Rooted In Your Wealth 12

In 3:14–21 we see Paul showing us what it is like to pray in view of God’s greatness and our human need. This section is a transitional section of the book. The first three chapters are about who we are in Christ. The next three chapters are about how we are to live. Understanding both is essential for Christians, but you need more than knowledge of these things. Sandwiched in between these two sections is this prayer for power.

What I want this prayer to achieve in your heart is this: You leave this service with a renewed sense of your desperation of God’s power in your life. It is only through the power of God that will enable you to carry out the perfect will of God.

1) The Posture Of A Powerful Prayer (v14-15)

A. The posture of gratitude

FIRST — We notice how humbly grateful and amazed Paul is at God’s grace in saving sinners INDIVIDUALLY and unifying them CORPORATELY.

This reality should cause us to PAUSE and hit our knees also!

You are called, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, sealed, seated with Christ and His church!

How could this reality not bring you to your knees?!

Pauls prayer has begun with AMAZEMENT of God.

Paul is simply WORSHIPING God for calling sinners to Himself.

God did this because HE IS GOOD!

Q — When was the last time you presented yourself to God in this way?

Psalm 95:6-7 “6 O come, let us worship and bow down: Let us kneel before the Lord our maker. 7 For he is our God; And we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,”

SECOND — Paul was humbly desperate in his request for strength.

It was unusually for a Jew to pray kneeling. Yet, that is exactly what Paul is doing.

Paul knew that their greatest needs could only come from GOD!

Illustration: We are so used to having so many options, we never consider such desperation.

“that He would grant you”

The power of God is a gift that can only come from God.

You and I are powerless without God extending His power to us!

Illustration: The donkey awakened, his mind still savoring the afterglow of the most exciting day of his life. Never before had he felt such a rush of pleasure and pride.

He walked into town and found a group of people by the well. “I’ll show myself to them,” he thought.

But they didn’t notice him. They went on drawing their water and paid him no mind.

“Throw your garments down,” he said crossly. “Don’t you know who I am?”

They just looked at him in amazement. Someone slapped him across the tail and ordered him to move.

“Miserable heathens!” he muttered to himself. “I’ll just go to the market where the good people are. They will remember me.”

But the same thing happened. No one paid any attention to the donkey as he strutted down the main street in front of the market place.

“The palm branches! Where are the palm branches?” he shouted. “Yesterday, you threw palm branches!”

Hurt and confused, the donkey returned home to his mother.

“Foolish child,” she said gently. “Don’t you realize that without him, you are just an ordinary donkey?” Tony Merida, Exalting Jesus in Ephesians (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2014), 84.

THIRD — Paul had a humble confidence in petitioning God for power.

Look back to 2:18.

John 16:26-27 “26 At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: 27 For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.”

“according to the riches of His glory”

Philippians 4:19 “19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

This prayer was regarding the power their INNER MAN needed.

2) The Purpose Of A Powerful Prayer

A. They needed power from the Holy Spirit

Exalting Jesus in Ephesians Pray for the Fullness of God’s Power and Love (Ephesians 3:16–19)

Paul is essentially praying for the readers to experience what he has just talked about in the previous chapters: Christ’s supreme power and God’s great love toward sinners.

2 Corinthians 4:16 “16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

Illustration: Many make you think their outward appearance has been renewed, but that is only a temporary mask. Your real look is under all that coverup.

Q — Why is the inner man of such importance?

That is where Christ dwells through the function of the Holy Spirit.

Turn to: John 14:15-17 “15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”

Isn’t that a wonderful mystery to ponder on?!

Both the INCARNATION and the INDWELLING of Jesus leaves my mind spinning, but it leaves my soul satisfied!

Notice how Paul uses the word DWELL here.

Paul is talking about Christ RULING IN THE HEART.

Meaning “to settle down; permanent resident”

Exalting Jesus in Ephesians We Need to Be Strengthened by the Spirit’s Power (3:16–17a)

D. A. Carson points out Paul’s word choice and then illustrates the difference between a short-lived resident and a long-term resident. Carson says, when Christ takes up residence in a believer, it is like a couple who purchases a home that needs a lot of work. Over time they clean it up, repair it, and eventually say, “This house has been shaped to our needs and taste and I really feel comfortable.”

Illustration: The neat thing about someone taking up residence in a new house is it slowly takes on the character of that person or family.

B. They needed to grasp the genuine nature of God’s love

Now, these Gentiles had experienced God’s love by receiving Christ. However, Paul wanted them to ROOT DEEPER!

The focus here is Christ’s love for them.

Exalting Jesus in Ephesians We Need Power to Grasp Christ’s Love (3:17b–19)

When we begin to grasp Christ’s love for us, we live a crucified life.

Galatians 2:19-20 “19 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. 20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Paul is petitioning God that He would grant them the ability to gain a deeper, higher and wider understanding of the love they have experienced.

Perspective: There are many things in the past that fully remain in the past. They can’t be experienced in the present. NO SO FOR GOD’S GRACE!

Paul is not referring to simply a grasp of the intellect (passes knowledge). Paul is speaking of EXPERIENCE.

Q — Do you know what it feels like to be impacted by something?

This is why many shouted and filled the altars in worship!

illustration — The difference of standing standing at the observatory deck or taking a boat right to be near Niagara Falls!

“with all the saints”

Exalting Jesus in Ephesians We Need Power to Grasp Christ’s Love (3:17b–19)

Horizontally, we need to experience God’s love by showing love to the world. And we need to show this love in the church, to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic background (2:11–22). We need to forgive others because Christ has forgiven us (4:32). We must show God’s love by putting up with difficult people and offering patient, forbearing love (4:2–3): the same type of patient love that God has for us.

“filled with all the fullness of God”

Exalting Jesus in Ephesians We Need Power to Grasp Christ’s Love (3:17b–19)

Paul wants them to know the love of God in Christ to the end that they might “be all that God wants them to be” or “be spiritually mature

Jesus fully understood this — John 17:26 “26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Exalting Jesus in Ephesians We Need Power to Grasp Christ’s Love (3:17b–19)

We need the fullness of God’s love and power in order to be like Christ. Each of us should seek the fullness of God’s power and love that we may love our neighbors, our churches, our families, and this broken world. This leads us to the following doxology.

3) The Expectations Of Powerful Prayer (v20-21)

Exalting Jesus in Ephesians What? (3:20a)

• to do above [But that’s not all!]

• to do above and beyond [But that’s not all!]

• to do above and beyond all that we ask [But that’s not all!]

• to do above and beyond all that we ask or think

The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Seven: Get Your Hands on Your Wealth (Ephesians 3:14–21)

Some power is dormant; it is available, but not being used, such as the power stored in a battery. But God’s energy is effectual power—power at work in our lives.

Philippians 2:12-13 “12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

Many a Christian have rob themselves of the power that has been made available to them

Unbelief, unconfessed sin, careless living, worldliness in action or attitude, etc...

Why is it important to stay connected to God’s power? God’s response to one prayer can do far more than you spending hundreds of years planning and plodding!

Q — Why would God share His power with you?

ANS — so the church might glorify the Son of God. That is the reason the Spirit was given.

John 16:14 “14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”

The Bible Exposition Commentary Chapter Seven: Get Your Hands on Your Wealth (Ephesians 3:14–21)

If our motive is to glorify God by building His church, then God will share His power with us. The power of the Spirit is not a luxury; it is a necessity.

Let me encourage you who are believers in Christ…open your hearts up to the Holy Spirit by praying for strength for your inner man.

In so doing, you will experience your great wealth from God!

James 4:2 “2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.”

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