PAUL’S PRAYER FOR THE BELIEVER’S FULLNESS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on January 29, 2023 under 2023 |
Bethany Bible Church Sunday Sermon Message; January 29, 2023 from Ephesians 3:14-19
Theme: We should pray that God—by His grace—would give us what we need to experience His fullness in us.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
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It’s not very often that I begin a message from the Scripture by telling you first how I applied it. But this time, it seems appropriate.
I got down on my knees in my church study and prayed. First, I prayed for myself that God would grant to me—personally—the things that it says in this morning’s passage. I very much want them to be true of me. And then, I prayed for you, dear church family, that these things would also be true of you. I want them to be true of all of us together—collectively—as a church family. Kneeling is—to my mind—a very serious way to pray; and that’s how I prayed for these things.
I don’t tell you this in order to, in any way, make myself look spiritual to you. Such times of prayer should be private things. But rather, I’m doing so because I want to bring attention to the seriousness of the things mentioned in this morning’s passage … and how worthy they are of earnest prayer. In writing about them, the apostle Paul made it clear that he got down on his knees before God the Father, and earnestly and passionately prayed that these things would be true of his beloved brothers and sisters in Christ. I felt compelled to do the same.
I believe that the proper response to this morning’s passage is that we all pray earnestly that they would be true of us—both personally and as a church family.
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We’re going to be looking today at Ephesians 3; and at a prayer that the apostle Paul said that he prayed. It’s the second of the two prayers where he said that he prayed for his Ephesian brothers and sisters in Christ.
The reason he had prayed these prayers for them was because he had been telling them about the eternal blessings that were theirs through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ by faith. When Paul began this letter—in Ephesians 1:3—he wrote;
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3).
And then, for the next two chapters of his letter, he described some of those blessings. We had been studying these chapters over the past few months; and it’s been a thrill to read about the rich inheritance that is ours through Christ. Every spiritual thing that we could possibly need in order to live a fulfilling and blessed life before God is now—already—ours in abundance through a relationship with Jesus Christ. When we trusted Him as our Savior, it all became our present possession—and it will all be experienced by us to the fullest degree in heavenly glory. And in the midst of describing it all, Paul paused—in Ephesians 1—to pray the first of his two prayers. It was a prayer that, as believers, his readers would get the reality of these things into their thinking. He wanted them to know these things—to really know them—with full understanding. In Ephesians 1:15-19, Paul wrote;
Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power … (1:15-19).
That’s a great thing to pray; isn’t it? It’s not just a prayer that we—as followers of Jesus—would simply have our intellects filled with doctrinal details. Rather, it’s that we would really, truly comprehend what our eternal resources are in Christ and have a clear mental grasp of them. If you are rich, all of your riches won’t do you any good unless you know that you have them. And that’s what Paul prayed—that we, as believers, would know the riches that are already ours in Christ; and all so that we would live as spiritually rich people. When we know what we already have in Christ, then we won’t go running to all the false religions, and phony philosophies, and the fruitless promises of this world in order to try to get what—in reality—we already possess. We’ll just go right to Him. Such knowledge is indescribably liberating; and Paul prayed that we would be given such knowledge.
But all by itself, such head knowledge and theological understanding is not enough. In order for the riches that are ours in Christ to dramatically transform our lives, the truth of these things needs to sink in much deeper—down to the level of our innermost being. We need for God to put these truths down deeply into us; so that they will work their way out into everyday practical transformation in the way that we live. The Christian life is not just a matter of embracing a philosophy or religion. It’s a matter of relationship in which we are ‘in’ Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is ‘in’ us—so much so that we live with constant dependency upon Him, and with Him living His life in and through us.
And that’s why Paul prayed this second prayer. It’s a very serious prayer. It’s the one he got down on his knees before God to pray. We find it in Ephesians 3:14-19; where Paul wrote;
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (3:14-19).
The thing that he had prayed in Chapter 1 was so that the understanding of his fellow believers would be filled with the knowledge of our riches in Christ. But in this prayer in Chapter 3, Paul prayed for the outcome that he described in verse 19; that they—and also we, dear brothers and sisters in Christ—would become filled with all the fullness of God Himself!
When I read this prayer of Paul’s, I think back to a prayer that Marilyn and I once prayed. We even remember the date of it. It was October 23, 1977. We often talk about that prayer, and remember its anniversary. We were still only dating at the time. We were driving somewhere; and we were both talking about how frustrated we were with the mediocre level of our Christian faith. We wanted to take our Christian life more seriously, and become more devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ than we were. And so, we stopped the car, and prayed together. “No more mediocre Christianity,” we said. We wanted to embrace the truths of our faith at the deepest level of our lives; and to ask that the Lord Jesus would live His life in and through us.
Praying this kind of prayer wasn’t a one-time-only thing, of course. We remember that date even today, because we often have to go back and refresh our commitment. But it was an important prayer for us both. It was a prayer that we would grow increasingly to be realistic about the things that the Bible teaches us that are ours in Christ; and to let the truths of the faith sink in deeply in a life-transforming way. We wanted to be filled with all the fullness of God.
And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; I believe that’s how you and I need to respond to this prayer of Paul. We should follow his example; and should pray that God—by His grace—would indeed give us what we need to experience His fullness in us.
No more mediocre Christianity. Let’s let God transform us through Christ!
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So then; let’s look carefully through this prayer and learn what we should do. First, we can see from Paul’s example …
1. HOW EARNESTLY WE SHOULD PRAY.
In verse 14, Paul wrote; “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ …”.
Now; if you’ve been following along with us in this study, you’ll recognize those opening few words. They are a little bit of a repeat of what Paul had said in verse 1;
For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles— (Ephesians 3:1).
Back in verse 1, Paul had begun to tell his readers about this prayer. But he got caught up in the wonder of the privilege he felt in declaring the Lord Jesus to them. He basked in the honor that he felt of being called, by God, to reveal the great ‘mystery’ of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Gentile world. He was a very grateful preacher! And so, he momentarily forgot himself; and all the way from verse 2 to verse 13, he gloried in the joy of telling the Gentile world of how much the God of Israel loved them—and of what His Son Jesus has done for them. We should be excited to tell others too!
But that’s when he took up his subject again in verse 14. The reason he prayed was in response to the rich and glorious blessings that are now ours by faith in Jesus Christ that he was so excited to declare. He not only wanted his readers to know about them; but he also wanted these things to sink down into the most intimate and practical level of their lives. And so, he told them how he prayed. And do you notice how earnestly he prayed? He got down on his knees to the Father in prayer with great earnestness and seriousness.
The Bible doesn’t give us any specific posture of prayer. Some of the Bible’s greatest saints prayed in all kinds of postures. Some were standing; some were sitting; some were laying on their backs in illness; some were praying in their bed at night; some were praying publicly; and some were praying formally and passionately in the temple upon their faces. One great saint in the Bible even prayed in the belly of a fish—with whatever kind of posture that would have required! There’s no prescribed posture for prayer. But I think you’d agree that the posture we take in our prayers should—somehow—demonstrate how seriously we take the matter about which we’re praying. And in this case, Paul makes it clear to us how seriously and how earnestly he prayed this prayer for his fellow believers. He prayed on his knees—privately humbling himself before God the Father.
That’s how seriously you and I should take this prayer. That’s how serious a matter this thing is. And to kneel also acknowledges how seriously God the Father Himself takes this matter.
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And then, notice …
2. WHO IT WAS THAT WE PRAY TO.
In verses 14-15, he wrote, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named …” He made it clear that he was praying this prayer to the Father—that is, to God the Father. Some of the ancient copies of the Book of Ephesians contain the additional words, “of our Lord Jesus Christ”; and others do not. But in any case, it’s clear that he is praying to the God who has become our Father through faith in the sacrifice of Jesus His Son on the cross for us. Our Lord’s Father has now become our Father; and we have the freedom to come to Him and ask for anything we need in Jesus’ name.
And notice also that he describes God the Father as the One “from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”. And in saying this, he is recognizing God the Father as the one who has formed the Church. As we’re told earlier in Chapters 2 and 3, God has broken down the middle wall that stood between Jew and Gentile; and has now brought them together through faith in Jesus so that He makes both “one new man” in Christ. We are, together, members of the Father’s household—with Jesus as our Brother. The believing Gentile is now a fellow heir with the believing Jew. And all together, He is the Father of all who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus—both of those who have gone on ahead to be in His presence in heavenly glory, and of those of us who are still living for Him upon this earth. One Church! One Body! One Family in heaven and on earth—with One God as our Father through Jesus His Son.
This means that when we pray earnestly to our Father for these things, we’re praying to Someone who has a vested interest in answering that prayer. He gave His own Son to redeem us. He wants us to take our faith in Jesus seriously; and to allow the reality of all that He has given us in Christ to sink in deeply and transform us from the inside out. Look at what Paul affirms at the end of this prayer—in verses 20-21;
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Our heavenly Father is able—marvelously and completely—to answer this prayer! He desires to! No wonder He takes this prayer seriously! And so also should we!
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And that leads us, next, to consider …
3. WHAT IT WAS THAT WE SHOULD PRAY FOR.
Paul began, in verse 16, by telling us that he was praying, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory …” So; this is a prayer that the Father would give something to us—His children by faith in Jesus. And I see three things that Paul prays for. They are things that are necessary in order for us to experience the fullness of God in us that He Himself wants us to experience.
First, Paul earnestly prayed for power by the Spirit in our inner being. In verse 16, Paul prayed that the Father would grant to us “to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man …”
On the day that we believed on the Lord Jesus as our Savior, the Holy Spirit—the third Person of the Trinity—took up residence in us. He sealed us in our relationship with Jesus and secured us for eternal glory. He will be with us, and will be abiding in us, until the day that we are in our Lord’s presence. But it’s one thing for the Holy Spirit to be abiding in us, and another thing altogether for us to be submitted to Him in such a way as to be empowered by Him for daily living. And that’s what Paul prayed for his readers; that they would submit themselves to the Holy Spirit in such a way as to be empowered and strengthened by Him in their inner being.
What would the Holy Spirit strengthen us to do? I don’t believe that the Holy Spirit gives us the strength to manipulate the world around us, or to make ourselves more prosperous, or to stave off all trouble and problems. He often allows us to go through trials in order to show His strength in us. But I believe that His power at work in our inner man helps us to cease from sinful habits and destructive behaviors in this world. He helps us to obey our Lord’s commands. He strengthens us in ways that we don’t always realize that we need to be strengthened during times of trial. In Colossians 1:11, Paul said that he prayed that his fellow believers would be …
strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy (Colossians 1:11).
The Holy Spirit strengthens us by bringing the very qualities of Jesus Himself to bear in our lives. As Paul said in Galatians 5:22-23;
“… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control …” (Galatians 5:22-23).
And so; if we want to experience the fullness of God in our lives, then we should pray for one another that we will be strengthened by His Holy Spirit in the inner man.
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Another thing that Paul prayed for was the dwelling of Christ in our hearts by faith. In verse 17, Paul said that he prayed “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith …”
In the mystery of the Trinity, when the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us, it can also be said that the Lord Jesus takes up residence in us as well. His Spirit ‘mediates’ His presence to us; so that He Himself is with us. Jesus Himself once told His disciples—before He went to the cross;
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:15-17).
And then, He added this:
“I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you” (v. 18).
The Holy Spirit’s presence in us—in some mysterious way—ministers the very presence of the glorified Son of God to us. And that’s what Paul prayed; that the dwelling of Christ in our hearts by faith would become an experience at the deepest level of our being. But there’s even more to it than that. When Paul spoke of this, he didn’t simply use the ordinary word for ‘dwelling’. In the original language, he used an intensified form of the word that means something like ‘dwelling down’ in us. The way Jesus put it in John 14:23 is this:
“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (v. 23).
What Paul was really praying for was that we would have the experience of Jesus dwelling all the way down deep in every area of our hearts; making Himself so ‘at home’ in us that we wouldn’t have any places or spaces in our inner being that He would not feel welcomed; but that He has free access to take up full residence in every bit of our inner lives.
If we want to experience the fullness of God in us as God Himself desires for us to experience, then Jesus must be allowed to have complete Lordship over us—and to ‘dwell down’ in every area of our hearts.
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And finally, a third thing that Paul prayed earnestly for was that we would have a united grasp of the greatness of Jesus’ love for us. I have chosen to call this ‘a united grasp’ because it’s intended that we grasp the greatness of Jesus’ love together—as a spiritual family. Paul wrote in verses 17-19; “that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge …”
It may not be until heaven that this prayer can be fully answered. But what a transforming thing it would be to our lives if—even now—we understood just a fraction of how much Jesus loves us! He gave everything for us; and then rose again from the dead for us; and has shared all of His great heavenly inheritance with us—and all so that we would be with Him and enjoy His love forever. So; we are already “rooted” and “grounded” in His love. But Paul prayed that we would understand something of the enormous, immeasurable dimensions of that love. In fact, he prays something that almost stretches language to the limits—that is, that we would comprehend the incomprehensible nature of the love of Jesus for us. If this prayer is answered in our lives, then it means that we all—together, with all the saints—would be informing one another of new dimensions of His love, and encouraging one another with the glory of His love as we each experience it in our own lives, so that we would be continually growing in our comprehension of His love forever.
What a life-changing thing it would be to comprehend and know this love! Paul put it this way in Romans 8:38-39;
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).
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These are the three things that Paul prayed earnestly for his believing friends—on his knees. And do you notice the sufficiency of the Father’s ability to answer this prayer and give these things to us? In verse 16, Paul prayed that God would give us these things “according to the riches of His glory …” There is no limit to God’s ability to give us what we need; because there is no limit to His riches in glory. As Paul put it in Philippians 4:19;
And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
We can join Paul in this prayer, and pray these things for one another confidently, because God is able to answer this prayer abundantly!
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And in closing, notice once again …
4. WHY WE SHOULD PRAY FOR THESE THINGS.
It’s as he says in verse 19; “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
It may be a rather imperfect way to explain this; but just think of what it would be like if you took a paper cup out to the beach and scooped up some ocean water into it. After you had done so, the cup would be filled with a small portion of the ocean. But if you were to take that cup with you out onto a cruise ship, and drop it in so that it sank to the bottom, then the cup would be so deeply submerged into the ocean that it would—in a sense—be filled with all the fullness of the ocean. And that, I think, might come close to what Paul was saying to us. He was praying that these things would become such a deep reality in the lives of his brothers and sisters in Christ that—in a very real way—they would become “filled with all the fullness of God”.
This can occur through Jesus Christ; because as Paul wrote in Colossians 2:9-10,
… in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:9-10).
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As I told you at the beginning, I’m trying to apply this passage. I’m praying for these things for us as a church family: (1) that we would each experience the power of the Holy Spirit in our inner being; (2) that we would experience the ‘dwelling down’ of Christ in our hearts by faith; and (3) that we would grow in a united grasp of the love of Jesus for us. These are what would lead to our being filled with the fullness of God in our lives. And as I consider them, they seem to me to be the makings of genuine spiritual revival—both personal revival, and revival for our church.
Please, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; join me in this prayer.
AE
