"We Bow Down Before the Father” - Eph 3:14-15

Well, good morning!! Are we excited about the upcoming fishing season?

All right, I see some nodding there. And I know that at least one person has their net out already.

Well, according to the 2022 article from KDLG, Bristol Bay's 2022 sockeye run

was the biggest on record.

69.7 million fish returned that summer. and that surpassed the previous year of 67.7 million fish.

More than 3 million sockeye had swum up the Wood River to spawn in the tributaries

around Lake Aleknagik, about 20 miles from Dillingham.

The article goes on to say, Cheryl Murchon lives along the lake near the head of the river.

She owns a bed and breakfast there and has hung commercial fishing nets for over 45 years.

And she said that that year's run was remarkable.

They just poured by. Sometimes there was 500 in the air breaking from the water.

When it was dead calm, you could really see well.

She said that when she lay in bed at night with the window open,

she could hear them jumping. It was just amazing. Absolutely beautiful.

I'm reminding you of that abundant time because God really overwhelmed this

region with fish, didn't they?

Boats were being swamped by the ocean waves because the boats and nets were overloaded with fish.

I mean, so much so that boats sank due to being overwhelmed with fish and with the storm.

As Christians, you and I, when we pray to God, may our hearts be overwhelmed

with the greatness of our Lord and the overabundant mercy that he has given

us in Jesus Christ. Let's pray.

Father God, we come before you and we praise you for the mercy.

The overabundant goodness that you have overwhelmingly lavished upon us.

But Lord, also, as we look at your word today, help us to see you.

Help us to see your greatness, your splendor, your majesty, and to worship you

as you are, who you are, as you always have been.

Lord, help us to open up our minds just a little bit more to be able to see

you greater than we saw you before this sermon.

Help us, O Lord, to that end, and may you work in us so that we may live for

you and follow you as you have called us to.

In your precious Son's name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Here at Dillingham Moravian Church, we have been studying through Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

The focus of the book of Ephesians is God's unity displayed through the Church of Jesus Christ.

And today in Ephesians 3, verses 14-15, we're going to begin studying the first

Ephesians 3:14–15

part of Paul's prayer to the Ephesians.

We have read about, we're going to read about the whole prayer,

but we're going to look at just the first verse today, or two verses, actually.

The first major truth I want to bring to your attention today is as Christians,

we are to bow our knees before the Father for His merciful works on our behalf.

And we're going to go to Ephesians 3, verse 14.

Ephesians 3:14

And Paul prayed, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father.

For whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,

that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory,

to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner man,

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you,

being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints

what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge,

that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

In this passage, Paul prayed for the Ephesians.

Similar to yet exponentially more than the overwhelming blessing of fish and

the abundant season like we had a few years ago,

Paul was meditating on the blessings of what God had done for him and all believers in Jesus Christ.

Paul was dwelling on the sheer magnitude of God's mercy to his children.

And Paul was completely overwhelmed.

I want you to see this because this is really what his prayer is about.

His prayer is about God working in us. We have to see God first.

Thus, Paul started off in his prayer, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father.

The question is, what was Paul referring to for this reason? He said.

To understand what Paul meant, we need to go to Ephesians 2,

Ephesians 2:19–22

verse 19-22, where Paul wrote,

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens

of the saints from of God's household, having been built on the foundation of

the apostles and the prophets,

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building being

fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, and whom you also

are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

Now let's move forward to Ephesians 3, verse 11 to 13,

Ephesians 3:11–13

where Paul proclaimed, “This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which

he carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, and whom we have boldness and confident

access through faith in Him.

Therefore I ask you not to lose heart in my tribulations on your behalf,

for they are for your glory.”

Paul had been writing about the reconciliation between the Gentiles and the

Jewish believers and the inclusion of the Gentiles or non-Jewish believers into the family of God.

Christ on the cross, he had broken down the dividing wall and extended salvation

and sonship to the Gentiles who believe.

And in Christ, believers now have access into the throne room of God,

where once there was only access through the priesthood.

And as part of Christ's church, believers are now the building stones of the

temple of God, Christ's church.

God now dwells with and in his people.

And it's for these amazing and overwhelming and abundant reasons and more,

Paul bowed his knees in prayer before the Father.

This is the reason why you and I are to pray for others and ourselves.

We who have no hope or had no hope have now hope.

In Jesus Christ, the dividing wall of the sacrificial and dietary systems of

God's law that once separated God's people from the nations has now been broken down in Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ sacrificed his own body, his blood, once and for all.

And those systems that once divided us now are no longer needed.

We who are part of the nations who believe in Christ as our only Lord,

we have been now grafted into the family tree of God.

We now have a family, not just any family, but God's family.

We are crowned princes and princesses of Almighty God, heirs to his kingdom.

We've been adopted by our Father God in Jesus Christ. We've been saved from

the wrath of God and slavery from sin by the undeserved grace of God.

We are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. We, you and I,

can pray not through a human mediator, but directly to God Almighty through Christ.

Death is no longer the end for those in Christ, but it's just the beginning

for the eternal life that we get to share with God.

We also have the privilege of being able to see our loved ones again who have

put their faith and trust in Christ in their lifetime or saved and have gone on to glory with Him.

We as God's children have so many amazing opportunities and blessings that God has given us.

And when Paul started this prayer, this is what he was thinking of.

He was thinking of all that Jesus had done, all who Jesus, God,

the Father, and the Holy Spirit are.

I imagine it's not just these two parts that I read to you that he's talking about.

He's talking about the whole of the Ephesians before it, the whole letter,

who God is, what he has done for us on our behalf.

He is so overwhelmed. He is long away by the mercy and greatness of our God.

And so far, we've learned that Paul prayed before God the Father for the Ephesians

as he meditated on the wondrous greatness of God and his salvation in Jesus Christ.

In his prayer, Paul continued to write that he bowed before the Father.

So I grew up for a good part of my life in Alberta, Canada.

Now, Alberta, for most of you who have driven the Alcan, you know that you can

drive hundreds, maybe even a thousand miles, and there is nothing.

It's pretty much flat. So when I first visited the American Northwest,

specifically, Oregon, and I saw all those humongous trees that I had never seen them

before. I'd never seen trees that big before.

It just amazed me. They were huge!!

But my point is, is that when an extraordinary strong wind blows against tall

trees, what happens to them?

They fall down. They get ripped up. Why? Because although they are so tall,

most of their roots don't go down super deep. Now some do, but the ones in Oregon

don't .Their roots are just along the top of the surface.

Yet very rarely does grass ever get ripped out by its roots. Why? Because it bends.

When in the presence of Almighty God and the power and majesty of the King of the universe,

the only right response we as mortals who are beyond microscopic to God

is for us to humbly bend or bow ourselves before Him.

Paul prayed that he bowed down before the Father. The word to bow meant “to bend

or lower some part of our body as a gesture of respect or devotion.”

This bowing of the knees or kneeling was the physical sign of reverence that

the Jews would have employed before their king and especially before God.

Kneeling and bowing the body was an outward sign that reflected the inner attitude

of a reverent worship. to God.

Every single time, every single time that someone in the Bible came face to

face with God, even his vision, the vision of God, they fell flat in their faces.

I was just rereading that this morning as Andrew was talking.

John's response in the vision, not seeing God face to face personally,

but in the vision, seeing Jesus. And what happens to him?

John fell flat on his face as if dead!

Why does the presence of God the Father bring out such a response? Because God is holy!

Jesus in Matthew 6, verse 9 prayed, “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name.”

Matthew 6:9

The word “hallowed” meant that the Father is “to be treated as holy,

revered, or may your name be honored as holy.”

The word “holy” meant “to be set apart.” There is nothing or anyone like God in all the universe.

And God the Father is to be worshipped. He is to be revered because He is the only God.

This is why God is God, is because he is unlike any other being,

any other thing in creation!!

He is. The word Yahweh is “I AM.”

He's completely unique. He is HIMSELF!.

No one is like Him! There's no one in all the

universe, none of us as well, can

say that we completely I am.

Because we exist In connection

with everyone else. Part of why we are who we are Is because of the people

around us. Because of our families and because of the loved ones, because of our connection

in society We even live here right in Dillingham right?

We are from Dillingham.

Connection. God is not that way. God is completely set apart. That's what holy means.

There is nothing nor anyone like God in all the universe, and He is be worshipped and revered as such.

In response to the great I AM Jesus Christ’s, greatness and love,

Paul was teaching the Ephesian believers, and he's teaching us, is that God is to be honored.

He is to be set apart from all lives as the only one who is absolutely in control!

Christians show that God is hallowed in our lives through our complete loving

subservience to Yahweh Father in everything we do.

So what does this mean for us as Christians?

God the Father is to be hallowed. He is to be set apart and worshiped in His

holiness over our entire lives, in our thoughts, our emotions,

our wills, and our prayer lives.

God the Father is to be hallowed over our actions and our speech.

God the Father is to be hallowed over how we order our day, our schedules.

Believe you and me, a schedule can sometimes dominate your life.

It's so easy today. Our lives are just so hectic, and our lives are run by our schedules.

Frankly, a lot of times our kids' schedules or other people's schedules can run us.

Our speech and our actions as Christians are to display the holiness of God wherever we have influence.

Our lives are to demonstrate that we genuinely are the bond slaves of the great I am.

God the Father is to be hallowed among the nations.

God the Father is to be hallowed by our government. God the Father is to be

hallowed in our marriages.

Our marriages show people around us that God is God, and that we serve Him and Him alone.

God the Father is to be hallowed in our family. God the Father is to be hallowed

in us and through us and our communities in Dillingham.

God the Father is to be hallowed in us in our workplaces,

on our boats, as we fish, in the steam, as we mackay, as we hunt, we camp.

In all these situations and much more, we are to bow down.

We are to surrender to the Father and give absolute control over to Him in holiness, in His holiness.

But not only are we to surrender in reverence before all God has done in all

circumstances, but we are to pray that others hallow God as well.

I also find it interesting here that, you know, we pray many songs that profess

things like, we bow down, we worship the King.

My question is, do we actually do that?

Now, don't get me wrong with this. Don’t take me out of context.

It is absolutely essential that our hearts be right before God.

However, biblical worship and prayer, including all the way throughout the New

Testament period, worship and prayer was a lot more demonstrative than we have

developed it to be in the last hundred years.

In many Christian denominations, it was not too long ago that we were kneeling in church.

And I'm not saying that we all need to start kneeling and bowing.

But just something to be thinking about. The outward display of the

inner heart attitude, the humble reverence and worship before the Lord,

the GREAT I AM, was what Paul was getting at.

I am pretty sure Paul would have bowed down physically as well as in his heart and his mind.

I'm not saying we have to do that. I'm just saying that it is an outward sign

of what the inward life is to be.

So not only are we to bow down to God as we worship Him in His holy and set-apartness,

we are also to know and understand that all family is from and identified in the Father.

So Paul in his prayer in Ephesians chapter 3, verse 14 to 15,

Ephesians 3:14–15

said this, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

for whom every family in heaven on earth derives its name.”

The family unit is the building block for all human life.

Just look around you. I mean, who would be here without family,

right? Without a husband, a wife, mother, father?

In Paul's time, it's the same now, or mostly the same now,

the name and identity of a family is derived from the father.

Thus, my children are all Flynn’s. Paul and Jonathan are Flynn’s.

And although Jamal is in our heart, he's not a Flynn biologically,

and his name is Romie. So that's why his name is Jamal Romie.

As a family of God, we derive our identity from the family.

From God, our Creator. And He is the head of our family of God.

Paul's concept of family extended

to all Jews and all Gentiles united together in the family of God.

God the Father, He is the source of all the spiritual life.

But He is not only the source of spiritual life, but he's the source of

all life in the universe.

You and I, we could not get up

every single morning, we couldn't continue breathing every single second,

if it wasn't for Jesus sustaining us.

The fact that the stars are there, that the earth still orbits the sun.

And the moon continues to orbit around us.

The fact that the moon and the earth is exactly in the right positions.

Which is so critical for life as we know it.

The fact that this is all happening at every moment. being sustained,

is because of God sustaining it and making it happen.

Our Heavenly Father is the model. He's the architect.

He's the source of all fatherhood for us as human fathers.

And this concept of God as Father was not much used in the Old Testament.

Although when Jesus talked about God as Father, they understood what He was

talking about. Paul and the apostles incorporated praying to God as

Father, because Jesus prayed that.

And He referred to God as Father.

Jesus did use Elohim. He used Yahweh.

He used Adonai, all names for God.

But Jesus used the title Father a lot more to demonstrate that He,

Jesus, had a unique, set-apart relationship with the Lord of the universe.

Jesus, and Paul as well also called God Father to demonstrate the wonderful,

loving relationship that a child of God has with their heavenly Father.

So let’s look at what Jesus said in Matthew 28, verse 18 to 20, where He commissioned

Matthew 28:18–20

all Christ's believers.

“All authority has been given to me in heaven on earth.

Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, and [here's what I want you to

see,] baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

teaching them all that I commanded you

And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Part of the importance of baptism is the outward sign that identifies us as Christ's disciples.

In obedience to God, the disciple maker for Christ has been commanded to baptize

new disciples for Jesus so that the prospective disciple can then be identified

as part of God's family in the name of the entire Holy Trinity.

And this is similar to what Paul was teaching in Ephesians 3,

Ephesians 3:15

verse 15, where not only was God the source of life, but for us as Christ's

disciples, we are now identified with Father.

And we belong to God, who is our Heavenly Father in the realm of the Spirit.

So how can you and I apply this to our lives as Christ's children,

or God's children, rather?

By believing and trusting the truth that God is our Father, in whom we have

our physical and spiritual identity.

Now this concept here, is an easy one to think of, a lot harder for many to actually

implement in their lives.

The reason for this is because for many of us, our relationships with our earthly

fathers are challenging.

It has taken the Holy Spirit a long time for me to view God as my Father.

I, for most of my life, it's easy, and it still is, easy for me to see God as

my master, a God who gives me orders and I'll do it.

But I had a hard time. Still, I need

continual surrendering to this of understanding that God is my father.

And that's because of the strained relationships that I had with my father.

You know, it was God through Pastor Rob over at the Bible Fellowship that helped

me years ago understand this concept.

Rob said, “In authority, God is our Master.

But in relationship God is our Father.” This really helped me! As human beings,

it's hard to trust God as our loving protective providing father when we see

God as father through the lens of our flawed parents yet God is not just set apart and holy,

but he does love us so much! As believers in Christ, as His children, we must believe this truth.

I honestly believe that this is at the heart of what's going on.

There's so much brokenness in our community, in the Bush.

It's because of people’s relationships with their father and how our relationships

with our human fathers, with our parents, and how that has affected us seeing God.

I'll encourage you today. You must trust the truth that God loves you.

That He died, in Jesus Christ, on the cross for your salvation.

Because if we don't trust in love of God, if we don't truly believe that He

did what He has said He did because He loves you and me,

then we cannot progress in abiding in Christ.

We can't grow in our relationship with Him.

We'll just keep on hitting this block, this wall over and over and over again.

But until we truly believe and trust that He is our Father, as well as our God,

then we can go on and abide in Him.

So what has God been teaching us today in this passage?

The first truth we've been taught is that our prayers to God the Father are to be

out of gratitude for the overwhelming, merciful love of God.

We also learned that God is the only ONE that we are to revere as holy God.

And we are to submit in every aspect of our life to Him.

And lastly, as a child of God, God is our Heavenly Father, from whom all life

comes from, and we find our identity in Him.

I want to give you courage today by reminding us that we are recipients of the magnificent

love of Almighty God, and He's also our Heavenly Father.

We are to constantly remember that God, His love comes out of His identity as the great I Am.

There's not this separation. I was trained growing up that God the Father is the unloving one.

That He is the wrathful one. And Jesus is the kind brother, a friend that comes alongside. No.

God is God. And His love comes out of His identity as who He is,

as Yahweh, as the great I Am. That is Him!!

And I want to encourage you with that today. There is so

many wrong theologies that we have about God and His

love. Hold on to His love, but hold on to His love as you remember and trust who

He is as Yahweh our Gid from whom all life comes from! Let us pray! Father, we thank

You for the goodness that You have overwhelmingly bestowed upon us in Jesus Christ.

We are so, so grateful.

And Lord, I pray, Lord, today that as we go out these doors,

as we minister through our daily lives and programs of the church,

but also through the very natural ways of the Spirit as we interact with people,

may you grow our faith and our trust in you, Lord God, that you, Lord,

are the one whom we love.

Grow our love for you so that we can continue and grow to be those who abide in You always.

In Your precious Son’s name, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.