you move into a new place, what's the first thing you want to do?

You want to make it a home, right?

You want to add some furniture, you want to put some things on the wall, maybe you want to change the paint color or change the flooring.

Really, you know, you hear people say, I want to make this house a home, this apartment a home, this room a home, whatever it might be.

Jesus wants to make us his own and govern and influence us so that we can be more like him.

And our flesh hates this, doesn't it?

You know, our flesh wants to say, How dare you change me?

How dare you resist the pleasures that I once enjoyed?

I deserve those things.

You just don't understand.

That's the voice of our flesh when Jesus says, starts saying no to things, and the Holy Spirit starts telling us no to things.

Because our flesh desires sin, it desires pleasure, it desires instant gratification, and it doesn't want Christ to govern.

Does not want in Christ to influence and for him to make his home there, to make it his own.

Because if Christ is gaining space in our hearts, that means our flesh has to die and shrink and move out, doesn't it?

Jesus wants to govern our lives, not because he wants some power trip or to keep us from pleasure, but to lead us to the things that bring life.

And away from the things that lead to us experiencing pain and death in our life.

He wants to govern us for our own good.

Jesus said in John 10, 10 that he came so that we may have life and have it in abundance.

That's Jesus' desire for us.

So Paul prays that Jesus may dwell, may make a home in these individuals in the Ephesian church and in us here today as well, I believe.

Now look at the second half of verse 17.

It says, I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love.

So we're just going to stop right there, real quick.

There's an interesting point here.

Context tells us that this is not talking about firmly established in love for God, but for each other.

Rooted and firmly established in love for one another.

Which only comes if we're first doing that in the Lord.

But the context tells us he's talking about for each other.

How will the world know that we are Jesus' disciples?

By the love that we have for one another.

Jesus' words.

And Paul is praying for a maturity in that love.

Roots and foundations only come with time and work, don't they?

And it's when we are established in that love, rooted in that love, that Paul prays that we can then comprehend God's love.

So look at verse 18.

May be able to comprehend, think, grasp or lay hold of.

So may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God's love.

God's love is real, it's tangible.

It's something that we can comprehend.

It's something that we can grasp and lay hold of.

And He wants to use you and me to help each other comprehend it in tangible ways.

And what's more tangible than being loved by another Christian?

You know, somebody comes up to you and says, God laid you on my heart, so I just wanted to give you a call and see how you're doing.

Or I know you're going through a lot right now, so I'm bringing you dinner tonight.

Or, you know, I know you've fallen on hard times.

Here's a little something to help you get to the end of the month.

Or I was praying for you, and the Lord gave me this verse, and I just wanted to share it with you as an encouragement to you.

And it goes on and on, but those are tangible ways that God will use us to love one another so that we can see the tangible love of God through one another.

But to experience God's love in that way, what do we have to do?

For God to show his love in that way, we have to be rooted and established in Christian community, don't we?

You can't experience that type of tangible love if you're isolated by yourself.

You have to be in contact and rooted with other saints.

You know, we worship a God that we cannot see.

But we can see Him when we look at the church.

At least we should be able to.

And others should be able to as well, to look at the church and be like, God's love.

I can see God's love in that community.

He wants us, as it says, to comprehend with all the saints together what is the length and width, height and depth of God's love.

And I think God wants us to try and find the boundaries of his love.

Not that he has any, but I think he wants us to try.

Because in searching for the extent of his love, the measurements of his love, we'll only find that it's deeper and higher and wider and lengthier than the first time that we search for it.

And then if we search again, we'll only find that it is deeper and higher and wider and lengthier than we thought it was the last time that we searched for the boundaries of his love.

You know, if you want to know the depths of the love of Jesus, look at Philippians 2.8.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.

He was buried on this earth that he created after taking on the sins of man.

What greater depth of love can we look for than that?

You know, if you want to talk about height, look at Psalm 1084.

For your faithful love is higher than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

That's about as far as we can imagine, right, when we think of space, and as far as we can see.

With modern-day telescopes, we've been able to see 46.5 billion light years into space.

That's how long it would take us to travel at the speed of light to that point in the universe.

46.5 billion years to get out that far.

God's love is higher.

God's love is beyond anything that we can imagine.

Which leads to the next part of Paul's prayer, verse 19.

And to know Christ's love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

It's in knowing Christ's love that allows us to be filled with the fullness of God.

You can't have the fullness without knowing Christ's love first.

You know, when we come to Christ, we have the Holy Spirit living in us.

We have Christ in us, making his home, as we just talked about.

So how can we be filled with the fullness of God when he's already in us?

Have you ever thought about that?

Well, I like what Warren Wearsby has to say about this.

He says, in one sense, the Christian is already made full in Christ.

Positionally, we are complete in him.

But practically, we enjoy only the grace that we apprehend by faith.

The resources are there.

All we need to do is accept them and enjoy them.

You see, we can be Christians and choose to not live in the fullness of God.

We could be Christians and not live like our Father is rich, and not live like we have been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Paul prays that they would live in that fullness by knowing Christ's love that surpasses knowledge.

Think about that for a bit.

Knowing Christ's love that surpasses knowledge.

How do you do that?

If you can't, if it surpasses knowledge, how can you know it?

You know, I told you at the beginning that I got the impression that maybe human language just was not enough to capture the vastness of God.

You know, I think of knowing Christ's love like an endless wheat field that needs to be harvested.

And we go out to harvest that field.

And we cut the wheat, we grab as much as we can in a bundle, as much as we can grasp, and then we bring it back, and we go out to that endless wheat field again, we cut a little more, we pick up as much as we can grasp, we take it back in this endless thing of God's love, but He wants us to grasp as much as we can at a time and to continue to understand that love.

You know, if you think heaven is gonna be boring, it's this eternity, and it just sounds so long to be worshiping God, we're not gonna show up to heaven and be omniscient.

Only God is and ever will be omniscient.

We're gonna spend eternity discovering the love of Christ and just how rich God is.

Rich in love, grace, mercy, kindness, glory, strength, power, rich in goodness, righteousness, and truth.

And the list just goes on and on.

You know, we already saw in chapter two that in the coming ages, through all eternity, God is going to display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

We're gonna spend eternity with our minds being blown every day as we discover more about God's goodness, which is his glory, as we grasp a little bit more every day.

So we can, as it says in verse 19, know Christ's love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

The end result of this whole prayer is so that we will be filled with the fullness of God.

And the amazing thing is, we can experience all of those things now that we're gonna continue to grasp and experience throughout all of eternity.

But as you can see through this prayer, our hearts need to be surrendered to God.

If we want to be filled with His fullness, we need to be surrendered completely to Him.

You know, we talked about this when we talked about the circumcision of the heart a few weeks ago.

The cutting off and the casting out of the flesh of the old man, the desire, uh, the part of us that desires the opposite of what God desires for us.

You know, we can't allow room in our hearts for the old man, and then tell Jesus, well, you can have this compartment, but you need to stay out of this room.

Doors closed, Jesus, you can't go into that room.

We can't do that and be filled with the fullness of God, can we?

And I want to encourage you, if you're looking at these things that we're talking about, that Paul's praying for this church, and you're becoming discouraged because you feel like, I can't do this.

It's okay.

Being strengthened by the Spirit, Christ making a home in our heart, comprehending God's love, being filled with the fullness of God, we're unable to do those things.

But look at verse 20.

Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.

We're so not able to do the things that Paul's praying for.

But God is able to do above and beyond those things, as it says right here.

In and through us.

It's him in us doing those things.

And like I said, it's not about trying harder.

This is about surrendering deeper.

To allow him to do those things in and through us.

Look, it's okay at this point if our brain is kind of twisted into knots a bit.

I mentioned Paul is trying to explain something that human language is incapable of fully capturing.

The phrase above and beyond that we see here, it's also translated in the NKJV exceedingly abundantly.

What Paul did here is he put two words together that grammatically don't even make sense in the Greek.

But he needed something more than he could express to speak of what God is able to do.

One scholar said it could be translated as God is able to do superabundantly above the greatest abundance.

That's close to a literal translation right there.

It's almost like a little kid saying, you know, this is the very most bestest ice cream I've ever had in my life.

Like, that's kind of what's going on.

It's like I don't have enough describing words to tell you what's what's fully going on right now.

All we need to know at verse 20 is he is bigger and more powerful than we can wrap our head around.

And he will do these things through us.

Greater things than we can even imagine if we just allow him to.

You know, I've often said from up here, I don't want to worship a God that I can fully understand.

Because if I can completely understand him, that would make me equal with him.

And why would I want to worship a peer in that way?

I only want to give my worship to somebody that I am in awe of because of his vastness and power and superiority, but who's also filled with kindness and grace and love and showers those things on his kids.

That's the God of the Bible.

And he is able to do the things we are not, and desires to do those things in us, and desires to show his love through us, enabling us to do the things beyond what we even think or can imagine or are capable of through his power, not our own.

And I think that leads us to the question of why would he want to empower us in this way?

Well, look at verse 21.

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

Amen.

Glory in the church and in Christ Jesus.

That's why.

His glory once dwelt in the tabernacle and then in the temple.

His glory now dwells in us who are in Christ.

But also in the structure that is the body of Christ.

This glorious temple that he's constructing with Jesus as the cornerstone.

And we're laid on that foundation of his word.

We're the living stones, Peter says, that are being fashioned and then laid on that foundation.

Look back at the end of chapter 2, starting in verse 18.

The very end of chapter 2, where Paul explains this further.

This is why God wants to do this in and through us, why he wants to empower us in this way.

Chapter 2, starting in verse 18, he says, For through him, Jesus, we both, that's Jew and Gentile, have access in one spirit to the Father.

So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household.

One name in the Father, remember?

Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.

In him, the whole building being put together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him, you are also being built together for God's dwelling in the Spirit.

Right there, you can see just how important the church is in God's plan.

He wants to reveal his love through the church, the body of Christ, now and also through all of eternity.

The church is not a building that we come to on Sunday mornings.

It's you.

And it's me, and it's the people that you're sitting next to.

God has a plan and a purpose for each and every one of us.

And it's way beyond what we are able to ask or even think.

And he's more than able to accomplish those things in and through us, through his power, not ours.

This is gonna lead us right into chapter four and that practical application of those things.

Him being able to do those things in and through us that we are not able to do on our own.

But that's for next week.

For today, the question for us that I hope we can leave with, that I hope we're asking ourselves at this point is how are we allowing God to show his love through us in that way?

A tangible love that people can see and experience through us and then point back to God and say, that's the love of God.

You know, if we want God to move in ways that we're not able, that only comes from a place of deeper surrender to him.

And asking for those things for his kingdom that are beyond what we could even imagine him ever doing through us.

So I think looking at this, let's pray big.

Why not?

Let's pray big of how God wants to use us.

Not for things, not for more possessions, but ways that God can tangibly show his love through each one of us.

To each other, to this city, to our neighbors that we're next to, people at our work, whatever it might be.

And when God wants to do those things through us, we simply need to be faithful to take those steps of faith, to allow him to do those things through us, to allow him to take us out of our comfort zone and say, okay, God, I'll do this for you, but I can't do this on my own.

Just remember, God is huge.

He loves us so much, and he's rich in every way.

Let's go out and live like it.

Beyond these walls.

Let's go out and allow God to do those things through us.

Will you please pray with me?

Lord, I pray that we got just a glimpse of your vastness here this morning.

A glimpse of how much you love us.

A glimpse of how powerful you are in every way.

Lord, we pray that you would move in and through us through the power of your Holy Spirit, that we would allow Jesus to make a home in our heart, allowing him in every corner, not closing any doors or thinking anything secret, but allowing the light of Christ to shine in every area of our heart and to have full occupancy there.

Lord, I pray that we would just begin to understand the love of Christ, to understand your love, to grasp on to as much as we can at a time, and then come back and grasp on to a little bit more the next day.

Lord, we want to live in your fullness.

So would you show us how to do that?

Would you show us the areas in our life that we're not surrendering to you, that we are holding on to and saying, no, this is mine.

You can't have that.

Would you show us how to live in that fullness, how to come to that place of deeper surrender to you as we just want to get to know you more and spend more time with you and understand you in a deeper way in prayer and through your word and walking by your spirit.

Would you lead us through all of those things, into all of those things that you want us to be doing, and give us the courage to take those steps of faith when we know we don't have the capability to do something, but we know that you do and you want to do it through us.

So give us those opportunities and help us to be faithful in those opportunities, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

This morning is a community set.