God's Powerful Love (Eph 3.14-21)

Do you remember when your children were younger? When they had to be prodded to get things done? When breakfast was a chore because someone was not eating quickly enough or someone was playing with their food? Or do you remember trying to get out the door and someone was staring off into space while another was being chased to put on shoes and socks so that all could get to school on time? Anyone? Or is that just me?

We love our children and want what is best for them. We know that we can never do everything for them and sometimes we fail at what we do in our trying to help them grow up. Yet we also know that our love can and will give them the proper growth that they need to become solid adults (one hopes).

Paul was telling the church of the love of God in the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians. It is a love that will enable the church to be grounded disciples who will serve God with all their hearts and souls. The love that is shown is a powerful love that can only come from God. To understand this, one needs to know a few things about the book of Ephesians that might not have been covered in the past couple of sermons from this book.

Ephesians has 6 chapters. In the first 3 chapters, Paul is teaching doctrine to the saints. In the last three chapters (a rather neat package) there is teaching about ethics. It is in this form one realizes that intellectual and practical go hand in hand. As we come to the text for today we see that the church has been given the teachings, now they are getting ready to live those out. It is similar to the ten commandments where the first tablet (the first four) is how-to live-in relation to God while the second tablet (the second six) are how to relate to one’s neighbors. It is the same with the Lord’s Prayer with the first three petitions being to God while the last three petitions are praying for how to live with other humans. So, Paul is not really doing a new thing here. He is just following a template that has been handed down through the ages.

Which brings us to our text for today. It is a prayer, something of a pastoral prayer. One where the speaker is praying for those to whom the letter is addressed. And it is the hinge of the book of Ephesians. Here is where the doctrine meets with the ethics. The prayer is not confined to worship but is also a call to action, a call to discipleship. Why they are disciples is spelled out in the first part of the book and the how is followed up in the second part. So, let us take a look at this prayer so that we can see where Paul is coming from and where he is going.

It begins with Paul kneeling before the Father. We have become accustomed to kneeling in prayer, so we really don’t think about what this really means. In the ancient world, prayer was done standing before an altar. To kneel before someone meant that one was begging for a favor from one who was more powerful than oneself. In this prayer Paul is kneeling before God and begging on behalf of the Church in Ephesus. He is not asking this for himself, but rather that God, who is the Father, the pater familias of the whole world, will listen and grant the petitions that Paul asks for this church. It is interesting that Paul states that every family takes its name from God when in Roman society the pater familias (or father of the family) was the one who named all of his children. Paul is saying that God is the one who has given all the names. Remember that God was the one who extended grace and mercy to all of us when we were without God. Now we are named in the family.

Are we like Paul when we pray? Do we come before God as the one to whom we ask is more powerful than us? Do we come to the God who is Father to us all? Or is God in our minds a celestial bellhop or concierge to whom we give our requests and expect them to be filled? For Paul, and hopefully for us, God to the one who is able and willing to extend the grace and mercy to us.

There are two petitions that are in this prayer. The first engages the emotions and the second engages the intellect.

The first deals with the inner life of the saints (all believers are saints. It is up to us to act like what our imagination says saints should be). Paul is praying that the saints will be filled with the Spirit and that they will be rooted and grounded in love. It is also a request that the people see that strengthening by the Spirit is not a requirement for Christ to dwell in people. How many times have we heard someone say that they will become a Christian when they get their lives turned around, or that they need to be a better person. Paul is praying that this church (and all churches afterwards) will see that it is God who does the strengthening with the indwelling of Christ and that nothing we do can make us better before Christ. We are powerless and here is where Paul uses two mixed metaphors for what needs to happen in our Christian lives. We need God in Christ to root and ground us in love in our inner beings. To root is an agricultural metaphor. To be rooted well one must have good soil to grow in. Love, specifically the love of Christ, is that good soil. It will cause us to grow in our faith along with the indwelling of Christ. Being grounded in love is the same as having a good solid foundation on a building. Without a solid foundation a building will crumble and fall. Therefore, it is imperative to have a solid foundation. It is love that grounds, or provides the solid foundation for us. Remember that Christ is the cornerstone or capstone of the new spiritual temple that is being built by God in Christ. To be rooted and grounded in love is what Christ is accomplishing in the churches to whom Paul wrote and to us as well.

The second petition dovetails with the first. If the first petition dealt with the inner being, the heart of the matter, the emotions, the second petition deals with reason and intellect. Paul is asking that we have the power to understand “what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of God. And then to realize that the love of Christ goes beyond what we think of the love of God. In other words: Mind. Blown. We cannot understand the love of Christ. It is so far beyond our comprehension that we make fools of ourselves trying to grasp it and contain it.

An example of this is the story of the two lost sons in Luke. The one son returns believing that he knows the limits of the father’s grace only to be welcomed with open arms. The other has grace extended to him as well when told that all that the father has is his and shouldn’t they celebrate the return of the other? What are we saying to ourselves and to others when we limit the love of Christ? Have you ever wondered or are wondering if you can ever be loved by God for what you have done or who you are? Remember what Paul prayed for: That the church will know the love of Christ that goes beyond all knowledge and that we can know and be known by that love.

In addition to the knowing “what is the breadth and length and height and depth,[1]” Paul asks that the people of God will be filled with the fullness of God. Here is where it gets a bit sticky. Remember that being the church meant that all kinds of people were together in a setting where they would never have been. There were the poor, the wealthy, the old, the young, men, women, the powerful and the lowly all together under that same umbrella of God’s grace. That they would be full of the love of God and reach out to all whom they encountered, not ones like them or who thought like them, but to all is the prayer of Paul. This seems like a no brainer, but take a look around us and see if we have done that today. Do you believe that the early church had it all together as well? Paul is asking them, and us today, to be filled with the love that knows no bounds. We are to love as God loves and that means those with whom we disagree and with those who are different from us, whether that be in politics, social status, religion, race, etc. The Confession of 1967 calls for reconciliation of God’s creation including those of us who are different from one another saying this about the reconciliation of society in section 9.44:

God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal family. In his reconciling love, he overcomes the barriers between brothers and breaks down every form of discrimination based on racial or ethnic difference, real or imaginary. The church is called to bring all men to receive and uphold one another as persons in all relationships of life: in employment, housing, education, leisure, marriage, family, church, and the exercise of political rights. Therefore, the church labors for the abolition of all racial discrimination and ministers to those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate, or patronize their fellowmen, however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which they profess.

How often do we measure up to this standard? How often to we neglect to show the fullness of God and the love in which we are rooted and grounded?

Finally, a doxology, a praise to God. This is praise to the one who can do all the things that are mentioned in this prayer. And not just that, it is that there will be God’s glory in Christ (of course) but also in the Church. People may not see Christ and his glory but they will certainly see it in the church that is filled with the Glory of God which one commentator describes as this: the idea is not pouring the ocean’s water into a cup, but immersing the cup into the vast water of the ocean.[2] If we are immersed in the love of God, we can do anything. And we are able to do anything because of the one who is able to “accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine[3].”

We have a love for our children that is more powerful than anything that we know. It can make us do things for them and with them that we never would have imagined. Now think about that and then realize the love that God has for us. A love that caused Jesus to come and to take our sins upon himself and to die for us. A love that is so powerful that we are elected by God to be children of God when we could do nothing for ourselves. This powerful love is expressed perfectly in this prayer and calls us to live out what was written to the church so long ago.

Pheme Perkins wrote that this is an extraordinary prayer, particularly in verse 17 where the request is that, “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.” And if we accomplish that, we have the whole Christian life. We have a prayer here of a pastor who wanted nothing more than for the saints to be filled with the love of God and be strong in their faith. In a world that was hostile to the church, the fact that they stood strong is a testimony to their faith in God. Because it was only God who could and would give them what was needed to be the church of Christ. God’s powerful love was, and is, able to accomplish more than we can even imagine, and we can imagine quite a lot. May we read this prayer and pray the same for us today. Amen.

[1] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print. [2]Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby & Carolyn J. Sharp. Connections: Year B, Volume 3 (Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship) (p. 188). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition. [3] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989. Print.