Ephesians 3:7 Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God's grace that was given me by the working of his power. 8 Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; 10 so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him. 13 I pray therefore that you may not lose heart over my sufferings for you; they are your glory. 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
What do you most want to ask God for?
What do you most want to ask God for?
If that one thing didn’t just pop into your head, I’d like you to take a moment to figure that out in your heart. What do you most want to ask God for?
Maybe it’s for an answer or resolution to a problem or issue you’ve been struggling with.
Maybe it’s for healing for yourself or a loved one. A miraculous cure, perhaps, or an emotional and spiritual healing that brings wholeness and peace.
Maybe it’s for your kids or grandkids.
Maybe you most want to ask God for something beyond yourself or your loved ones. Maybe your petition is for a group in the wider community, for the environment, or for the nation.
There’s no right answer. Just take a moment….
Formulate that prayer…. And Pray it now, silently, to God.…
Paul tells us through the letter to the Ephesians that we have a God who will do abundantly more than we can ask for or imagine.
We have all just imagined and asked. Now we await God’s answers in expectation.
With today’s reading of Ephesians, we’ve hit a turning point in this letter. We are at a hinge between the first three chapters which talk about the wonderful mystery of what God has done in Christ, and the last three chapters which instruct us how we ought to respond.
So far Paul’s talked about how God has blessed us with spiritual blessings, and is gathering up all things together in Christ who has redeemed us from our sin. Paul spoke about how that in Christ, the dividing walls are broken down and the divisions between gentile and Jew have been erased and so we are being built together into a temple for God’s Spirit. Christ has brought peace to those near and those who have been far.
Paul speaks of this good news of the radical inclusion of all people as a mystery. It wasn’t fully understood or known before Jesus. In fact, it wasn’t even fully understood by the twelve original apostles. Elements of it were there, but the dividing walls still existed. God was revealing the fullness this mystery to Paul and Paul has been able to communicate it to those he writes to.
For this reason, Paul begins chapter 3, For this reason, he is a prisoner for Christ Jesus. Paul, writing while under arrest in Rome, understands that his imprisonment may be being carried out by the government, but it is because he is doing God’s will in spreading the good news of this Gospel. We are all now one family in Christ. Forgiven and Free. None of us deserve the gift of salvation. Paul said that he was the least of all the saints because he used to persecute and kill Jesus’ followers. This ability to be in unhindered relationship with God is a free giftavailable to all, and Paul’s goal is that the church, the gathered followers of Jesus, would be the ones to make this wonderful mystery known to all the world, therefore Paul is willing to suffer himself to help make this happen.
The last three chapters of this letter will talk about how we are to live as people who have received this gift. The first verse in chapter four will begin, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.”
So right here, at the hinge of this letter, Paul prays a prayer, a beautiful prayer on behalf of his readers, for us, for the church.
“For this reason (all the reasons we just talked about) I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.”
Paul says,
“I pray that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”
That Christ may dwell in your hearts. How is Christ dwelling in your hearts?
Last fall, in the height of COVID, my 30 year old daughter decided she didn’t want to be holed up in her Chicago apartment for the winter with three other roommates and no where to go. So she moved here to Richmond for about six months. I was kind of hoping she would want to live with us but she said, “Mom. You live in the suburbs.” And since she didn’t have her own car, that made sense. She found a place to live in the city, but she spent her first two weeks quarantining with us in our new home.
When you have a guest for a few days, you give them the nice guest room, offer hospitality, mind your manners, and enjoy their company. But when someone moves in for longer, it takes some adjustment in the household. My daughter does things differently than we do. She loads the dishwasher differently. Her workflow was different, and of course, we were all mostly working from home still. She eats some weird foods. And I couldn’t believe that the guest room could get so messy so quickly. We all adjusted. I told her how I like the dishwasher loaded. I closed the guest room door. It was great having her around, but after the couple weeks, it was also nice to have my house back the way I’m use to it.
Well, when Jesus dwells in our hearts, he’s moving in for keeps.
We want to welcome Jesus into our hearts with open arms. We’re so glad he’s come. But I think we sometimes unconsciously relegate him to the guest room, where we hope he’ll just work behind closed doors.
Instead, Jesus is at every meal, and wants to insert himself in every conversation. He opens all of your closets and starts showing you things you need to get rid of. He rearranges the furniture. He wants to hang out in the living room of our lives, and begins showing US better ways to load the dishwasher, metaphorically speaking. Don’t get me wrong. It’s WONDERFUL, but having Jesus dwell in your heart changes the dynamic of your whole life, especially if you let him in past the foyer, or let him out of the little guest room you’ve made up for him for Sunday morning visits.
And it is that kind of life changing intimacy with God that Paul is praying for us. Paul prays that we may be strengthened in our inner being with power through Jesus’ Spirit. It is this power that helps us know Jesus and to comprehend the incomprehensible… to know what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ, that is beyond what we can know. So that we can be filled with the fullness of God.
I can just imagine Jesus, our housemate - our heartmate - standing in our kitchen trying to explain this to us… gesturing largely…
The Breadth, the length, the height, the depth of God’s love.
The breadth of his love encompasses every human being, from all nations and tribes and language. The breadth of his love surrounds all our diversities and differences, even ones we don’tfully understand.
The length of God’s love means that no matter how far we run from God, there is no length he won’t go to find us and show us his love. We can never move beyond where he will go.
His love is so high it can lift us into visions of God’s Kingdom,and possibilities for our future.
And his love is so deep that it goes to the very darkest center of our being, loving us even in those places where we feel the most unlovable.
It is this kind of love that fills us with the fullness of God. There’s a church saying that says some people will miss heaven by 18”. That’s the distance between the head and the heart. What’s meant by that is that some people know in their head that God is real, they believe intellectually that what Jesus did on the cross saves them from their sins, and they have patterned their behavior ethically, but they haven’t ever really felt the Love from God or towards God. They don’t have a relationship with Jesus. They’re missing heaven by 18” – at least they are missing the heaven-on-earth that is knowing the fullness of God in their lives.
Few people can live in that fullness all the time. We lock ourselves into our predictable routines, often forgetting we are Spirit-filled beings and heirs of God’s Kingdom. But if you have never felt that fulness, or known the deep love of God for you, you might want to put that at the top of your prayer list for what you most want to ask God for. God loves to answer that prayer in the affirmative.
Paul ends his prayer with these words, “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
Remember your prayer at the beginning of the sermon? What do you most want to ask God for?
Paul’s doxology at the end of this prayer, his words that give glory and praise to God, states a beautiful promise. God, whose power is working inside of us, can accomplish abundantly far more that we can even imagine to ask for. God’s power can do things we can’t even begin to fathom. Like feed 5000 people with just 5 loaves and 2 fish. Or walking on water. Or calming the storm. The disciples weren’t even going to ask for a miracle like that.
Some of you know how God does more than you can imagine. You pray for one thing. You think you know how it should work out. If you were God, you’d do it that way… but in the end, sometimes after quite a few twists and turns, you see how God’s power was at work in the situation, bringing you to a place that was beyond your imagination. God’s ways are higher than our ways.
Sometimes God uses his power working In us and Through us to answer our own prayers, or the prayers of others. Who knows, you might be part of the answer to a prayer someone in the pew next to you prayed this morning. You might find growing inside of you the fullness of the love of God which could answer your prayer for healing and wholeness. God’s power working in you and in the church, can do far more than we can ask for or imagine.
The waiting part can be the hard part… not knowing how God will answer our prayers, but it can also be the exciting part, to see how he will do more than we can ask for or imagine. In all of it, we can know that God’s love for us exceeds the breadth, length, heights and depths we can fathom.
So, let us make this prayer in Ephesians our prayer, bowing our knees because of God’s unfathomable love, and glorifying God in the church for all generations. Amen.