“God is Able”
Ephesians 3:14-21
Today’s Scripture is Paul’s second prayer in his letter to the Ephesians. Check out how Paul is praying. He is “on his knees.” This may seem like a normal position to pray in for those of us in the church today, but when Paul grew up, Jewish people prayed, standing up with their arms in the air. Paul takes a position of humility as He considers God’s great eternal plan and realizes that God’s work is unstoppable, even when Paul is in prisoned. There are many examples of people going to their knees in prayer in the Bible. Solomon, 1 Kings 8:54; Ezra, Ezra 9:5; Psalmist, Psalm 95:6; Daniel 6:10; Stephen, Acts 7:60; Peter, Acts 9:40; Jesus, Luke 22:41. The Bible also has enough prayer not happening on the knees to show that it’s not required, but enough showing that it can be a good idea.
Since Paul is praying the churches can reach something then it must be attainable, or he wouldn’t be praying for it. And yet, he’s praying for it because they are not able to grasp it. I think that is also our situation. I think that we are a church that lives far below that is available to us. We are like spiritual underachievers. I think the reason this is, is because we do not fully understand the gospel. As I grapple with the meaning of the gospel, I begin to realize the depth of God’s love. These verses demonstrate a possibility that most of us, if not all of us, are not fully experiencing. When we look at the church as a whole, we can see that even today, we are not experiencing the life that Christ would have us live at. Paul’s desire was that the Ephesians would experience all that was possible for them through the gospel. Not only would the Gospel be a part of the churches, but that it would spill out into the neighborhood around them and others would see the difference. What is the difference they would see?
That you were once dead, but now you are alive.
You were once alienated, but now you are brought together and have been reconciled and brought into one people. That you were restless and lost, but Jesus came and He is our peacemaker and barrier breaker.
Unfortunately, many of us live, most of our days, seeking satisfaction. We try harder, google more to find the answers to our everyday questions. We look everywhere to find satisfactory answers, when like Mick Jagger we realize, We just can’t “find no satisfaction.” We want more out of life. If we were to follow our culture today, it tells us we need to consume more things, buy the newest gadget, that will do something quicker and better so we have more time…to do what? We keep seeking to transcend where we really are, because we are not happy and have not risen where we could be. Yet, none of us is really clear on what we need to really get there.
Not even being religious seems to help. You can put all the habitual Christian activities to work, you can do all do’s: like church attendance,
prayer,
Bible reading and they will still not be enough.
Which makes it even more unsatisfactory, because if religion can’t do it for us, what can?
What’s left?
Maybe the issue is we are looking for the wrong thing.
Maybe the issue is we do not understand the gospel. Because what Paul is trying to tell us is that the only thing that will truly satisfy a human heart is to come into a right understanding of what God has already decided about you in Jesus.
Because the difference between religion and the gospel is that religion says, live like this and God will accept you. Yet the Gospel says, God has accepted you, now live like this. Many don’t understand the difference.
Let’s be realistic.
I read what Paul has written and think, there is no way on my own I can accomplish this. And yet, the Gospel says, this has already been accomplished for me, in Jesus.
The way to victorious Christian living is not through trying harder. It’s not through sinning less. It’s not through doing better.
The way to live victoriously is to cast ourselves into total dependence upon the one who has already done everything for us.
Because of His love.
It’s not guilt that leads the human heart to repentance.
It’s God’s love that brings us to a discovery that
He loves us and that is enough.
It’s His kindness that leads us to repentance.
This prayer that Paul sends to the Ephesians, is the same prayer we should pray for each other. That we would understand just how magnificent God’s love is.
Paul begins by directing his prayer to the Father, whom he sees as the planner among the Trinity. We are directed in the Bible to pray to the Father, through the Son, by the empowerment and direction of the Holy Spirit. Paul reminds us that even our prayers begin with God.
Paul asks God to strengthen the Ephesians with might through the Holy Spirit in their inner being. Not a brute strength kind of might, but a glorious inner strength. Notice how Paul wants God to strengthen – “in accordance to the riches of His glory.” That’s an incredible amount if you think of it. If a Wall Street millionaire gave no more than a dishwasher or a housecleaner, that would be a disgrace. Paul expects God to act according to His infinite grace.
That’s overwhelming.
Not only does Paul see the need for our inner being to be strengthened, Paul prays that believers would open their hearts and allow Christ to live there. Straight from Jesus’ own words, John 14:23,
Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
Paul uses the ancient Greek word “dwell” that means, “a permanent home.” Jesus wants to settle down and reside, not just visit once in a while when it’s convenient. Paul understands human nature. There is something in us that resists the influence of Jesus living with us 24/7. We need spiritual strength to let Christ dwell with us. The Spirit of God gives us the victory to have faith and allow Jesus to abide.
Paul prays for the Trinity to strengthen the inner being of these believers, and encourage their resolve. Paul prays the believers allow Christ to reside in their hearts, permanently. Paul then seeks to have them rooted and grounded in love. Remember, God is love. The kind of love that looks out for one another, lends a hand, seeks the best for those around you. By doing this, the believers would be able to comprehend, like the Saints, the dimensions of the love of Jesus.
I think Paul’s statement is
that the community of believers would understand together
every dimension of the love of Jesus.
Our minds are limited, it takes a village or like the folk tale of the blind men and the elephant, where….
a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and imagine what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the animal’s body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the animal based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other. In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people’s limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
Paul seeks to have God’s church come together, rooted in His love and rooting each other on to comprehend every dimension of the love of Jesus, which we will discover is much larger than an elephant. Like the blind men, Paul wanted them to know the love of Jesus by experience, not just in words. Then share that experience so others could experience God in that way as well.
According to Paul, the love of God has dimensions: width, length, depth and height. This also means the love of God can be measured. Many religious people see the love of Jesus as a sentimental belief. But to Paul, the love of Jesus is real and has substantial measurable facts.
The love of Jesus has width.
Take the wideness of a river. You can see how wide it is by what it covers over. God’s river of love is so wide it covers over my sin, it covers over every circumstance of my life so that all things work together for good. In fact, His love is as wide as the world, John 3:16. I think we will be surprised just how wide God’s love is when we get to heaven and see people we had very little comfortable fellowship with on earth, who did have fellowship with Christ, and will dwell with Him forever.
The love of Jesus has length.
When we think about the length of God’s love we should start with the question, “When did the love of God start towards me? How long will it continue? Jeremiah 31:3,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
The love of Jesus has depth.
Philippians 2:5-8 tells us how deep the love of Jesus goes.
“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”
You can’t go much deeper than death on a cross.
The love of Jesus has height.
To understand the height of God’s love, ask yourself,
“How high does He lift me? Let’s go back to Ephesians 2:6 for an answer,
“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,”
The best way to comprehend the width, length, depth and height of God’s love is to come to the cross. The cross pointed in four ways, essentially in every direction, because….
- God’s love is wide enough to include every human
- God’s love is long enough to last through eternity
- God’s love is deep enough to reach the worse sinner
- God’s love is high enough to take us to heaven
Paul also prayed that these churches would know,
not speculate,
not guess,
not emote or base their information on feelings,
but would know the love of Christ.
Philosophers kindly say that religion is a matter of belief; not knowledge. That is not what we read in the Scriptures.
Paul knew and his prayer is that everyone knows the love of Christ. Then Paul asked that God would fill them unto all the fullness of God. Paul doesn’t write for us to be filled “with” the fullness of God, but, “unto,” which means in reference to. Paul wanted the church to be filled to their capacity with the character and attributes of Jesus.
Check in time.
Paul is declaring the superlative here.
Think about it, to be filled with God would be great.
To be filled with the fullness of God is even greater.
But to be filled with ALL the fullness of God should knock your socks off!
Can you even fathom what that is like?
Paul could and he believed it was possible because he continues with an amazing doxology.
How is this possible?
According to Paul it’s because God is able to do far more than we ask or think.
Duh! He is God after all.
The “we” Paul is referring to is himself and the apostles and they had actually seen Jesus do some amazing things.
Go at it … ask for every good thing you have experienced.
God can do above that.
Go at it … think of or imagine things beyond your experience.
God can do above that.
Go at it … imagine good things that are beyond your ability to name.
God can do above that.
And what is even more, God wants to do this for us now. He doesn’t want to wait until we get to heaven. This power is at our disposal today, this very moment.
The Christian Church is living far below its potential. When the Church understands this, when we understand this, and walk in God’s eternal purpose, God will be glorified.
The only fitting response is, verse 21,
To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Let’s pray.
“God can do anything, you know”
