Transcript

Pray Like This!

Ephesians 3:14-19
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Pastor Randy Smith

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I am encouraged to say that we have twenty-eight individuals that recently came forward and desire to be a member of Grace Bible Church. Last week as I was looking through their applications, I was interested to see what in particular drew them to this church.

Some of the things they are thankful for included: Our evangelistic zeal, our doctrine, the opportunities to serve, personal accountability and the pastors' hearts. Yet just below the faithful teaching of the Bible, the top two reasons for considering membership here were the ability to develop friendships and the family environment here at Grace.

As it pertains to what they expect from the people in the church, the top three answers were to love one another, serve one another and hold each other accountable. It seems they appreciate what we should all appreciate. We want a church that is mature in Christ that expresses the holy love of Jesus both to God and each other in all that we do.

The church, as I have said before, is the closest thing on earth to heaven. When the church acts as God expects, it is indeed a beautiful institution. But when the church drifts from the principles expected of it from the Scriptures, it becomes a very toxic environment.

This week I received a sad email through my Grace Quote ministry from a woman living in the San Francisco area. "Now, I'm a 'Done.' Seven years out! And…it has seemed like a 'tribulation' to me… I choose Christ and His ekklesia (just people) over Institutional, Organized Christianity: the religious, legalistic, bondage producing, confusing (Babylon!) Roman Catholic created, Institution that is wed with The State. I had to choose [between Jesus Christ and the church]."

Do we really need to make a choice between Jesus and the local church? Isn't the church the visible display of His spiritual body? Aren't we commanded to attend church, use our gifts and hold each other accountable? Shouldn't church be a blessing, a family, a tremendous source of encouragement? Why do we have professing Christians who want nothing to do with the local church and twenty-eight of you planning to make a formal commitment to this local church?

Jesus Christ is perfect. When things go wrong here it is never His fault. Yet when the people in the church do not act as Christ commands, we have all kinds of problems.

So what does Christ expect us to do that will guarantee mature Christians that will be able to contribute to a loving, Spirit-led, Gospel-orientated, Christ-exalting church? Maybe I should say, what does Christ produce in us when we abide in Him that will produce these favorable God-honoring attributes? Today we'll find out. Our passage in Ephesians is what the Apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian church. And this is how we should be praying for each other.

1. The Posture

Let's begin with the first point, "The Posture."

Verse 14 Paul says, "I bow my knees." Clearly Paul is about to pray. A specific posture is not commanded in Scripture, but dropping to our knees as Paul said represents an attitude of reverent submission, a humble recognition of God's majesty and authority.

2. The Person

Moving on, the Person he is praying to is (verse 14) the "the Father."

Similar to the Lord's Prayer that Jesus gave us, our prayers are addressed to God the Father. Coming before God in prayer is the blessing we have been learning about in Ephesians. While dead in our sins, Jesus Christ through His work on the cross forgave our sins, removed the barrier and reconciled us to God. Once forbidden from His presence, we may now directly approach Him as our Father. God not only welcomes us to come to Him in prayer, but is glorified when we do so.

Paul already told us about our access to God. 2:18, "For through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father." Or 3:12, "In whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him."

God is described in verse 15 as the One in "whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name." This is not the universal Fatherhood of God. This is only Paul's way to identify God as the one who holds the authority over His entire creation emphasizing the greatness of the One we can approach in prayer. He is spiritual Father only to those who come to Him through Christ. And as our spiritual Father, He welcomes us when we wish to speak with Him in prayer.

So that's our background. Let's spend the rest of our time looking at the prayer itself. Let's specifically see how Paul prayed for this church and how we should be praying for each other.

3. The Provision

Right off the bat, in this third point we see Paul desiring specific blessings for this church from God. It's not for physical health. Rather it is for spiritual insight so the Ephesian church might understand and live according to the greatness of their salvation.

The Power

In order for us to be all that God expects, we must understand that our ability, strength and power comes not from ourselves, but from God. Misunderstanding this is one of the biggest mistakes that well-intended Christians make. They want to be all that God intended for them, but they seek to grow in Christ, serve Him and fight the devil all in their own strength. The result is guaranteed failure and frustration.

God has a blessed journey and desired destination for all of us. Yet we do not get there by ignoring the mode of transportation which is Jesus Christ Himself. All that we do must be in and through Him. He must be our ever-resent focus and from that our empowerment as He strengthens us through the Holy Spirit.

Look what Paul prayed in verse 16. "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man."

How great is God's power that is available for His children? Paul says it comes not "from" the riches of God's glory, but "according to" the riches of God's glory. In other words, if a billionaire gave you from his riches, you might walk away with $50. Yet if he gave you according to his riches, no doubt you'd expect to walk away with much more.

The glorious God has an infinite supply of power at His fingertips. Nothing is impossible or too difficult for Him. So when Paul prays in verse 16 that we would be "strengthened with His power," our minds can barely imagine the spiritual muscle that is available to us.

God wants you to spiritually succeed. And with His strength we can do all things (Phil. 4:19). So when we fail, it's only evidence that we are depending too much on our own resources or simply doing nothing at all. The commonality in both of these responses is a prideful, God-less, selfish approach that puts all the emphasis on me.

God in His grace will always give us the strength we need to meet the needs He has placed before us. Perhaps it's to overcome grief or temptation. Perhaps it's to serve Him in a ministry. Perhaps it's the desire and ability to share your faith. Perhaps it's to love others in the body of Christ. Perhaps it's to overcome fear and anxiety. Perhaps it's to view money in a way that honors Him. The list continues. God's limitless strength through the Holy Spirit is available for all His children as they feast on the Word, pray and seek His will in all things.

And Paul prays not so much that God give this power to us, but that we realize the power we have already been given by God (Eph. 1:3) and begin to tap into God's resources and depend less on our own so that we might be more spiritually successful and that He might receive all the glory.

Why do Christians insist on living as spiritual paupers? Why do they go around in the tattered rags of their own inadequacies when they can enjoy true spiritual riches according to Gods' glory?

The Position

In verse 17, we look at the position. The intended position of Christ is that He "may dwell in [our] hearts through faith." Grammatically this could mean that Christ dwelling in our hearts is synonymous to being strengthened with God's power in the inner man or we need to be strengthened by God's power so Christ may dwell in our hearts. I believe it is the former

Yet what I really want to focus on is what it means for Christ to dwell in our hearts. Many people struggle with this verse because the conventional Christian teaching is that when we come to Christ He immediately and always takes up full residence in our hearts. So if that is the case, why would Paul pray for those who already know Christ that they may have Christ now dwell in their hearts?

Answer: While it is true that Christ is always in the hearts of believers (He has promised to be with us until the end of the age), we all know that He at times is not in the center of our lives exercising His rule and authority over all that we do because we sometimes resist Him. He may be there, but He is not in a place where He is recognized. Or we can put it this way. Our hearts are a house to Christ, but there are times when He might not truly feel at home because we view Him as a tolerated, yet unwelcomed visitor.

Right after I was saved, my first pastor gave me a book to read that forever changed my life. The author is Robert Munger and the title of his book is, "My Heart Christ's Home."

In his book, Munger pictures the Christian life as a house, through which Jesus goes from room to room. In the library, which is the mind, Jesus finds trash and all sorts of worthless things, which He proceeds to throw out and replace with His Word. In the dining room of appetite He finds many sinful desires listed on a worldly menu. In the place of such things as prestige, materialism, and lust He puts humility, meekness, love, and all the other virtues for which believers are to hunger and thirst. He goes through the living room of fellowship, where He finds many worldly companions and activities, through the workshop, where only toys are being made, into the closet, where hidden sins are kept, and so on through the entire house. Only when He had cleaned every room, closet, and corner of sin and foolishness could He settle down and be at home" (Summary taken from MacArthur, Ephesians, p. 107).

As believers in Christ, our Savior comes into us at the moment of salvation. Yet the process of sanctification calls for us with the power that God Himself supplies to allow Christ to feel fully at home. And this peace that Christ enjoys within us is when we allow Him to be at the center of our lives, exercising His rule over all that we do. And as we allow Him though the Holy Spirit to empower our lives the greater we will be conformed into His beautiful image (Eph. 2:10 - a masterpiece). And the more we will begin acting in rhythm with Jesus.

The Premium

And the premium of all this? Look at the rest of verse 17. "And that you, being rooted and grounded in love."

So when we are filled with the Holy Spirit whereby our lives are guided and empowered by God, we will seek to put the Lord Jesus first in all that we do. Our Savior will be at home in our heart which will root (a botanical metaphor) and ground (an architectural metaphor) us in love. And when we are rooted and grounded in love, the dominant attribute of God and dominate command to us, then and only then will we (verse 18) "be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth" of the matchless love of Christ.

When Paul talks about the "breadth and length and height and depth" of Christ's love, I do not believe he is talking about four components of Christ's love, but rather using four terms that signify all directions known to us to emphasize the immensity, completeness and infinite nature of Christ's love.

I find it fascinating that the conclusion of this marvelous progression of Paul's prayer does not culminate with us "doing," but rather us "knowing." The ultimate goal of Paul's prayer is that we would understand continually in a greater way the nature of Christ's love and in particular the love that He has for each of us.

According to verse 19, the love of Christ "surpasses knowledge." So while our goal and prayer for each other is that we might forever increase in our knowledge of Christ's love, the reality is that we will never come to the point that we will ever fully comprehend it because it is infinite. Maybe that's why heaven is eternal because we will always be able to learn more about His love. And maybe that's why the mature believer is forever going to God because his or her desire is to forever grown in their knowledge of Christ's unfathomable love.

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell
It goes beyond the highest star<<br /> And reaches to the lowest hell

Could we with ink the ocean fill
And were the skies of parchment made
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade

To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole
Though stretched from sky to sky

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints' and angels' song

Or as Paul penned in Romans 8, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:35. 37-39).

For knowing Christ's love for us is as Paul says in verse 19, "[Being] filled up to all the fullness of God." For this is an indication of spiritual maturity.

When you listen to most prayers in today's church, the emphasis is clearly on making sick people well. And while we should pray for and have compassion on those who are ill in the Bible, rarely did Paul pray for the physical heath of the church.

Paul's prayer is that they would be spiritually mature in Christ. His prayer is that they would depend on the Holy Spirit for empowerment. His prayer is that Christ would dwell peacefully in their hearts as they pursue obedience to Him with holy lives. His prayer is that they would grow in understanding Christ's unfathomable love for them. His prayer was that that would develop in Christlikness whereby they would become stronger in the inner man. For as he told the Corinthians, "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16).

And this is what God wants in this church - knowing Christ's love and showing it by giving that holy love to one another. That's what makes a church honoring to God and attractive to those seeking Him.