A Mysterious Power

A Prayer of Power

Paul starts out this section by saying “for this reason”, what he is telling us is that he is picking up what he started to say all the way of verse 1 of this chapter. So what was Paul talking about? That they may have knowledge of God’s purpose for the church and the unity that they should have as one body. The purpose that Paul was willing to be a “prisoner on their behalf for.”

And Paul says he “kneels before the father.” Why does Paul kneel before God the Father? It is posture towards God of humbleness.

And this isn’t just any Father, it is the Father of the Son of God, Jesus. The one the Father sent to earth so that we may inherit his eternal blessings as sons and daughters of God. But here it isn’t just the Father of the Son, but it says the Father “from whom every family on heaven and earth is named.” What does that mean? Well, the Father is the one who has created all people and who knows our name before we even came into being. Paul is expressing God’s power over creation, that he is over everything and this God over everything is the one Paul is praying to.

And so Paul prays his second prayer.

Here we have the second time Paul has prayed for the people he is writing to in this letter. The first time was in chapter 1 that they may be enlightened to all the glorious blessings that come in our union with Jesus. Now, Paul prays God may grant these believers certain things, and that God may do so “according to the riches of his glory.” That is, according to the power only God has. Paul will tell us three important things in this prayer and these things stack on top of each other.

To be strengthened through the Spirit

The Spirit is the source of our power. But not a physical power, but in their “inner being”. That is the heart and mind, that we live in spiritual power to follow God.

Then Paul says “and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” but it should be better translated “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts.” This isn’t about when Christ enters our life as believers, but rather that Christ may be at home in our hearts because of our faith in Him. But this happens through the Spirit, because Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and He send the Spirit to dwell in us so that we may have union with him. It is by the Spirit that Christ dwells in us.

The greater our faithfulness to God through the Spirit and the more we allow the Spirit to lead us to the truth of His Word the more we feel Christ’s presence with us and His Word is in Us. That we are allowing more for Jesus to be at home within us.

Everyone has friends that sometimes they hang out with, others that come over every now and then, and then other friends that are practically family because of how often they are at our house. We want Jesus to feel at home in our hearts.

To summarize, Paul asks the Father to empower us through His Spirit so that Christ may be at home in our hearts.

To know God’s love

Paul then says he wants them to be “rooted and grounded in love”, that is they are to be “rooted and grounded and love” so that they “may comprehend with all the saints.”

What does this mean? First, that they have a strong foundation that runs deep in God’s love. The origin of this love is God’s love, that we have see in our lives, that keeps us steady. Think of a hurricane that passes through, the tree that stands up is one that has roots that go deep and a strong base. How do they have this strong base? Through the power of the Spirit and Christ dwelling in our hearts.

Why do they need this strong base? So that they “may be able to have the strength to comprehend” what is the vastness of God’s love towards them since it “surpasses knowledge”. That is, Christ’s love for us is so difficult to understand because it is so vast and beyond our ability to understand.

We know this intuitively, that it is why its hard for us to understand things like the death of Jesus on the cross. And also even as we grow to know His love we will never fully comprehend it until we grow up. The more we learn about it the more we are amazed.

When I was a kid I knew my parents loved me. They fed me, if I was injured or sick they took care of me, they enjoyed doing fun things with me, they showed forgiveness towards me. But as I have grown and become a father I know new ways now that my parents loved me that I didn’t understand before. My knowledge of their love for me has grown because I have learned new things that I couldn’t comprehend.

But what Paul says is that we may understand that it doesn’t matter where we go, or if we try and hide, no matter the distance or depth, we can’t be separated from Christs love.

Romans 8:37–39 CSB

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What Paul desires for us to start to grasp is just how unlimited Jesus’ love for us is, that we won’t understand all of us yet he hopes we might start to consider just a little bit how amazing it is.

But why do we need to understand this?

Because our hearts often have a limit, we have this fear that someone’s love for us will fun out after a certain point, that God’s love for us can’t be that great. After all, if I am so terrible why would he love me so much? Or we just don’t think about it at all because to us it just seems like a fairy tale, it doesn’t seem real.

But Christ’s death on the cross confronts us with our fears and worries, that God’s love for us doesn’t end, it doesn’t have a limit, that God’s love goes on and on. And this is true because it is who God is, God IS love, and God’s love is as great as He is. And God’s love doesn’t just hope that we might meet him with a similar love, but God’s love runs towards us, so that our love for Him is based off on grace alone, not on some hope that we could ever love Him equally. Jesus came down TO US, and He himself gave His life out of love for us so that we could be free. That He found us when we were lost. And even when we believe in Him we sin, yet He still doesn’t change His love toward us. That we have left Jesus for other things, and when we have endured difficult things we have often gone towards other things to satisfy us, yet Jesus’ heart towards us has always been the same. Jesus has been faithful to us.

Jonathan Edwards says it this way

“God in Christ allows such little, poor creatures as you are to come to Him, to love communion with Him, and to maintain a communication of love with Him. You may go to God and tell Him how you love Him and open your heart and He will accept it…He came down from heaven and took the human nature in purpose, that we might be near to Him and might be our companion…Let these considerations influence you to the love of God and Jesus Christ, to love them with a superlative and love nothing contrary to them, and love nothing above them, and love nothing equal to them, and love nothing along with them with any parallel love. And express your love by doing for them, by being willing all your days to labor and suffer for the glory of God.”

To be filled with all the fullness of God

That is, the more we grow in our knowledge of Jesus love for us we are filled more and more with the divine fullness of God in Christ and not just that we would be filled but that we would experience it in a way that we start to understand God’s character and how we have been empowered by God’s character. They would be filled with God’s moral excellence, perfection, and power.

“God’s fullness or perfection becomes the standard or level up to which we pray to be filled.” That is, we become like Christ in fulfilling God’s purpose and in seeking holiness in our lives. This is called sanctification.

“Paul’s prayers for the Ephesians is that God would strengthen them in the inner person, resulting in Christ effectively dwelling in them for the purpose that they, having been rooted and grounded in love, might be able to comprehend with all the saints the wonders of Christ’s love, resulting in their experiential knowledge of Christ’s love that surpasses all knowledge for the final purpose of being filled up with God’s moral character which reflects God’s character.” - Hoehner

Paul prays that these three things would lead us to give glory to God.

Then Paul directs his thoughts towards God. The one who is “Able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us.” That is, the one whose power and authority surpasses what we can even consider. That whatever we believe God can do in us or through us, He can do more.

God has saved us by grace, He has reconciled us through Christ, He has given us His wisdom through the Spirit, and we have received the power of the Spirit so that we may look like Christ, and so we are now to give Him glory.

Why is this important? So that according to this power we may love one another as Paul has been calling us too. That there would be no one that we have hostility towards. That we may have unity with one another because we have unity with God. If we are strengthened by Christ’s love that gives us the power to live in a peace with one another we wouldn’t have on our own. And God’s power is displayed through the church. Not just now, but into eternity. and in doing so we give Him glory. We will look more into this next week.