Power Through the Spirit, Rooted in Love

Ephesians 3:14–21

Scripture Reading

“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.”

**Intro**

In the spring of 2003, during my freshman year at JSU, I had a “wandering in the wilderness” season… In the fall, marching with the Southerners kept my days full and my mind occupied. But when winter came, the noise quieted and the old identity questions got loud. My job slowed down, turns out people don’t swim much in winter, and my heart started searching: “Maybe I’ll just get a gig playing trombone? Maybe I’ll work for the DEA? Maybe I’ll be a social worker?” Extreme I know, 18 year old Andrew! But it was a restless season. My mind was like a radio stuck between stations, lots of static, but absolutely ZERO clarity.

After spring break, that noise hit a breaking point. I closed the door to the bedroom in my apartment, fell to my knees, and prayed with tears, not fancy words, not a plan, not a program, just one big, desperate plea: “God, I can’t do this without You… direct my path.” I didn’t feel strong. I didn’t have a song or a sermon. But in that posture, on my face before a holy God, I felt held. It was not that my circumstances changed overnight. It was my whole being, from the inside out, was changed by God. Shame and guilt that had gripped me for years began to lose their hold. The Lord did a deep work in the hidden places of my heart. He restored my soul and strengthened the inner person.

**Transition**

That moment is the front door into Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3. If we want to understand “power through the Spirit” and “fullness of God,” we start where Paul starts: “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father.” Christianity is not simply a philosophy to be admired or a schedule to be kept… it’s certainly not merely a Sunday to Sunday thing; it is a posture before a Father, a work of the Spirit in the inner being, and a dwelling of Christ deep within the heart.

**BODY**

1) “For This Reason… I Bow My Knees” (v.14)

The phrase “for this reason” reaches back to chapter 3 verse 1 and, beyond that, to the incredible truths of chapter 2. Paul has just finished celebrating that God has made one new humanity out of Jew and Gentile, that we are no longer strangers and aliens but members of God’s household, that we are being built into a holy temple, “a dwelling place for God by the Spirit”. For this reason, because we truly are people in whom God dwells, Paul prays that we would live like it.

When we look at the word “bow” we get this picture of a body bent, complete humility. You pair that with “before” and it becomes directional, toward the Father. Paul is not randomly throwing religious words into the air, he gets that he stands in the presence of God. And then we have “Father” showing intimacy and authority. Especially in that culture, Paul would have understood that a father both cares for and rules his family. So Paul approaches God boldly, because God is Father, and humbly, because this Father is also God. It’s really a unique posture to pray in.

Christians pray in many postures throughout Scripture: standing (Hannah), lifting hands (1 Tim. 2:8), lifting eyes (Ps. 121:1), sitting (2 Sam. 7:18), lying down (Ps. 4), being still (Ps. 46:10), bowing (Neh. 8:6), falling prostrate (Matt. 26:39), kneeling (Acts 20:36), even walking (Acts 8:26–30). The Bible isn’t prescribing one specific posture for prayer, but it is saying that posture says something. Your body language can reveal your heart language. To be clear, posture isn’t performance but it is presence.

When Micah started coach-pitch baseball, a fun year, because the ball is finally coming at you, you quickly notice something. The coach told the boys, “How you carry your bat to the plate sends a message.” If you drag the bat through the dirt, nobody’s worried. But if you grab that bat by the barrel and walk up to the plate like a boss, it means something, it puts a little fear in the other dugout. You can tell who’s ready to swing and who isn’t, by posture. That’s prayer. You cannot always control your situation, but you can control your posture. Come before the Lord surrendered, but in an expectant stance before the Father.

Ray Ortlund had a saying that I’m going to alter just a bit, but basically he says: “Christianity is many things, but one thing it isn’t: …. it isn’t a weekend option between sports practices” Paul’s prayer is not small. It’s not casual. It’s not just an accessory to your busy schedule. It’s gigantic, it’s global, it’s God’s power for the soul! This is the kind of prayer from a man who knows that if God does not strengthen the inner life, the outward pressures will destroy it!

2) “From Whom Every Family… Is Named” (v.15)

Looking now at verse 15 Paul says he bows before the Father “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” “Every family” or “the whole family” the point is that God’s true family spans heaven and earth. This isn’t teaching that all humans are God’s children by default. We are God’s creatures by creation, yes. But by new birth we become His children . The wording between Father and family show us this, God defines the family and God provides the identity. I’m certainly no name it and claim it guy, but I was named by God and claimed by God I am His, He calls me His own!

This is huge! If God truly is your Father, then your deepest identity isn’t determined by your performance, or your failures, your emotions, or your past, it’s defined by His adoption. Your identity is determined by His adoption! Your parents may have given you a name, but your true name, your eternal identity, comes from your Father in heaven. And if God has one family in heaven and on earth, then we are joined by a love that surpasses bloodlines, cultures, and centuries. We belong to something far greater than ourselves, the communion of saints.

3) “According to the Riches of His Glory… Strengthened with Power” (v.16)

And with that mindset, here’s the first paryer: that God would grant, it’s grace language, “according to the riches of his glory”—not out of His riches, but according to (which helps us understand that’s it’s in proportion to an infinite reservoir) that He would strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being.

Three truths about this:

The source of this strength is God’s glory, His endless fullness. God never strengthens us out of shortage; He strengthens us out of abundance. Think of it like this: if the ocean poured itself into a coffee cup, the problem wouldn’t be the ocean, it would be the coffee cup. Paul is praying that we’d have a bigger cup, that our inner lives would be expanded and strengthened to hold more of God.

The agent is the Holy Spirit. The Christian life isn’t just hard, it’s impossible without His power. The Spirit isn’t an optional extra; He’s the very air the inner person breathes. Without Him we would suffocate spiritually.

And the arena is the inner being. The place of our desires, our loves, our fears, and our thoughts. We spend so much stinkin time trying to fix the outer man, our habits, our schedules, our image, but Paul is praying for a deeper kind of work. If the inner bones of the house are rotted, the house won’t stand when the storm comes. It might not even stand if it barely get get bumped by the skid steer… God’s Spirit wants to strengthen the structure from the inside out.

Imagine trying to drop a white-hot coal into a WM grocery sack. It wouldn’t last a second, the heat would melt right through it. The problem isn’t the coal; it’s the bag. The only way for the bag to hold that kind of heat is to be completely transformed, made of something stronger. That’s what Paul is praying for. Christ’s love is that intense, that alive. Without the Spirit’s strengthening, the weight and warmth of His glory would undo us. We need the Spirit to reinforce us so that His presence doesn’t consume us, but it changes us.

4) “So That Christ May Dwell in Your Hearts Through Faith” (v.17a)

So that brings us to the question “Why the strengthening?” “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” The phrase “so that” is the hinge of the whole prayer. The Spirit’s strengthening has a goal: the dwelling of Christ. The word “dwell” here means to settle down and make a home. Not a two night stay at an Air B and B, not a hotel guest, not a drop by visit. Christ intends to move in, not only move in, but take the key.

Calvin put it this way: “It is not enough that Christ be on the tongue or flit through the brain; the heart is His proper seat.” And notice, Paul prays this for believers. He’s not asking that lost people be saved, though we pray that too, he’s praying that saved people experience a deeper indwelling. Christ is in you, YES; now may Christ be AT HOME in you. In other words: “Lord Jesus, go room by room in my heart. Open the closets. Rearrange what you will. Make yourself at home.”

If Jesus walked the hallways of your heart today, what room would He point to and say, “We’re going to have to renovate this one”? The Spirit’s strengthening comes so that you can give Christ the lease to every room, not just the foyer.

5) “Rooted and Grounded in Love” (v.17b)

In the second half of verse 17, Paul combines two metaphors: rooted and grounded. Roots draw life and create stability; foundations bear weight and provide endurance. Both are in love. Love is the soil that feeds us and the foundation that steadies us. This is not just a feeling, or a sappy love. This is the very love of Christ poured into our hearts by the Spirit.

Why love? Because the community Paul envisions, Jews and Gentiles reconciled, cannot exist without love. Walls don’t stay down by accident. Practiced Christian love prevents separation and destroys it when it reappears. To be rooted in love means conflict does not uproot us. To be grounded in love means pressure does not crack us. In a world that rewards outrage, the church is called to be deep and steady in love.

Some of us are rooted in approval, we flourish when others applaud and wither away when they don’t. Some of us are grounded in performance, we stand tall when we achieve and crumble when we fail. Paul says: be rooted and grounded in love, Christ’s love for you and through you, because that love is the only soil and foundation that will hold.

6) “To Comprehend… and to Know the Love of Christ” (vv.18–19a)

In verse 18 and 19 his prayer gets a bit wider: “that you 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.” Paul asks for strength, AGAIN, and for comprehension. Because our minds and hearts are too small to take it in. We need God’s help even to measure God’s love.

Paul lists four different dimensions, to show God’s love is infinite in every direction:

Breadth — wide enough for all peoples; no ethnicity is outside the reach of this love.

Length — long enough to endure through all ages; this love will outlast your stubbornness.

Depth — low enough to reach the lowest pit; no sin places you beyond the reach of His arm.

Height — High enough to lift you to the heights of heaven; this love carries you into the very presence of God..

Last week during the first service we witnessed, most of us unknowingly, a young man’s salvation moment. It wasn’t a “barely saved” moment; it was a radically saved moment. Jesus doesn’t drag you to the surface and only to leave you on the shore gasping for air. He raises you up and seats you with Him in heavenly places. From pit to palace. From death to life. From despair to delight. That is the measure of Christ’s love.

What Paul means by “love that surpasses knowledge.” It’s not knowledge VERSUS experience; it’s knowledge INTO experience. He’s saying. study this love, and then receive it, feel it, live in it, and pour it out.

Notice the little phrase “with all the saints.” You cannot fully comprehend Christ’s love alone. You need the wider testimony of the church, old and young, Jew and Gentile, men and women, the saints across centuries and continents, to help you name the dimensions. No one believer can tell the whole story. But together, we begin to measure the immeasurable.

7) “That You May Be Filled with All the Fullness of God” (v.19b)

Here’s the crescendo: “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” “Filled” means saturated. Not a splash. Not a sprinkle. FULLNESS. It means Jesus doesn’t just have your Sunday; He has your thought life, your money, your words, your habits, your affections. This is not the hollow fullness of self; it is the holy fullness of God.

If we’re honest. Many of us live half-full, saved but thirsty, forgiven but hungry, busy but fragile. Paul prays for more. And he prays big because he knows the One he is praying to. Adrian Rogers used to say “many believers have been to Calvary for pardon but not to Pentecost for power.” He’s implying that while believers may have accepted Jesus for salvation, many have not fully embraced the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Paul’s prayer moves us from pardon to power, from identity to capacity:….strengthened, indwelt, rooted, knowing, and now filled.

8) Doxology: “Now to Him Who Is Able…” (vv.20–21)

In the last part of our text for today, should be a familiar verse as we often use it here as a benediction scripture. Paul can’t end with a simple “amen.” He explodes!: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,” not just a little more, not even a lot more, but “exceedingly abundantly beyond”—“according to the power at work within us.” The power that does the “more” is not out there; it’s in here, the very power he has been praying for in the inner being by the Spirit ,dwells within us!

And then the end: “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” God’s intent is that His glory would shine in the church, as broken and messed up as we are, reconciled as we are, small as we may feel, and that it would shine in Christ Jesus, our Head and our Life, for all generations. That means this morning is part of a story that started long before you were born and will continue long after you are gone: God glorified in Christ through His church. Your life matters because it is woven into that doxology.

**Application**

Working Paul’s Prayer into Your Monday

Paul’s prayer gives us a pattern you can carry into Monday:

Posture (v.14): Bow, and if your knees won’t bend, bend your heart. Begin by remembering who God is and who you are to Him. Say “Father,” and mean it.

Identity (v.15): Thank Him that you bear His name, that you’re part of one family spanning heaven and earth.

Strength (v.16): Ask for inner strength, “Father, according to the riches of Your glory, strengthen me with power through Your Spirit on the inside where fears and desires live.”

Indwelling (v.17a): Invite Jesus to make Himself at home: “Lord, take a look in every room. Cleanse what’s nasty, claim what’s Yours.”

Love (v.17b): Ask to be rooted and grounded in love. Name the relationships where love must bear the weight, your marriage, kids, church, neighbors, enemies.

Comprehension (vv.18–19a): Ask for strength to comprehend Christ’s love, with all the saints. Read the testimonies of others. Listen to brothers and sisters unlike you. Let their stories widen your measurements.

Fullness (v.19b): Ask to be filled. Picture your heart as an empty vessel and pray, “More of You, Lord, till every corner is Yours.”

Doxology (vv.20–21): End every prayer with praise, “Now to You who are able…” and keep your eyes open for the “far more” He is working.

**LANDING**

Someone will say, “I want this, but I feel like a WM grocery sack, that’s already thin, and ready to break.” Hear me say thee God that makes the wind and the waves, is gentle. Start small. Paul’s prayer is not a rebuke; it’s an invitation. If all you can do today is whisper “Father” through tears, then whisper it. If all you can manage is five minutes alone to turn your attention to Him, then take them. The Spirit loves to meet us when we are honest and small.

And hear this: You are not trying to work up this fullness by effort. You are opening up to receive it by faith. The same Christ who saved you by grace intends to fill you by grace. The Spirit does not come to reward the strong but to strengthen the weak.

Bowed on my face in my apartment floor, I didn’t know then how the Lord would lead. I only knew I needed Him. The posture of kneeling did not make me holy. But it put my heart in the truth: I am small; God is Father; I need the Spirit’s strength; I want Christ to dwell; I must be rooted in love; I want to know this love that surpasses knowledge; I long to be filled with all His fullness. And that day, He met me, not because I performed, but because He is rich in glory.

Maybe today, your heart needs that posture again. Maybe life has felt like coach-pitch and you’ve been dragging the bat to the plate. How you carry your bat sends a message. Not to impress God, He’s not grading your swagger, but to remind your soul who your Father is, who dwells in you, and what love anchors you.

So, church, what is your posture today?

Standing in pride? Arms crossed, heart closed?

Slumped in weariness? Head down, hope thin?

Kneeling in surrender? Hands open, heart ready?

“To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

**Closing Prayer**

Father, for this reason we bow our knees before You. According to the riches of Your glory, strengthen us with power through Your Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. Root and ground us in love. Give us strength to comprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that we may be filled with all Your fullness. Now to You who are able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to You be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.