Paul's Prayer for the Ephesians

Ephesians 3:14-21

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Alright, um, I invite you to take your Bibles from with me to Ephesians chapter three. Um we're gonna wrap up the chapter today. Chapter three is giving us some insight into Paul's ministry to the Gentiles and how the new covenant was indeed a mystery, but has now been revealed. That mystery being that Gentiles, believing Gentiles, are co-heirs and members of the same body and partners in the promise of Christ through the gospel. In essence, affirming what we see elsewhere, and I mentioned this before, that God desires that all should be saved. We also know the last time a special calling of the church, namely that God's multifaceted wisdom may now be made known to through the church to the rulers and authorities in heaven. That's verse 10. Uh, it's quite staggering in a sense. The church is to help the angels better understand God's vastness of wisdom and how God has brought about the unity of the church. So, in that, there are illusions, if you will, of how the gospel has come about from the old covenant with the nation of Israel to now a new covenant that is available for everyone who will believe in Christ. So, again, we're at this final section here. And here we see Paul moving to a prayer for the Ephesians. So I think it's obviously fair to say you would have the same prayer for us as believers. So that's kind of the way that I am approaching it. So let's pray and then we'll read the prayer. Father in heaven, thank you again for your word. Thank you for your encouragement through the Spirit, Father, as you uh just bring things to light to us and that you um encourage us through circumstance and through your word, but just through things that happen. And um, we just sense, Father, you're just uh pouring your love out on us, and you want us to know that, and we thank you for that. And we pray as we study your word that we would be drawn closer to you and to one another, and um, thank you again, Father, in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so Ephesians three and verses fourteen through twenty one. 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 your power and 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. Um This passage I it it was a little difficult for me in a sense. I mean, if you read it, I don't know if you're like me, I get geared up about theological issues and those kind of things. So when I when I'm reading these kind of things, I have a tendency to kind of read through it and not think about it as much. And even as I did prep for this, I you know, I'm kind of sorry. I didn't I spent a little too much time, I think. Again, I'm apt to do this, spending too much time on the on the instructing side of it or trying to ferret it out about what it's saying. And so you'll sense that through the first of it. I think when we get toward more of the body of the prayer, it I it kind of resonated with me a little bit more, and I was able to apply it in in more of a helpful way, I think. But anyway, uh just to say that in case you feel like you need to get some coffee, it's okay. Uh as we start, uh I ask you to look back at verse one. I don't know about other translations, but verse one with the CSB that I'm using ends with a hyphen. I noted that the time that the hyphen is indicating what Paul does so often, he takes a divergence, he's talking about something, then he it makes him think of something else, and so he goes in a different direction. That's what he does. And the divergence was to highlight what we mentioned earlier, namely the mystery of the gospel. So I take you back to verse one to show you that Paul is most likely resuming his original thought. That's what most scholars believe. And that makes sense. Verse 1 begins again with CSB with for this reason. And now we see verse 14 begins with the same for this reason. The only other alternative, I guess, would be that Paul has explained the mystery and he's now branching off in another direction based on verse 13 or just before. But that seems unlikely because in verse 13, again, you may recall, and if you look back, that's just a personal request he has to for the Ephesians to not be discouraged about what he's dealing with in his trials. So it seems more likely Paul is returning to his original thought. And so what he's doing then dramatically, because they're reading this, he's reminding them where he left off. For this reason, okay, we're back to that now. And as we noted when we looked at verse 1, the reason he gave takes us back to chapter 2, and there what he's talking about is the salvation and privileges he describes in knowing Christ and through the gospel. So to try to sum all that up, he is saying, okay, the church is saved, it's united together now, Jew and Gentile, and all of you have this wonderful access to God. For that reason, I want to pray now that God will move to strengthen you and establish you more fully in Him and by extension His love. So I think that is what prompted this prayer. In short, so that believers may have a fuller, richer experience with God, may understand God's feeling, if you will, toward you. And with that said, the prayer falls clearly into three discernible parts, if you want to put it that way. They come in order, which will make it easily easy enough for an outline. Uh, verses 14 through 15 contain the introduction to the prayer, verses 16 and 19 through 19 provide a description of the prayer, and then verses 20 and 21 are the conclusion to the prayer, which you may be referred to, you may see it. I hear this a lot as the doxology. And if you do hear that term, what it means is doxology is just a short, fervent expression of praise to God. So you may some people may say it at the end of a song in a worship service or something, some kind of idea. So introduction, description, and conclusion, conclusion. But in the description, I did break that down a little more because you have Christ's power, Christ's presence, and what I'm going to call Christ's passion, which is really his love for us. So we'll come back to that. Okay, so first verses 14 and 15. The introduction. The posture of kneeling in prayer is one of several postures that are described in the Bible, but prayer was more common in first century Judaism to be approached in by standing. And often the hands would be raised, apparently. Again, nothing wrong with raising your hands in the service. I'm not trying to turn you all to charismatics, but um I know it's not part of our culture normally, but it's fine if you want to express yourself in that way when we're singing or praying or whatever, it's biblical. Uh, I actually do so frequently in private worship when I get excited about what God has done something I'll I think I've told you before I can go charismatic in that way. Um, kneeling would designate the position of utmost humility. It shows a reverence and a readiness to obey. Also, it probably shows a heightened sense of feeling. That would fit with the wording and the context of the prayer. Paul expresses it in this way, I think, then, because they know, he wants them to know that he has a deep emotional feeling for them. This is not just a choice on his part or a head thing, it's a heart thing. It's emotional. He's he's feeling it, in other words. It was interesting this week. I heard something that spoke to this. James Tour. I don't know if y'all are familiar with him at all. He's a chemist and a nanotechnologist. Ever heard that? Uh I won't attempt to explain what that is. I'm not sure I could. Uh, y'all probably understand what a chemist would be, at least in part, anyway. To put it short, he has a size 12 brain on a scale of 1 to 10. Very smart guy. Uh, he is a Jew. He grew up a secular Jew, not really into Judaism. He has a fascinating conversion story. Um I won't go into that. I'll get give you just a little bit of it. Um, that there's quite a bit more to it. But anyway, he said Jews didn't really believe in little sins. And I think I've heard that before. So they don't really worry about the minutia of stuff. And so he said he had this Christian friend to ask him, Um, do you know you're a sinner? And he was like, No, I'm not a sinner. He's like, I've not killed anybody, I've not robbed a bank. So he didn't look at it that way. And he said, His friend, who knew him well, turned him to Matthew 5, where it said, Anyone who looks on a woman with lust has committed adultery with her in his heart. And that stunned him because he was addicted to porn. So he said he became convicted. And a short time later, he just got down on his knees and prayed. He said there was all this pressure, and he he asked for forgiveness, and he said he submitted his life to Christ. And I bring that up as it pertains to our text. It made me think because he said, he said, kneeling in prayer was not something we normally did. He said, we stood, but I nailt, and I'm paraphrasing here, I can't remember exactly what he said. But he said, I he nailed something to the effect to show his complete submission and humility with the whole event. It was so emotional for me, he said. So again, I just bring that up. I think that's what Paul is alluding to here as well. That's what he's doing. He's saying, I'm kneeling. I'm praying this for you because I love you so much and I want you to know that. Um, so notice Paul also says he kneels before the Father. Paul refers to God as Father 42 times in the New Testament, eight times here in Ephesians. In fact, there's no other description of God used as frequently in the New Testament. Now, that's interesting, of course, given that we understand the Bible reveals that God is Father, Son, and Spirit. This type of language really took off from Jesus himself. Jesus taught his disciples to address God as Abba, which is the Aramaic word for father, used by both children and adults. The Jews would not use that word because they thought it was too familial, too, I guess, low in a sense for God, in the sense he's so supreme and high. But Jesus said otherwise. You want to think of him as Father. Now, I I thought I would just note here, I think we understand, it's certainly not wrong to direct prayers to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit for that matter. They are part of the triune God. I would say we need to be mindful that in the Bible, prayer is usually directed to the Father through the Son by the empowering and direction of the Holy Spirit. And of course, the idea of Father gives us a picture, right? We know in reality God is not male nor female. Um, he's spirit. Uh, but he's referred to as father, which gives us a picture of how to think about him. Hopefully, you had a good father to help you along the way with the correlation. But even if you didn't, you know what it was like to hope for a good father or hope for those things. And of course, what the Bible clearly reveals is the Father, our heavenly father, is the best and most loving ever. Now, Guzick says Paul's prayer here presents the father as the planner among the members of the Trinity. And again, it's we often see in the New Testament the reference to the Father's will. You know, Jesus says it a lot, the Father's will be done. As far as the Father, we see God referred to in this way, primarily in three senses in the New Testament. So there's three ways that he's thought of as Father. The first being the narrow sense is God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the CSB doesn't show that. Some of your Bibles may, it's in some of the old uh manuscripts, apparently. It doesn't really matter one way or the other because we see it elsewhere, so it's a it's a valid and valid way to look at it. Uh, but that's a very narrow sense. It's just looking at it as God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Another sense, of course, is that God is the Father of believers, and that's like in 1 Corinthians 1 3, where Paul says, God our Father. Certainly in passages in John point to the name of the Father more in a in our spiritual family sense. Uh I believe you, well, of course, you see children of God, so that makes sense. We understand it that way. That's really not what's going on here either. And you may grasp it there and just looking at it again, I don't know how your translation is, but this is more in the creative sense, and that's the other way that we see it, uh, where God is the father of all of creation. And that's what we're seeing here from every family in heaven and on earth is named. Commentator Snodgrass, yeah, that's his name, uh, but he says he says the emphasis in Ephesians on a cosmic Christ and a cosmic role of the church is based on an understanding of God as cosmic father. So what that is indicating is since all things will be brought together in Christ or potentially brought together, God is the father of all. He's presupposed to be the father of all, again, in the creative sense. Now, scholars note, and I know I'm getting a little in the weeds here, so I'll get off this pretty quick, but that they know they can't really show the wordplay that's going on in the Greek. And but the Greek word for father is pator, the Greek word for family here is patria. And so there's a wordplay going on, but it's not again speaking of it in the sense of that we are the spiritual family. It's speaking of it more in the sense of the physical created sense. Uh, and and we know that in part or because of the way that this is the same word that's used in Acts 3.23, which is a quote from the phrase in Genesis, you'll be familiar with, where it says, All the families of the earth will be blessed through your offspring. That doesn't mean every person's going to be saved, um, but it does mean that it's available for all. It means that um that God, you know, has common grace on everyone, as it's sometimes referred to. God's general goodness on mankind in general. So it's that idea. Also, based on what we saw last time about the church instructing angels, uh, a number of people think that Paul is also referring to heavenly families here, in the sense of families of angels. Um, some think it's a reference to those who have died and gone on. Um, it seems like it'd have to be one or the other. Spurgeon uh preached a sermon one time called Saints in Heaven and on Earth, one family. He developed the idea there that we are one with our brothers and sisters in heaven, and how that enriches our hope in heaven. Given that it says every family in heaven, I'm inclined to think it means both. Uh, it means both our loved ones who have gone on, and it means the angels. Now, I get we're foggy on both. We don't understand, we don't really understand anything about angel relationships. We don't understand exactly what our loved ones are doing, even for that matter. Um but it is an amazing thought, and Paul says it for some reason, if not to evoke our curiosity, you know, um, or at least to evoke our curiosity, I would think. So I think it is a wonderful thing just to at least give it some thought about what he is saying there. So um that's really the introduction. Paul is again reiterating that God is God over all, and he everyone is under him, and he's getting to the point that God loves everyone. So now let's get to the description itself. And the main intent of Paul's prayer is clear here. He wants his readers to be strengthened by God's Spirit so that they may know Christ's power, Christ's presence, and what I'm referring to as Christ's passion, you know, for the outline's sake, but it's Christ's love, really, intimately. So Christ's power, presence, and passion. There's some sense here that the idea is progressive. I'm not gonna press it a whole lot. I'll mention it again, but um it I don't know, again, we can't press it too much because the first two, the power and the presence, come to us simultaneously when we're uh born again, we could say. And then I think we can see as time goes on, we grow in our understanding more of Christ and our appreciation for the love he has for us and our love for him and those sort of things. Uh, but but I'll come back to that. Uh, first Christ's power, that is verse 16. 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. So Paul is praying that our inner being will be strengthened. Uh, little definition here. Our inner being is not the same as the new being, you know, where it refers to um everyone in Christ is a new creation. That's a different concept. This expression here only occurs here in a couple of other places in scripture. So, inner inner being, we would understand, it's the depths of my being. Okay, it's like it's synonymous with the heart, I would say. It's where we make choices, really. The inner man or woman, of course, is just as real as the physical body or soul or spirit. I'm I'm listening to a lot of um debates right now on atheism and um because what's happened, and I I'll I'm gonna bring this up a little bit in Easter, I think. I was thinking about it. Um, what's happened is science has been evolution is just dead practically. And scientists are, for lack of a better term, freaking out. Because they don't know, they realize that everything's pointing to a creator. And so they're wanting the atheistic ones anyway, there's more becoming Christian or at least becoming theistic. Um, there's more that are trying to, is there some way we can get around this? And and the other problem they realize they have is this idea of the soul or spirit. Because we're not just material, we're not where do these decisions come from? Where do these feelings of love come from? That sort of thing. So um that's the idea. We clearly understand understand needing strength in our physical body. It's even more important to be strong in our inner being, because unfortunately, as we all know, that's where we're often so weak. Paul is asking God to grant us that strength. So obviously, we know this. We need God's strength, right? We can't follow God without his strength, not as we should. So I believe this text is pointing us to put a priority, it's not specifically stated, I guess, but I think it has to be pointing us to put a priority on prayer, on Bible study, and worship. And if we're being honest, we may not do any of them particularly well, but God will grant us power when we ask him in prayer. So we need to be going to prayer in him. Hopefully, all of us are praying daily. Of course, he enlightens us with the study of his word. Our spirit will hear from his, be more in tune with his. I think the reference to riches of his glory is pointing us to worship. All of these prayer, study, worship. Worship require attention and thought and effort. Grace is a free gift, but our relationship with God is not a spectator sport. We need to pray. Again, I would say, I hope all of you are praying daily. All of us probably do, but we should. We need to read our Bibles daily. I'm actually trying to recommit to that. And some of you probably say, whoa, whoa, you mean you're a pastor and you're not reading your Bible daily? Well, it's not good to stand up here and lie. Um, I am a pastor, I'm not always a very good one. Of course, I have to read when I'm studying for a sermon, but I've gotten out of the habit of just reading every day. And so as I'm getting back into that, I see so much of the value in it. And of course, there are times we need to have some intense study, but I'm just talking about just reading without so strictly feeling like, oh, I have to know what that word means, or analyzing every word. Just listening for what most of your translations are fine. So just listening what the Spirit has to say. There's something freeing about reading the Bible to hear what you might hear from God, right? So hopefully everyone's doing that. Again, worship is important, our personal adoration of Christ, but also our corporate worship here. Paul is big on church here. Church is not an optional part of Christianity. It's it is the place now and through eternity where God is given honor and glory in the corporate realm. And we personally represent the church when we're out and about. Snodgrass again, he's he's one of the commentators I use on this. He says, just as Christ is the evidence of God's redeeming love, the church is evidence of God's transforming and uniting power. So all that to say, this is part of how God grants us strength. And then another thing I would say just following exactly what Paul does here, pray for each other. We need to be praying for each other. You know, I try to pray for you during the week. A lot of times individually, certainly corporately, we need to do that for one another. Just pray that you know we will be strengthened and that we'll be helped in dealing with trials and then we'll be encouraged. And I understand all these things are very familiar. And so we can just kind of say, yeah, yeah, I know. But just again to reiterate prayer, study, worship, intercession for each other, which of course you can do through prayer. We um that will bring us closer. And again, I sense God's presence. Okay, so that is the power, and I do think there is a little progression there. How about God's presence? That's the beginning of verse 17, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Those who are in Christ, of course, have Christ in them. Paul asked here that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. It could be said here that Paul asked for spiritual strength for us to let Christ dwell within us, because of course there is something in us that resists the influence of the indwelling Jesus. That's well, the Bible, what we refer to as our human nature, our broken nature, or Adam's nature, if you will. There are two ancient Greek words that convey the idea of dwelling. One has the idea of living in a place as a stranger. I was reading this week about uh people who are retiring. It caught my attention, I guess, because of retiring. I'm thinking, oh, I'm doing that. I need to read that. Um, anyway, I was reading it and um it was basically saying that they're I realize that we can't do that, but it was saying these people are taking these vacations in their retirement where they go to these places and they spend like two weeks, two to four weeks in the same place. They'll get a bed and breakfast or whatever, and they stay there and they get to know the people around. So we actually experienced a little bit of that in Italy because you know, we we were there and we went to a place the first night we were there in Rome that we that we the people could speak English, and one of the guys were from California, he's from Italy originally and went to California and came back to Italy. And so anyway, we got to know them, and so while we were there for those few days, we you know would go by and see them, so we kind of got to know them in that way. So it's that kind of idea, living as a stranger. But of course, the other idea is settling in the place permanently, and as you might expect, the word here is the ancient Greek word for a permanent home. Jesus wants to settle down in your heart, not just visit as a stranger. Now, I won't ask here, who has a messy home, lest I condemn myself. Uh Mariah's told me before, please don't ask people over until it's presentable. She doesn't want them to think she left it in the mess that I made, um, which is understandable, right? Because again, we both travel a lot, as you know, and I'm at Black Mountain uh alone quite a bit more than she's or I'm alone there, son. And so dad and I have both commented, marveled at how big a mess just one person can make. Um I don't know if y'all live alone. I'm sure you can think about your spouse and how big a mess they make, but if if you live alone and uh you realize, how do I get so many dishes that are dirty? You know, and that kind of thing. And just it is quite amazing for there to be only one person in my house sometimes. It sure looks lived in. Uh unfortunately, it may not be that receptive to someone coming in, especially someone coming in wanting to clean up, shall we say. So to have Christ dwell with us, we realize, is to abandon ideas of self-determination, self-fulfillment, even our independence to some extent. We really should be independent of everything, but Jesus to some degree, but we are actually given the key to Jesus, Jesus dwelling with us in his own words in John 14. Turn back there, John chapter 14. Um verse 18. I will not leave you as orphans, I am coming to you, and a little while the world will no longer see you, but you will see me because I live, you will live too. On that day you will know that I am in the Father, you are in me, and I am in you. The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, also will love him and will reveal myself to him. Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it you're going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered, If any one loves me, he will keep my word. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. The one who doesn't love me will not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I've spoken these things while I remain with you, but the counselor of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all these things and remind you of everything I have told you. Any thought that we can be in Christ without being Christ-like is absurd. So if Christ's dwelling isn't transforming us, we should question our belief. Now, I'll speak more to this in a minute, but I I dare say we should be more concerned about the validity of our faith than about assurance. Staying close to God will give you assurance. God is faithful. The question is, are we? So he's saying, be clothed with him, be stamped by his character. Now, of course, understand we don't lose Christ when we sin. But clearly, we want to dwell with him being in the main part of the house. Right? We try to hide from him in our inner being. We shouldn't be hoping that he'll stay in the back bedroom and kind of leave us alone, not come out in the main part. Um the term through faith informs us as well. We won't always feel his presence. It's knowing what his word clearly tells us. The spirit who indwells us, Jesus said, will remind us and teach us of these things when we're not feeling it. We we trust in that God is spirit, and we worship him in spirit and in truth. So his presence will be with us, we'll sense it more as we obey him, as we follow him. Because he says, He who loves me will keep my commandments. Okay, so power, presence, and now passion. That's the last part of verse 17 into verse and through verse 19. 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. There are two expressions there used for how Paul praise love will be a part of who we are. Rooted and firmly established. Rooted is the idea of like a living tree where the roots are going down in the soul, and the roots, you know, wrap around rocks, and they get just tied down in there. And firmly established is also maybe translated grounded in your translation. It's a building, it's like a foundation, a building that's settled on a foundation. It's there, it's not going to be moved, it's rock solid. This section here is really encouraging. This is what I was speaking to earlier. Paul is praying that as we are established in love, we will come to more fully understand the vastness of God's love. And again, part of this is he's speaking in the context of the community that where we're different, that we would begin to have that appreciation of love for one another, even in our differences, those kind of things too. He's he's trying to bring all that in, I think, although it's not explicitly stated. Paul, but Paul wanted them to know love, God's love by experience, not just in words. Again, as we said before, in the heart, a certain feeling of it, not just the knowledge of it. Now, Spurgeon says, in this measurement, may you and I be skilled. If we know nothing of mathematics, may we be well-tutored scholars in spiritual geometry and be able to comprehend the breadths and lengths of Jesus' precious love. So let's attempt to get something of that here, as feeble as it may be. Note again, Paul uses these terms: length, width, height, depth. That clearly refers, he's wanting us to get some grasp of the expanse of God's love and the love that Jesus has for us. It's descriptive, it's boundless, but we can have some measure of it as well. I read this, I think this probably came from Gusset, but it that to come to any understanding of the dimension of God's love, we must come to the cross. And he used it in the sense of symbolically of thinking about the cross as pointing four directions, right? It's all encompassing. And he says, that's what's happening here as well. So I want us to think about this for a moment. The love of Jesus has length. When considering the length of God's love, ask yourself, when did the love of God start towards me and how long will it continue? Christ was slain from the foundation of the world. God had a plan to redeem fallen mankind. God has loved us before we were ever born. Clearly, God's love is long enough to last through all eternity. We're told, so we shall ever be with the Lord. The love of Jesus has width. You can see how wide a river is by noticing how much it covers over. And so, if we think about God's love in that sense, a river um covers over my sin. It covers over the circumstances of my life. So that all things work together for good. If I doubt his forgiveness or providence, I'm narrowing his the river of his mighty love. His love is more powerful. I think in part I thought of this because of the flood water, you know, the where the rivers have been, and we saw that uh with the hurricane and how powerful those rivers were. But that is God's love in a non-destructive reverse. That love going over you is wonderful and covers so much. And his love is as, I mean, we can really say it's as wide as the world, world, right? Because John 3.16, we know that when God so loved the world. God's love is enough to include every person. All of his all of his people are all of his children, again in the created sense. So how about height? We see something back of that in Ephesians 2.6. I remember that. Ephesians 2.6. I'll just look back at that. It says, He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus. That's spoken of in the past tense. Now, people get into some weird transactions about this, I think. I would just say, obviously, we're not there now. We're not in two places. Um, but in Christ, the point is God's love is taking us to incredible heights. His love lifts us, will lift us to these heavenly places. And of course, we can call on him now. He is the highest authority. We're invited to go before the throne regularly and bring our cares to him, bring everything to him. So, again, think about the love that God wants to. We can talk to God about anything, the creator of the universe about anything. That's how high his love is for us. It it, you know, he says even the hairs on our head are numbered. So he's very in tune with everything that's going on in your life. And depth. Depth made me think of 1 John 4, verse 8. God is love, that's who he is. And I I know we we think about we we think about God as a judge, and that can skew our view of his love. He is a judge, but even his judgment is done in love. It's it's done from the standpoint of allowing people to have free choices, um and and not forcing people to love him. But he himself is love, his he reaches out. His Bible indicates he's reaching with arms extended constantly. As Jesus said, Oh, I have longed to gather you, as a hen gathers her chicks, and you are not willing. Um, he will love us with an everlasting love. Jesus took the form, the Son of God took the form of a bondservant, all of Philippians 2, humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death. So God's love is deep enough to reach the worst sinner. So Paul prays here, we can know Christ's love that surpasses knowledge. And that's if you think about that, that's kind of what they call oxymoron, right? Something of a contradiction. The know Christ's love that surpasses knowledge. It's the language of somebody who has experienced that. They they've been surprised and overwhelmed by by Christ's love. And of course, we've been reading about Paul and Acts where and the Damascus Road experience, and so we understand that. Have you had that experience where you were since you were just overwhelmed by Christ's love? I have. Y'all probably have too. And you say, Well, what happens to that feeling? Of course, feelings ebb and flow, so we can lose that intensity, and then the cares of life start making us doubt again when we're, you know, things come up, we're dealing with trials, we're dealing with struggles, relationship struggles, sin struggles, whatever it is. And it makes us start to doubt again. And Paul is praying, look, yeah, I want you to know, and I'm praying you will know Christ's immeasurable love and be convinced of it. So again, let's pray that for one another. This, what Paul wants to know is yes, I want you to understand the feeling of it and the emotion of it, and in some sense, God is that way too. But in no, in saying that, understand it's not speculation. God's love is not speculation, it's not guesswork, it's not emotion, it's not feeling. It's something you can know. Whether you feel it or not, you can know. God loves you in that way. And Paul asked God to feel these Christians until all the fullness of God. That is staggering. I read that and I didn't even know how to deal with it. And thankfully I come across a commentator who commented on it. I thought was good. Clark says, Among all the great sayings in this prayer, this is the greatest. To be filled with God is a great thing, to be filled with the fullness of God is still greater, but to be filled with all the fullness of God utterly bewilders the sense and confounds the understanding. And of course, he's right. And so I think if you're struggling, if you can make a mental note here or write it down somewhere, when I'm struggling with fear, when I'm struggling with doubts, when I'm struggling with sin, when I'm struggling with whatever, let me go back to this passage and just remind myself what Paul says. This is what God wants for you, and this is what I'm praying for you. That you would be filled with all this. And you might say, well, why don't I just feel that all the time? Well, that again is not part of relationship, right? That's how we interact with others, how we interact with God. We love him. And we express that love. That's how our relationship works, but God will let his love be known. He won't leave us orphans. So I think this is a good passage to have down and go back and reread. And finally, the ending, and we'll be brief here: a glorious doxology. Now, to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly all above that we ask or think. I think I read it, it was Spurgeon that noted. Paul didn't have good words here, he uses Greek kind of out of, it's kind of a wonky Greek that he uses here, exceedingly abundantly. You can kind of tell it in the English translation. He's just trying to express something he can't get a hold of. As Paul came to this great height and width and depth and um length as he understands God, it's logical to ask, how can we know that? Well, that's what he's saying. How can something so above us become a reality? Well, it can only happen because God is able to do far beyond what we ask or think. So the doxology, the ending here, affirms who we believe in, who is able to bring these things about that Paul is praying will come to pass. The one who has done everything else he has described thus far in Ephesians and the other books that he's written. Only God can do far beyond our ability to think or to ask. Whatever good thing you can imagine you would ask for, God can do more than that. And eventually we will see the fullness of that when Christ returns. So the things Paul prayed for in the previous verses, spiritual strength, indwelling Jesus, experiential knowledge of God's love, this fullness of God, belong to us as children of God. Again, they are received by believing prayer, and we can further in the lives of each other, I think, by praying for one another, as Paul does here. But we need to think on these things, and the fitting response, of course, is to glorify God, to give him glory, especially here in church. We are his redeemed, so let's again just remember. To ask God to help us walk in his eternal purpose and just be reminded of how much he loves us and that gives us that strength to go forward and we can live for him. Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Thank you for loving us, Father. And just for wanting us to know your love. And we don't always grasp um how things work or why we don't may not feel that. But we thank you for your word, and we know there are times when we do feel your love just come through. And we we thank you, Father, for just assuring us, for wanting us to know. Because ultimately that's what is so important, what we know, even more so than what we feel. So we thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you for reminding us of these things this morning and last week, and just that you love us, and um because we can get caught up in what's going on in the world, and and that we feel so small just here in our little place here. And um, but what really matters, Father, and we know is that you love us and that you care for us, and um so we pray that you will go with us, empower us, strengthen us to live for you, and and be the witnesses and the and the light that you would have us be. And we ask us in Jesus' name, amen. All right, page um four thirty-eight. Four thirty-eight, Jesus' sake.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Jesus says, Jesus says, We went, all the sins and pains, all the same, oh my god, these are in the sete, discipline, send us, uh, so far.