Untitled Sermon (2)

Each of us confesses that we struggle to pray, to overcome some old habit, or to find joy and peace in the Christian life.

Have you ever paid attention to the instructions on a Ramen Noodle bag? There cannot be a simpler food item. Yet there is an extremely descriptive process on the back of this package to make the not-so-perfect bowl of noodles.

And sometimes this is how I feel about God’s love. It can’t be that hard. He says he loves us. We know it. We believe it. Yet we cloud our minds to know the right doctrines, participate in a healthy church, with rhythms and practices that promote Rest, we even lead others in a loving way through small groups, digging into books like ‘The Good and Beautiful – God” yet we remain spiritually cold, dry, and detached.

I believe if I asked this room to raise their hands if they agreed with these 3 questions. We all would raise our hands without hesitation. I know God loves me and Jesus died for my sins, and I know the Spirit lives within me. But here is the thing, these powerful truths all too often remain intellectual. It is said that the longest 12 inches or so is the distance between our brains and our hearts. Perhaps you relate. The Ephesians could.

Today I want to anchor our boats in Ephesians 3:14-21

Ephesians 3:14–21 ESV

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Historical Context:

Ephesians is a letter written by the apostle Paul to the church in Ephesus, a city in Asia Minor. At the time, the church was made up of both Jewish and Gentile believers, and Paul wrote this letter to encourage and strengthen them in their faith. In this section, Paul shares a powerful prayer for the church, highlighting the unconditional and transforming love of Christ.

Paul’s Prayer for an Experience of God

The Ephesians seem like the all-stars of the early church. There’s very little rebuke in Paul’s letter to them, and it seems like they’re ready to come off the milk and get some serious chucks of theological meat and spiritual formation. Yet even the Ephesians struggled to experience God’s love. This challenge is as old as Christianity itself.

‘How do I really know and feel God’s love for me?’

Ephesians 3:14-21 (ESV)

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

The first thing that stands out and is often overlooked in today’s Christianity, is Paul’s posture. He is on his knees. It was customary to pray standing up in the day. There were not many occasions where we were told that the posture was kneeling. Here are a few.

Solomon knelt at the dedication of the temple (1 Kgs 8:54); Stephen at the time of his martyrdom (Acts 7:60); Peter at the death-bed of Dorcas (Acts 9:40); Paul at the time of his farewells on his last journey to Jerusalem (Acts 20:36; 21:5); our Lord himself in his agony in Gethsemane (Luke 22:41).[1]

So, what are some of your prayer postures?

Car? Great for efficiency. If you close your eyes could be a hazard to those around, you.

Does anyone want to share their posture?

But if I’m on my knees praying aloud or in groans too deep for words, that’s a moment of profound struggle or passion. That’s where Paul is.

But there’s something odd about the apostle’s prayer. He asks that Christ would dwell in our hearts, that we would know Christ’s love, and that we would be filled with all God’s fullness.

It’s odd because he told us in chapters 1–3 that each of these three things is already true of us. Why would he pray so intently for what we already have in Christ?

The Ephesians know these things, but their knowledge isn’t sufficient; there’s another level of knowledge and experience they lack.

When Paul prays that we would “grasp” all God has for us. This word can mean to “wrestle with,” “sack and plunder” a place, or “overpower” someone. What’s Paul wanting us to wrestle with? With ourselves, with our souls, with our flesh, and our inner being?

No, he prays that we may grasp Christ’s love, wrestling it into our hearts.

Knowing Christ’s Love Through the Spirit

“I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:16–17 NIV).

The source of our experience of God’s love is the Holy Spirit.

Tim Keller says Paul is praying for a “spiritual inner sensitivity to gospel truth”—that the Holy Spirit may prepare your inner being to grasp God’s love.

A connection and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit is the primary difference between a dry, complacent believer and a warm, passionate one.

The Spirit reveals God and his Word to us (Eph. 1:17; 3:5; 6:17),

empowers us to live like Christ (Eph. 3:16; 5:18–19; 6:18),

enlivens us with resurrection power (Rom. 8:9–11),

and transforms us into Christ’s image with increasing glory (2 Cor. 3:18).

It’s the Holy Spirit who enables us to taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8).

How Do We Get Christ’s Love in Our Hearts?

How does the Holy Spirit help us experience God?

Paul’s prayer finds its pinnacle here: “I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17–19, NIV).

CROSS

So as we begin to move from our heads to our hearts Paul describes a seamless combination of knowing and experiencing Christ’s love, and there are a few ways we can cultivate this combination.

1. Slow down and make time.

Hurry is one of my great life struggles. Even when I do slow down and make time for God (what a phrase that is), I still struggle to turn off my racing thoughts. Hurry quenches the Holy Spirit, so we must cut it out and make time for sustained seeking and listening prayer to experience God’s love.

2. Meditate on the Word.

Paul’s prayer is that God would strengthen us with power through his Spirit in our inner being. He’s praying with all his energy that we would learn to read the Bible, pray, and wrestle these truths into our hearts. This is the practice of biblical meditation. In chapter 5 of the “Good and Beautiful,” we will be introduced to the practice of Lectio Divina (Divine Reading)

1. Prepare (Candle, Silence scatter senses)

2. Read (Passage attention to what jumps out

3. Reflect (Read again focusing in on the thoughts that jumped out

4. Respond (Journal,

5. Rest (Sit 10 min, let God work.

George Muller discovered the importance of this:

I [saw] that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. Now what is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the word of God; and here again, not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.

There’s no better way to get his love into our hearts.

Slow down and make time. Meditate on the Word. And grasp with all your energy, with the eternal power of the Holy Spirit, the great love of God in Christ demonstrated for you on the cross.