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Ephesians 3b Paul’s prayer for the church

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21

Intro: Paul started a church in Ephesus by going and spending three years, leading people to Christ and discipling them to follow Jesus. The citizens ultimately riot and throw Paul out of town. Ephesus experienced both a revival and a riot through Paul’s ministry. Five years later, while in Rome, Paul writes this letter to the church in Ephesus. Paul writes while Nero is in charge of Rome, and he hates Christians. Nero would kill Christians, dip them in tar, and use their corpses to light his garden. Paul writes to these believers for many purposes, but one purpose was to keep their eyes on Jesus during hard times. Paul prayed in 1:15-19 that these believers would know the Lord better. In Ephesians 3, we see that Paul prays for the church a second time.

1. The Prayer Soars Pointing to God’s Supply
   1. For this reason, 3:14a. Have you ever been distracted from praying? This statement is a repetition of verse 1; Paul was about to pray, and then broke off before finishing the sentence to elaborate on the mystery, the body of Christ, and on God’s unveiling of the church. Paul couldn’t stop writing about the greatness of God and how God has made Jew and Gentile one new man in Christ. 3:6-7, The gospel and all of its power.
   2. The attitude of the prayer – Paul enters this prayer thinking about the greatness of God and the beauty of the church.
   3. God created everything, and Paul was praying to the Father of all 3:15. Never forget the greatness of God. Ps. 50:14-15 The prayer begins and ends with the greatness of God.
   4. Praise God for answering prayer.
   5. The Posture of the prayer - bent knee. Our physical posture in prayer is less important than the posture of our heart. 3:14b
      1. Paul, praying on a bent knee, was never the way Jewish people pray. (show pic of Jews praying at the Wailing Wall)
      2. There is no one right posture of prayer. Paul’s posture signifies reverence for God, seriousness about what he prayed for, and his love for whom he is praying.
      3. I want to encourage you to pray on your knees as you pray for those whom you love as well. Cry out to God! There is an opportunity to do this at the end of every service.
      4. What does a bent knee symbolize? Someone is greater than you. Oftentimes done before kings and people of authority.

• In a medieval homage ceremony (show pic), a subject would kneel, place his hands in the king’s hands, and declare “I am your man,” pledging complete loyalty and obedience—even unto death. While Christians were expected to show loyalty to earthly rulers, they believed their highest allegiance belonged to Jesus in heaven. This belief influenced the Christian practice of praying while kneeling with bowed heads and clasped hands, symbolizing entering God’s throne room and pledging daily loyalty and obedience to “King Jesus.”

1. The Prayer Carries Our Request

• Paul doesn’t pray they would stop acting like that or that their circumstances would change.

1. Grow Up – To be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner being.
   1. The standard of our prayer - according to the riches of His glory. 3:16a
      1. God owns all, has all, and is generous. Rom. 11:36
      2. Paul asks God to give according to His riches and not simply out of His riches.
   2. Strengthen – with strength overcome resistance.3:16
   3. Power – dynamic, living power.
   4. Why is Paul praying this? Because we all naturally grow weak, and growing strong only happens by following Christ. Jonah and Elisha desired to die. Is. 41:10, Ps. 28:7, Is. 40:28-29,
      1. This growing strong is not the “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going” kind of moment.
      2. This strength is not from self-discipline or the power of positive thinking, not self-talk, getting a grip on things, or turning over a new leaf, but a work of God from His Spirit to our spirit.
   5. This power comes through the Holy Spirit, not through self-effort. We have tried to make ourselves stronger and better followers of Christ by doing better, but that has never been enough. We need the Holy Spirit's filling power.
   6. This strengthening or power comes in our inner-being. 2 Cor. 4:16 This is not strength that comes from the Y or from BFit but comes from Christ and the spiritual disciplines of spending time with Christ and growing closer to Him.
   7. Paul desires that they would be able to stand during difficult times and doesn’t pray that those times would change through political change, but that our eyes would stay focused on God and we would grow in Him.
2. Step Out – Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith
   1. Dwell - to be at home 3:17. This is not a reference to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit at the time of salvation, John 14:23, but instead that Christ is at home and in complete control.
   2. How at home does Jesus feel with you?
      1. How comfortable would Jesus be watching what you watch on TV? Going through your internet history? Looking through whatever is in your cell phone, hearing your conversations, your life would be consistent with your love for Jesus.
      2. This dwelling - being at home, happens through faith and the daily act of trusting God through life.
      3. When Christ is at home in our lives, He is the dominant factor. Christ is not an add-on but is the very center of all a believer does. He owns all of us, and everything we think, do, and believe should go through the filter of what would Jesus think, what would Jesus want me to do, and whether this lines up with what Jesus has told me through His 66 books.
3. Know God’s Love – be aware of the depth of God’s love for you. 3:17b-19a
   1. Paul prays that the church in Ephesus would develop a lifestyle of love for God.
      1. Being rooted in love – a botanical term planted in love. Literally, it says “having been rooted and grounded in His love”. Like trees with roots that go deep in the ground, our lives are to go deep into God’s love.
      2. 1:4-5.Rooted in His love happened in eternity past; I don’t have to understand all of the mechanics, but I do have to accept the truth of it. God rooted his salvation deeply in me at the time of my salvation; this has happened for all believers.
      3. Being grounded in love – an architectural term, founded in love. Our foundation is to be built deep and solid. Everything needed has already happened at the cross and continues to have an ongoing effect.
      4. Gal. 5:22-23- Love is the fruit of the Spirit, singular. Joy is love singing, peace is love resting, patience is love enduring, kindness is love’s touch, goodness is love’s character, faithfulness is love’s habit, gentleness is love’s self-forgetfulness, and self-control is love holding the reins.
   2. How do you measure love? Paul tries to use a ruler. 3:19
      1. Paul’s prayer literally was: that you would have strength to comprehend – an earnest grasping which will never fully be known. 3:19a
      2. The measurements that Paul tries to use are not for the purpose of comprehending His love, but to reveal that we can’t comprehend His love.
         1. A love wide enough to embrace the whole world. John 3:16
         2. A Love long enough to last forever. 1 Cor. 13:8

• “It is so long that your old age cannot wear it out, your continual tribulation cannot exhaust it, your successive temptations shall not drain it dry, like eternity itself it knows no bounds.” Spurgeon

1. Theology alone will not bring about maturity in Christ; in fact, it can bring about arrogance. Not knowing the word of God leads to immaturity, but for maturity, we need to know the word of God as well as the love of God.
2. May have the strength to comprehend “with all the saints” – 3:18 Understanding God’s love in community with “other believers.” Why? Because we can encourage each other in the love of God as we learn about it together.
3. How have you seen the love of God demonstrated in your life this last week? Have you thanked God for that? Have you told anyone else?
4. We can handle life when assured that God loves and accepts us in Christ. To know that to Christ we are dear and precious. Zeph. 3:17 This love from God affects our relationship with others and is gained in context with others.

• Karl Barth, a Swiss Theologian in the last century, who died in 1968 (show pics). He lectured in Germany until the Nazis kicked him out in 1935 for refusing to swear an oath to Hitler, then lectured in seminaries and universities in the US. He published over 600 writings, and at the time of his death, he hadn't finished a 13-volume, 9300-page work on Christian doctrine - this is just to show you how well published he was. In 1962, lecturing in Chicago, at a Q&A session, a student asked, "If he could take all of his writings and distill them into one sentence, what would it be?" He thought for a moment and said, “It would be what he learned on his mother’s knee, Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.

1. Notice the immensity of what we are to experience concerning God’s love. Romans 8:35-39 It is impossible to understand fully intellectually, but we are to live a lifetime trying to comprehend and grasp God’s love experientially. Eph. 5:2, Rom. 5:8, 1 John 3:1
2. Fill Up - Be filled with the fullness of God 3:19b
   1. We can’t be filled with God when we are filled with ourselves. There must be more of Him and less of me.
   2. The dying of self must happen to be filled with God.
   3. Paul desires that we experience the fullness of God.
   4. When was the last time that you prayed like this? Please God, help me be filled with your fullness as I grow up being strengthened by your spirit in the inner man, that you would be at home in my life by faith, and that I would know His love so much that I would be filled with His fullness.

III. The Prayer Lands Pointing to God

1. Paul concludes his prayer by reminding himself and the reader who God is. We already know that He is the Father of all, but here we know that He is more than that. He is omnipotent and can do whatever He wants whenever He wants. Jer. 32:27, 17, Luke 18:26-27
2. God’s power is beyond us 3:20a
   1. God is able - He has the power to do His will or to accomplish His will.
   2. God is able to do all we ask him to do. Matt. 7:7
   3. I don’t know what to ask for - I have so many problems, burdens, dreams, goals, plans, etc. He is able to do all we even think. The omnipotent one is the omniscient one. Matt. 6:8 he knows your need even before you ask. Ps. 37:4
   4. God can do all that you have ever asked or thought about. There is no burden He can’t lift, no door he can’t open, and no enemy He can’t defeat, no problem He can’t solve, and no sin he can’t forgive.
   5. God can do far more abundantly than all - this is a super superlative. Exceedingly, abundantly - God can do far more than you have ever considered.

• God can take your broken marriage on the brink of divorce, bring restoration, and then use it to minister to others. God can take your son who is addicted to drugs and bring him to Himself and call him to preach the gospel.

1. God’s power is within us, 3:20b “according to the power at work in us.”
   1. The verb able at the beginning of the verse is the same word as the noun power at the end of the verse; this play on words means that the God who is able is the same power at work in us.
   2. All of the power in Jesus is at work in you. This truth should blow our minds because we are weak people. One car accident, one health diagnosis, will reveal how weak we actually are, and yet God’s power resides in every believer in this room.
   3. Because His power is in us, we can suffer faithfully, resist temptation, witness joyfully, and serve the Lord confidently. This power from god is at work in us now.
   4. How can I be strong when I feel weak, and it took all of my strength to just get out of bed and get to church? Don’t trust your feelings, but trust the word of God.
   5. Paul had a thorn in the flesh and asked repeatedly for it to be removed, and God said, “No.” But God gave him grace which would be sufficient, and God’s strength was seen in Paul’s weakness.
2. God Deserves Our Highest Praise
   1. 3:20 To Him who is able, 3:21 to Him be glory
   2. For God to receive glory, we do not need to ask God to bless what we are doing, but we need to do what God blesses.
   3. The power comes from God, and the glory must go to Him. When God does the crazy impossible, we are to give God the glory – “To Him be glory in the church.” May this praise continue to all generations.
   4. When it’s all said and done, may we never take the glory that belongs to God alone for what He has done.

Conclusion: Travel back 200 years in Christian history to John Newton, the slave-trader-turned-pastor and hymn writer. He would receive almost unbelievable answers to his prayers because he believed in what he called "large asking." When explaining what he meant, Newton would often cite a legendary story of a man who asked Alexander the Great for a large sum of money in exchange for his daughter's hand in marriage. Alexander agreed and told the man to request whatever he wanted from Alexander's treasurer. So, the father of the bride went and asked for an enormous amount. The treasurer was startled and said he could not give out that kind of money without a direct order. Addressing Alexander, the treasurer argued that even a small fraction of the requested amount would more than suffice.

"No," replied Alexander, "let him have it all. I like that fellow. He does me honor. He treats me like a king and proves by what he asks that he believes me to be both rich and generous."

Newton concluded: "In the same way, we should go to the throne of God's grace and present petitions that express honorable views of the love, riches, and bounty of our King."